"Does your grandmother's tiramisu actually take three hours," I say.
"Every minute," Santos says. "You can't rush it."
"You said she'd know," I say.
"She would know immediately," he says. "She always knew."
I pick up my fork and eat the last bite of my pasta and put it down and look at the water through the window, doing its gold September thing, and the afternoon light on the table.
"I'll need to call Anna," I say. "My sister, and tell her I'll be there tomorrow and not today if I stay."
Santos smiles. "We won't hold you captive. Whenever you want to leave, just say the word."
I remember Anna's words about telling them and then giving them a chance to respond. I can't tell them hey, I'm having your baby, and then get on a boat.
There's no Chiara now, just us, so I need to tell them, but this is the first time we've really had a real conversation, so I'll do it, but not yet.
Tomas turns his hand on the table, palm up, just resting there, and I look at it for a moment and then I put my hand in his and he closes his fingers around mine with the quiet deliberate warmth of a man who has decided something in a library in the rain and has not reconsidered it once.
"Call Anna," he says.
Santos looks at me with his warm brown eyes and his saffron sitting bright and warm in the kitchen air and he says, very quietly, "Stay, principessa. Not just tonight, but give us a chance to court you, look after you."
He said it without decoration, and the Italian in it, the way the word sits in his mouth, does the thing it always does, moves through me like warm water and my rose scent floods the room so softly and so completely that I hear all three of them breathe in at the same time.
My omega says nothing.
She doesn't need to.
"Tell me about these biscuits," I say. "The specific ones from the mainland."
Santos sits back in his chair and a smile breaks across his face, the real one, the one that takes over entirely, warm and wide and slightly undone, and his saffron floods the room warm and open and certain.
"Savoiardi," he says. "Lady fingers. My grandmother drove forty minutes to the specific shop that made them because she said the supermarket ones were an insult to the concept." He leans forward again. "I had Carmen find the same shop. They shipped this morning."
"You really need to give Carmen a raise for all of this. I'm sure as island manager this isn't in her job description," I say.
"Noted," he says, and writes something in his notebook.
I can barely breathe as my eyes widen and for some reason I start to shake and sweat.
Oh no, not again.
"Jennifer," Santos says.
"I'm good,” I say.
"Your scent," he says, gently.
"It's just warm in here."
"It's not warm in here," Tomas says.
The three of them exchange the look, the one that has a whole conversation in it that takes approximately three seconds and requires no words, and then they all look back at me, and I grip the edge of the table with both hands.
"Jennifer," Matteo says, quietly.
"I'm aware," I say.