Chapter 5 #2
He cleared his throat, as if perhaps that had not come out as smoothly as he intended. “It may have been excessive.”
Something warm and helpless unfurled in my chest.
“A little,” I said, and hated how soft my voice sounded.
His mouth shifted, not quite a smile but close enough to change his whole face. “I can have some removed, if you find it threatening.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “Please don’t declare war on the flowers.”
“That wasn’t my first choice,” he said, reaching for the back of my chair. “But I’m adaptable.”
He waited until I sat before pushing the chair in, the gesture careful and unhurried. Not overdone. Not possessive. Just attentive enough to make me aware that he was paying attention to everything.
Which was worse…or better.
I still hadn’t decided.
“You seem…” He studied me for a beat as he took his seat again. “Conflicted.”
“I’m—”
He lifted one hand, stopping the waiter hovering nearby from approaching. “Please. Continue.”
“I’m not very accustomed to all this,” I admitted.
I gestured vaguely to the private corner, the waiter apparently assigned exclusively to our table, the flowers, the quiet little attentions woven into every part of the evening.
It was not a lie. Even at the height of things with Adam, nothing ever felt like this.
Pietro’s expression did not change much, but something sharpened behind his eyes. “Then you accepted far less than you should have.”
I looked at him for a moment. “Do you do this often?”
A soft snort escaped him, and I found it strangely endearing. It didn’t fit his severe face at all.
“Hardly,” he said. “I don’t usually have the time or the inclination for this sort of thing.”
“And yet you made the time for me.”
He unfolded his napkin and set it across his lap with careless precision. “You are not just anyone, Emily Hart.”
I rolled my eyes automatically, but then the words actually registered and my whole body went still.
“How do you know my last name?”
His gaze held mine without wavering. “I asked around about the beautiful woman obsessed with medieval history.” He leaned forward slightly, resting one elbow on the table. “You are not about to tell me you didn’t look into me at all.”
I frowned. It would have made sense to. Maybe I should have. My fingers almost twitched toward my bag where my phone sat tucked away, as if I could correct the oversight now.
“No,” I said slowly. “Actually, I didn’t.”
“Oh.” He leaned back in his chair. “Not from lack of interest, I hope.” He pressed a hand lightly to his chest. “I would be wounded.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
He said nothing for a moment, just watched me with those unsettling blue eyes of his, studying my face so intently it felt almost physical.
His gaze dropped to my wrist.
“You wear that often,” he said.
I followed his eyes to the little seashell bracelet and felt my expression soften before I could stop it. “Always.”
“It doesn’t look like the rest of you.”
I laughed under my breath. “That is either very observant or very rude.”
“Observant.”
I turned my wrist, watching the uneven shells catch the candlelight. “Sophie made it after the accident. It was the first thing she finished on her own in rehab. The clasp is terrible, half the shells sit wrong, and it doesn’t match anything I own.”
His eyes lifted back to mine. “But it matters.”
“More than most things.”
He said nothing after that, but something in his expression shifted, as if he had taken the information and placed it somewhere permanent.
Then, as if he had found whatever he was looking for, he gave a small nod to himself and leaned back in his chair.
“Let’s order,” he said. “What do you think?”
I nodded and reached for the menu in front of me, only to go still when I realized there were no prices listed beside the dishes.
Red flag.
This place had to be obscenely expensive.
“Is there a problem?” he asked.
He had reached a hand across the table, and I looked at it for a second too long.
His skin was tanned, the fingers strong, the back of his hand marked with faint scars and a few callouses on his palm that didn’t belong on someone who looked this polished.
They caught my attention more than they should have.
So did the brief, treacherous thought of what those hands might feel like on my skin.
It was only a flicker, barely there, but still enough to send heat rising into my cheeks.
The unforgiving downside of being this fair.
“No,” I said a little too quickly. “It’s just…I’m not familiar with Italian food. Unless Olive Garden counts.”
He let out a soft, offended hiss that made me laugh before I could stop myself, and just like that some of the tension loosened.
I closed the menu and looked back at him. “Why don’t you choose for me? You told me your name is Benetti. I assume that makes you an expert.”
A small, dangerously pleased smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, and I found myself wondering whether he had any idea how unfairly attractive it made him look.
Of course he did. Men like Pietro always knew exactly what they were doing.
“One hundred percent Italian,” he said, closing his own menu and gesturing the waiter forward. “And if I have to compete with Olive Garden, I’m afraid I’ll need to impress you properly.”
That same traitorous thought about his hands came back at once, and his smile widened ever so slightly as the heat in my face deepened.
God. He knew.
“Anything you’re opposed to?” he asked as the waiter stopped beside us, notepad in hand. The poor man looked faintly nervous, his pen trembling just enough for me to notice.
I gave him a bright smile, hoping to put him at ease. He was probably worried about getting the order right, or about the tip. I understood that kind of tension. Half my college meals had depended on tips from waitressing shifts and smiling through rude customers.
“No,” I said. “I’m good with anything.”
Pietro gave a short nod, then placed the order in flawless Italian.
If I had found him attractive before, that did something much worse.
By the time the waiter retreated, I was no longer entirely sure I remembered how to sit like a normal person.
Pietro turned back to me. “I took the liberty of ordering red wine with the meal. I hope that’s all right.”
I nodded. “Of course. I’m not a big drinker, though.”
He leaned back slightly in his chair. “Neither am I. I prefer to keep my head sharp.”
That didn’t make him less dangerous.
“Sharp for what?”
“Life. Decisions.” He gave a small shrug, as if that explained everything.
“You’re not a history student.”
One dark brow lifted. “So you did look into me?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. “No. Well, not exactly. I just…” I grimaced. “I’m a history TA. I’m not really supposed to?—”
“Date students?” he supplied, with the faintest trace of a smile.
“It’s not forbidden,” I said. “But it’s definitely frowned upon.”
“Then you can stop worrying.” His gaze held mine. “And I’m glad we agree this is a date.”
I looked down at the cutlery before he could see too much on my face.
“I’m a senior,” he said after a moment, either taking pity on me or simply deciding I had been flustered enough. “Business and international relations.”
I looked back up, absurdly grateful for the reprieve.
“That explains why you were lurking near the boring section of the library.”
“Exactly. Nobody ever sits near the history shelves.” He tilted his head slightly. “No offense.”
“None taken. It’s not the most glamorous field.” I toyed with the edge of my napkin. “Although if I remember correctly, you were the one trying to steal a book from my very boring section.”
“I needed it,” he said. “I’m writing a paper on the Medici banking network and the way financial power translated into political influence in Renaissance Italy.”
I blinked. “That’s…more interesting than I expected.”
“I’ll try not to take that personally.”
“You should.”
“I’m looking at how merchant families used finance, marriage, and diplomacy to build influence beyond the limits of formal office. It turns out power likes disguising itself as legitimacy.”
I stared at him. “That is almost exactly how I described my thesis to you.”
“I know.”
“You were listening.”
“I was.”
The simplicity of that did something unpleasantly fluttery to my stomach.
“And what’s the plan after you graduate?” I asked, mostly because I needed to redirect my thoughts.
He did not hesitate. “I’m going back to Chicago at the end of the year. I’ll join the family business.”
“Oh. Right. That’s nice.”
The answer took some of the air out of me before I could stop it.
I knew logically that whatever this was could not be anything serious.
We had spoken properly for all of five minutes in a library and were now sharing dinner in a restaurant I could never afford on my own.
Still, hearing that he would be gone in six months gave the whole thing an edge I did not expect.
An ending before there had even been a beginning.
It turned the butterflies in my stomach into lead.
And if I was being honest, there was something else too. Based on Hawthorne alone, I had assumed he was around my age, maybe a little younger. But the confidence, the money, the intensity — none of it felt especially twenty-one.
“How old are you?” I blurted out.
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Twenty-three. A little older than most seniors, I admit. I took an extended sabbatical to travel through Europe. It was allegedly meant to make me more cultured.”
I let out a small sigh before I could stop it. “I’m twenty-five, and the farthest I’d been from Seattle before moving here was…well, here.”
His gaze sharpened with interest. “You’ve never been abroad?”
I shook my head. “No glamorous European sabbaticals for me, I’m afraid.”
“A tragic oversight.”
“I’ll try to survive it.”
The wine arrived then, followed by a plate of warm bread and olive oil so good I immediately understood why people became insufferable about Italian food. Pietro waited until the waiter stepped away again before speaking.