Valentino (Feretti Syndicate #13)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Amanda

The flight attendant has already asked me twice to put my seat in the upright position. Now that we've leveled off above the clouds, I'm sliding it right back down again.

Business class to Milan, champagne in a glass. I take a sip and let the bubbles fizz on my tongue, sharp and a little sour.

This is actually happening.

Casa Aurelia. The campaign I've been chasing for two years.

I pull out my phone, hit the in-flight Wi-Fi, and call Vittoria before I can talk myself out of it.

Her face fills the screen, hair shoved back off her forehead the way it gets when she's been staring at code for hours, the blue glow of a monitor lighting one side of her cheek.

"Babe," I say, grinning so wide it almost hurts. "Guess where I am right now."

"You're on the plane." She squints. "Are you on the plane?"

"I am on the plane. I am drinking champagne, and I'm heading to Milan."

A smile cracks across her face, the kind she doesn't give to many people. "You got it? The Casa Aurelia thing?"

"I actually got it." I lift the glass toward the camera like she can clink it. "Two years, Vee. Two years of pitching and emailing and pretending I wasn't dying inside every time they didn’t respond."

"You didn't do it enough. I knew you were dying inside. I heard about it constantly." But she's laughing, soft and warm, and something in my chest loosens at the sound. "I'm proud of you. You know that, right?"

I look down at the champagne so I don't have to look at her saying it. "Stop."

"I'm serious. This is huge."

"I know." I twist a strand of hair around my finger. "It's so huge that I keep waiting for someone to call and tell me there's been a mistake."

"There's no mistake." Her voice goes firmer, the way it does when she's drawing a line. "You earned this. Don't you dare let anyone make you feel like you didn't."

The cabin hums around me, steady and low, and outside my little oval window the white, endless clouds stretch out. For a second neither of us says anything, and it's fine. It's the kind of quiet only Vittoria gives me, the kind that doesn't ask me to fill it.

"Did you tell your parents?" she asks.

My chest squeezes, but I keep my face easy and light. My best practiced version of unbothered.

"Two days ago," I say. "Texted my mom."

"And?"

I let out a small laugh. "She sent a thumbs-up."

Vittoria goes still. I've watched her do this for years, that sudden quiet, the way her whole body settles when something matters. "A thumbs-up."

"A thumbs-up emoji." I wave my free hand like I'm brushing a crumb off the table. "Which is honestly more than I expected. Dad didn't even open it."

"Amanda."

"It's fine." The words come out smooth and bright, and I almost believe them. "Really. They're somewhere with bad signal, probably. Switzerland, last I knew. You can't expect a parade for every little thing."

"This isn't a little thing."

"It's a thumbs-up. It's not a big deal." I take another sip of champagne, but it's flat and warm on my tongue now, tasting more like medicine than celebration. "Hey, the attendant's coming. I should let you go."

She doesn't believe me. I can see it in the set of her mouth. But Vittoria knows me well enough to know when I need a door, and she gives me one.

"Okay," she says gently. "Call me when you land. I mean it. Even if it's three in the morning here."

"I will."

"I love you. Go be brilliant."

"Love you too, Vee."

The screen goes dark, and the cabin suddenly feels enormous and empty around me. I sit there with my phone in my lap, the dead black rectangle of it, and the hum of the engines fills my ears like white noise.

I tap my thumbnail against the glass and tell myself it doesn't matter.

I'm twenty-five years old. I stopped needing my mother to say the right words a long time ago.

I learned that lesson at a dinner table when I was fourteen, crying into a plate of food the new nanny made wrong, with no one in the house who knew me well enough to ask what was wrong.

I shake off the thought, refusing to let it ruin this moment for me.

Instead I open the camera. I angle the champagne flute against the window, the clouds blurred soft and golden behind it, the light catching the bubbles just right. I take six pictures, pick the best one, fix the brightness, warm the tones. My thumbs move fast and sure. This, I know how to do..

Wheels up. Milan, here we come. Two years in the making, and I still can't believe it's real. Some dreams take their sweet time. #CasaAurelia #MilanBound

I hit post.

And then I wait, the phone warm in my palm, my heart fluttering in my chest which is stupid because I've done this a million times.

The first like comes in within seconds. Then another. Then a flood of them, hearts stacking up faster than I can read the names, comments blooming one after another. GORGEOUS, so happy for you babe, living the dream, that's MY girl.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

There. See? Someone's paying attention. Someone always is, as long as I give them something worth looking at.

I scroll through the comments, reading every one, letting the little hits of warmth land where the thumbs-up didn't. The algorithm answers me the way no one in my family ever does. Fast. Loud. Reliable.

I tell myself it's enough.

I finish the flat champagne in one long swallow and signal the attendant for another, while somewhere below me, miles down through the white, my parents are exactly where they always are. Out of reach, and not looking up.

The taxi smells like pine air freshener fighting a losing battle against cigarette smoke, and I'm too jet-lagged to care.

The driver pulls up to the hotel, and it's gorgeous in that hushed European way. All ivy and brass and a doorman who looks like he moisturises more than I do. I tip the driver too much because I'm excited and can't help myself, then drag my suitcase through the revolving doors into the lobby.

And there, leaning against a column, is Elio Mancini.

I stop walking. My suitcase wheel keeps spinning a second too long, ticking against the marble.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," I say.

He's wearing dark clothes, like always, nothing that draws the eye, except I'm looking right at him so the strategy's clearly broken. His hands are folded in front of him. Patient.

He pushes off the column. Doesn't smile. He almost never smiles, and I used to make a sport of chasing it, back when chasing things from him felt like a game I could win and walk away from unscathed. "Amanda."

"No. No, we're not doing the Amanda thing." I roll my eyes so hard I nearly strain something. "What the hell are you doing here, Elio?"

"Working."

"Working." I let the word sit there, sour. "In Milan. At my hotel. What a coincidence, since I'm not aware of any modelling agencies hiring tall, broody men to stand in lobbies and ruin a girl's good mood."

A muscle moves in his jaw. Not quite a flinch. He’s used to me by now, which is its own kind of insult.

"The Sartoris sent me."

"Of course they did." I keep my voice light, but it costs me. "Because nothing says career milestone like a babysitter with a gun under his jacket."

His eyes flick to me, calm. "If you have questions about it, ask Vittoria."

That’s the thing about Elio. He never argues. He just gives you the door you’re supposed to walk through and waits to see whether you’ve got the nerve.

"Ask Vittoria," I repeat. I plant my suitcase upright and cross my arms over it like a shield. "Oh, I’ll ask Vittoria. I’ll ask her why she thinks I’m so incapable of crossing a city on my own that she sends a...

what are you, exactly? Muscle? Is that the word?

Do you have a card? Elio Mancini, Professional Looming? "

"You won’t notice me."

"I’m noticing you right now. You’re extremely noticeable."

He doesn’t take the bait. He bends and lifts my suitcase off the floor before I can stop him.

An hour in Milan, and I’m already exhausted.