“I need to get up,” I say, rolling away. Alessio doesn’t argue, but he catches my wrist before I can escape the bed.
“Stay, just a minute,” he says. “You’re always running off. It’s exhausting, you know.”
I want to snap back, tell him that he’s not the only one with things to do, people to protect, a life to lead. Instead, I sit up and pull the duvet around my shoulders, suddenly cold.
“I’m not running away,” I say. “I just—if I stay here too long, I won’t be able to leave at all. And then what? I turn into one of those bored trophy wives who spends her twenties shopping and getting Botox, growing more brittle by the year?”
He props himself up on one elbow, grinning at me like a wolf admiring a well-earned wound. “You’d be the world’s worst trophy wife,” he says, “and I mean that as a compliment.”
“Good,” I say, smiling despite myself. “Because I would be fucking terrible at it.”
He watches as I slip off the bed, his eyes following the hem of his T-shirt while I gather my things. For a moment, I think he’ll let me go. But I know Alessio isn’t the type to give up something he’s claimed.
“Lucia,” he says—I pause, the way he makes my name sound like a prayer always stops me—and then, “It’s too late, anyway.”
I turn, still clutching the sheet to my chest. “What’s too late?”
He sits up, the sheet pooling in his lap, and for a moment I remember the first night I saw him across a room: the way he bends space, the way he never seems to move and yet is always exactly where he needs to be.
“For you and me,” he says. “There’s no going back.”
I feel the truth of it settle into my bones, cold and inevitable. “That sounds like a threat,” I say weakly.
He shakes his head, genuine this time. “It isn’t,” he says. “It’s just… fact. I told you: you’re mine. You always have been. Even if you run, even if you change your name and move to the otherside of the world, even if you marry someone else and never so much as look at the news again. One day, you’ll wake up and wonder why your heart still sounds like mine.”
We stare at each other, equal parts stubborn and terrified, and I want to argue, to deny, to fight. But I can’t. Because I already know he’s right.
“I’m not staying for you,” I say, shoving my legs back into yesterday’s tights and pretending not to care how undignified it looks.
He laughs. “You’re staying for you.”
I roll my eyes, snatch my bag, and flee to the bathroom before he can see me cry again.
I shower until the water turns cold, scrubbing myself raw, trying to wash him off my skin. It’s impossible. Alessio leaves invisible fingerprints everywhere: on my throat, my thighs, that spot behind my knee where everything narrows to a single, undeniable hunger. I dry off, put on my makeup, and stare at myself in the mirror until my reflection looks bored with me.
I’m about to sneak out when I catch the smell of espresso from the kitchen.
He’s waiting, of course—shirtless and barefoot, like some parody of domesticity, the tattoos and gunmetal scars clashing with the cheerful yellow of the apron. I blink, and almost laugh at how ordinary this could seem if you squinted.
Alessio hands me a mug. “Eat first,” he says. “Then you can make all the disaster plans you want.”
I accept, because refusing means admitting I have no self-control. The coffee is strong, bitter, and perfect, just like the man serving it.
“Why do you do this?” I ask, as he fries eggs in the pan. “Why do you have to be—” I search for the word. “So devoted?”
He shrugs. “When you want something, you don’t fuck around. Not if you’re serious. Not if you’re me.”
“So what am I?” I say, suddenly angry. “Am I your girlfriend? Your captive? You make it sound like I don’t get to choose.”
He tilts his chin, studying me. “You get to choose every day. You think I could keep you here if you didn’t want to be?”
I set the coffee down, hard. “So what if I said I never wanted to see you again?”
He smiles, small and surprisingly sad. “Then I’d make sure you were safe, and happy, and never alone. But that won’t happen. I know you’ll come home to me.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
LUCY