Chapter 12
Twelve
Massimo
Rain hits the windows in sheets, the water running down the glass in thick, uneven streams that blur Chicago's skyline into a wash of amber and silver. The penthouse is warm and the lights are low and the woman who turned my life inside out three days ago is in my kitchen making pasta.
She insisted on cooking. I told her the last time she cooked for Harrison she nearly gave him food poisoning. She told me to sit down and shut up, which I did, because clause four apparently works both ways when Sloane Whitmore decides it does.
The kitchen smells like garlic browning in olive oil and the sharp bite of fresh basil she tears with her fingers instead of cutting, dropping the ragged leaves into the pan where they sizzle and curl.
She hums while she cooks, something low and tuneless, and the sound of it fills the space between the rain and the ventilation and settles into the walls of a penthouse that has never heard a woman hum.
She carries two plates to the living room and sets them on the coffee table, then drops onto the sofa beside me and pulls her bare feet up under her, tucking them beneath the throw blanket she brought from her apartment along with three plants, a record player, and a vintage poster of Etta James that is now hanging in my bathroom.
"The dining table is too big for two." She hands me a fork, the metal warm from where she held it while plating. "Plus we can watch the rain from here."
She's right. The dining table seats twelve.
I've eaten at it alone more times than I can count, the empty chairs a reminder of exactly how much space loneliness takes up.
The coffee table is better. The sofa is better.
She is warm against my side, her shoulder pressing into my arm, and the food smells like garlic and butter and the fresh basil she picked up at the market this afternoon with her security detail trailing behind her while she argued with a produce vendor about the ripeness of tomatoes.
I try a bite. The pasta is al dente, the sauce rich with garlic and parmesan and a heat that builds at the back of my tongue. "You've been holding out on me."
"My talents are vast and underappreciated." She twirls pasta around her fork and catches a drip of sauce with her thumb before it lands on the cushion, licking it clean with a casualness that sends heat straight down my spine. "I just needed the right motivation."
I set my plate down. Pull her legs across my lap and slide my hand under her calves, the warmth of her skin against my palm, the fine hairs on her shins soft under my fingers.
She adjusts without protest, her back against the armrest, her plate balanced on her stomach, entirely at ease in my space in a way that makes my chest ache with how quickly this feels normal.
"Come here." I take her plate and set it next to mine.
"I'm not done eating."
"You can eat from here." I pull her onto my lap. She settles against my chest with her back to me, her weight solid and warm, and I feel her spine soften against my ribcage as she lets herself lean in. I reach around her for her plate and fork. I twirl pasta and hold the fork in front of her mouth.
She looks at me over her shoulder. "You're feeding me."
"I am."
"That's very controlling, Mr. Santoro."
"And we are back to our favorite clause."
She opens her mouth. Takes the bite. Chews slowly, her eyes holding mine with a heat that has nothing to do with the garlic.
I load the fork again and bring it to her lips, watching her mouth close around the tines, watching her throat work as she swallows, watching the tip of her tongue catch a trace of sauce at the corner of her lip.
My phone buzzes on the side table. I ignore it. It buzzes again. Then a third time.
Sloane glances at the screen. "Rafael. Kon. And someone named Samuel." She raises an eyebrow. "Aren't you going to answer?"
"What's important is you taking this next bite."
She takes the bite. Her eyes soften and she leans her head back against my shoulder, the curve of her neck exposed, the scent of her shampoo mixing with garlic and the rain-damp air filtering through the cracked window.
I press my lips against the soft skin below her ear and feel her pulse quicken under my mouth.
After she's eaten, I eat. She stays on my lap and presses her lips against my neck while I chew, her mouth warm and deliberate against the tendon, tracing from below my ear to my collar with a slow patience that makes my fork hand unsteady.
Her fingers play with the open collar of my shirt, finding the edge of the viper tattoo and following it with her fingertip, tracing the scales with a touch so light it raises goosebumps down my arm.
"Tease," I murmur between bites.
"Clause four doesn't say I can't multitask."
We load the dishwasher together. She rinses, the water running over her wrists, suds clinging to her forearms and the scar on her left arm catching the overhead light. I stack. Our hips bump in the narrow kitchen and she flicks water at me, droplets hitting my shirt.
I catch her wrist and pull her close, kissing the dishwater off her mouth. The domesticity of it settles into my bones, warm and unfamiliar. Frankly it’s a little terrifying in how much I want it to stay this way.
She dries her hands on a dish towel and wanders into the living room.
I pour two glasses of wine, the deep red catching the lamplight as it fills the crystal, and follow her.
She's standing in front of the bookshelf, studying the spines, running her finger along the leather-bound legal texts and the novels I keep on the bottom shelf that nobody knows about.
Her hand stops on the photo.
A small frame, silver, tarnished at the edges where fingers have held it too many times.
The woman inside is young, dark-haired, with my jaw and my eyes and a smile that carries a deep sadness.
She's sitting on a low stone wall in what looks like a garden, her hands folded in her lap, her chin tilted up toward sunlight that catches the gold in her dark hair.
The edges of the photo have yellowed and there's a crease across the lower right corner where I bent it as a kid, folding and unfolding it before I had a frame to keep it safe.
"Who is she?" Sloane's voice is quiet. The lamplight catches the silver frame and throws a warm glow across the glass, illuminating the face I haven't talked about in thirty years.
I hand her the wine. Take a pull of mine, the tannins dry and warm against my tongue. The answer sits heavy in my chest and I let it sit for a minute, feeling the weight of it press against my ribs before I open my mouth.
"My mother. Gianna."
Sloane turns the frame gently in her hands, her thumb resting on the edge the way you hold something you know matters to someone else. "She's beautiful. You have her eyes."
"I have her everything." I sit on the sofa and lean forward, elbows on my knees, the wine glass between my hands.
The rain pounds harder against the windows, each gust rattling the glass in its frame.
"She married my father when she was nineteen.
It was arranged. Forced. Her family owed his family and she was the payment. "
Sloane sets the photo back on the shelf with careful hands and sits beside me, pulling her legs underneath her, her body turned toward mine, her knee pressing against my thigh. She doesn't speak. She waits.
“My grandmother told me she used to sing.
Italian folk songs while she cooked, hymns while she cleaned.
She said the house was never quiet before the wedding.
" I take a slow pull of wine. "I never heard her sing. Not once. By the time I was old enough to remember, the laughing had stopped too. Then she passed away.”
The silence in the room is thick, filled with rain and the low hum of the city and the weight of a truth I have never spoken out loud to another person in my life. My throat tightens and I press my tongue against the roof of my mouth and hold it there until the burn behind my eyes passes.
"She was forced into signing her life away for her family and I watched it slowly eat her alive.
" My voice is flat. Steady. "I was eleven when she died.
I learned to read contracts after that. Every word, every clause, every line of fine print.
So I'd always know where the teeth are hidden.
My father gave her no way out. She was his to do with as he pleased. He was abusive. Cruel."
Sloane's hand finds my forearm. Her fingers wrap around my wrist and press, warm and firm, anchoring me right here. The sofa. The rain. Her. She doesn't say I'm sorry. She doesn't try to fix it. She just holds on, her thumb moving in slow circles against the inside of my wrist where my pulse beats.
"That's why you drafted our contract yourself." Her voice is barely above a whisper. "You were protecting me. It’s why you stepped in and didn’t let Lorenzo get his teeth into me."
I nod because my voice isn't reliable right now.
We sit in the quiet for a while. The rain fills the silence and her hand stays on my wrist and I feel her pulse against mine, steady and warm, two rhythms that don't quite match but don't fight each other.
Then she shifts beside me, her body tensing in a way I've learned to recognize, her spine straightening, her fingers tightening on my arm.
She's building up to something. Gathering nerve.
"Massimo." Her voice trembles on my name. "I need to tell you something."
I turn to look at her. Her blue eyes are wide and bright with unshed tears, the lamplight catching the moisture gathered along her lower lashes. Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth, the cherry lipstick long gone, her mouth pink and bare. Her hand tightens on my wrist.
"You already know about the guard. About what happened when I was fifteen." She swallows hard, her throat working visibly, and I watch the effort it takes her to keep her eyes on mine. "But you don't know all of it."