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I don’t respond.
Footsteps echo down the marble hallway, but I don’t look to see who is coming. Gia is company, and oddly I’ve missed her while she’s been gone, but she’s still a little annoying.
I don’t have time for Gia.
I hear the door to the living room open, and the air changes slightly. A light smell, something that I can’t place but seems comforting, drifts over to me.
I sigh. “Gia, where did you go?”
She doesn’t answer me.
I turn, and I get the shock of my life.
The person staring back at me is tall. Broad. With dark brooding eyes and eyelashes that should be criminal on a man.
It isn’t Gia.
Elio is staring back at me.
“You’re still here,” he says in a curt voice. He looks like he hasn’t showered in a while. His hair is rumpled and his suit has creases in it, like he’s been wearing it for several days.
I frown at him, then turn back to the window.
I notice his smell again as he approaches me. The spicy scent, bay leaves and cedar, brings me right back to the night we slept together.
To when he might have loved me.
I look down, and back away from him. “Elio,” I whisper.
He doesn’t respond.
Eventually the tips of his shoes enter my vision where it’s glued to the floor. His shoes are nice, of course. Premium Italian leather, polished to perfection. They’re lovely.
I refuse to look into his face.
“Why do you look like this?” he rumbles.
“I look fine,” I say under my breath.
A big hand reaches out and puts a finger under my chin. He tips my head up, and I let him.
When he meets my gaze, I look away.
For some reason, I don’t want Elio to see me like this. Pale. Washed away.
Empty.
“Why are you not eating?”
“I eat,” I mutter.
“Gia says you eat nothing.”
“Gia isn’t my mother.”
He snorts. “No. I guess neither of us has that, now do we?”
I stare at him in silence.
