“Lucy…” His low voice drifts from the pillows. Panic flares through me.
I throw my thin shawl around my shaking shoulders, stomp into my heels, and head for the door. Halfway down the hall, he’s there—calm, his eyes dark with something I can’t name. He reaches for me, gentle but impossible to refuse.
Tears burn behind my eyes. “Please,” I choke out.
He brushes a tear from my cheek. “Go,” he says softly. “For now.” His grip loosens, and he steps aside.
“My car will take you home,” he adds, voice husky.
I swallow, purse and phone in hand, and slip past him into the hallway. The door clicks shut behind me, but his words follow: “This isn’t the end, Lucia. Now that I’ve tasted you… It never will be.”
My heart pounds as I walk away. He’s right. This story, our story, is only just beginning.
CHAPTER THREE
LUCY
Late afternoon sun slips through the blackout shades in neat stripes, falling across my bed like an accusation. I've slept away half the day, but my body still shows the marks of last night. My skin remembers everywhere Alessio touched me. My thighs ache; my lips are raw and swollen, and when I touch them, I relive the hunger of his mouth—shame and afterglow battle inside me, neither one winning. I lie there for a long time, wondering which feeling will fade and which will haunt me.
I shower until the water turns cold, scrubbing away every trace of last night, but he lingers in the way my pulse beats between my legs, in the flinching startle of my own reflection as I pass the mirror. I half expect to see his handprint outlined on my neck, a purple echo blossoming under the skin. Instead, there’s just me. Small-boned, messy-haired, blue-eyed like my father. I wrap myself in a towel and stare at my phone, still on the vanity. No new messages. Alessio kept his word and let me walk away.
I block his number anyway.
I catch myself typing his name into the search bar again, hoping the internet might show me a different Alessio Morrone—someone who runs charities or breeds show dogs, anything but what I already know. There are enough stories about theMorrones to fill a dozen Netflix seasons: family photos in old suits, grainy security footage of men on courthouse steps, even blurrier shots of men dragged out of nightclubs. Sometimes, Alessio’s face appears—a pale ghost behind his father or uncle, another man who expects the world to move for him. But last night, he was anything but a ghost. He was alive, and every part of him proved it.
I lock my phone and set it face down on the counter, wishing I could do the same with my thoughts.
After a day spent in bed, waiting for the consequences of my choices to catch up with me, my mother calls the next morning and asks to take me to lunch at The Stanhope. She says it’s just a check-in, but Deidre Stuyvesant never does anything casually. I’m sure she made the reservation months ago—my late "birthday brunch" scheduled between a foundation meeting and one of her support groups at NYU Langone Hospital. She’s always on time, sitting in her favorite booth, her blond hair perfectly styled. Her eyebrows rise as I walk up.
“You’re late,” she says, with the gentle cruelty only mothers possess.
I slide in across from her and lay my napkin over my lap, conscious of the faintest tenderness when my thighs brush together. “Only by ten minutes.”
“In Manhattan,” she says, surveying the room over her teacup, “ten minutes is generational. Civilizations have collapsed in less time.”
She’s in a mood, and I brace myself for her questions. The waiter pours sparkling water as she studies my face. I know she sees the dark circles, the stubborn flush on my cheeks, and the slight tremor in my hands. Even after years in fundraising and politics, she still can’t hide her concern.
“Did you have a pleasant birthday?” she asks, voice light but eyes sharp.
I blink. “What is that supposed to mean?” I’m embarrassed by the spike of panic in my own voice. “What did you hear?”
She tilts her head, a jeweler appraising a stone for flaws. “I only asked. Did Paul treat you well?”
Paul. Paul Richmond. I met him only once at a charity auction my mother took me to. He stood in the corner with other recent law school graduates, all of them uncomfortable in stiff new suits. I barely remember him—just his mustard yellow argyle socks showing between his short pants and worn loafers as he shifted from foot to foot during our brief introduction.
I shake my head. “He didn’t show, which was fine, honestly. I think he forgot.”
She clicks her tongue, arranges her silverware with surgical precision. “Men these days are all cowards. His mother will be ashamed. Did you stay long at the restaurant?”
I focus very hard on pouring more water into my glass. “Not really. I left early. Came home and fell asleep.”
There’s a quick look in her eyes—maybe relief, maybe suspicion—but she moves on. “You don’t need Paul. There are plenty of people who would love to date you, if you’d let them.” She leans in, lowering her voice. “I saw Gregory Waters last Tuesday at the Hedrick’s fundraiser. He’s grown up well. He’s with Morris Finch now, already a full partner at thirty. His father says he’s never seen Gregory so focused.”
I watch the condensation slide down the side of my glass. “He’s nice, but I don’t think?—”
My mother interrupts me. “You don’t need to think. You need to try. The last thing you want is to wake up and realize you’re the only unmarried girl in your year, drifting from job to job, pet-sitting for friends, and shopping alone in the afternoon.” She sips her tea and gives me a serious look. “I’ll set up a coffee for you two. Just coffee, neutral ground. You can text me if it gets boring.”
“Sure,” I say, surprised by how relieved I am. Anything to interrupt the loop of memory, the ghost of Alessio’s voice licking the inside of my skull. “Fine. Coffee’s safe.”