“At the party. With your community.” He stared at the horizon. “You’re not hiding. You’re… present.”
“These are my people.” She pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “I’ve known most of them my whole life. It’s different when you’re with people who already know you.”
“I don’t have people like that.”
“No?”
“I have employees. Business associates. My brother, who I haven’t spoken to properly in months.” He paused. “I had my grandfather, but he died when I was sixteen. And my father is…” Another pause, longer this time. “My father is convinced that if we just work hard enough, the curse will somehow fix itself. He doesn’t talk about it. Doesn’t acknowledge it. Just keeps losing money and pretending everything is fine.”
His isolation settled into her bones. Years of carrying this alone. Years of watching his family crumble while being told not to mention it.
“When did you last relax?” she asked.
He actually laughed, a bitter, surprised sound. “I don’t remember. Possibly never.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.” He turned to look at her. “What about you? When did you last relax?”
“Before my grandmother died.” The admission came easier than she expected. “She was the only one who really knew me. After she was gone, I just… stopped. Stopped swimming. Stopped going to parties. Stopped doing anything that wasn’t the bakery.”
“Your pelt,” he said. “You mentioned you don’t shift anymore.”
“It’s in a trunk. In my closet. I haven’t touched it in two years.”
The sun dipped lower. The water turned copper and crimson.
“We’re quite a pair.” Alessandro’s gaze stayed on the water. “Two people who forgot how to stop.”
“Maybe that’s why the bond happened.” She didn’t quite believe it, but the words felt right anyway. “Universe’s way of forcing us to slow down.”
“The universe has a terrible sense of humor.”
“The worst.”
They sat in comfortable silence. The party noise drifted over the water, distant and dreamlike. Marina was acutely aware of how close they were sitting, shoulders almost touching, the warmth radiating from him like a banked fire.
She should move. Create distance. Maintain boundaries.
She stayed exactly where she was.
“Your grandmother,” Alessandro said after a while. “What was she like?”
“Fierce.” The word came out automatically, the first one that always came. “Stubborn. Terrible at keeping secrets; she’d try to whisper gossip and the whole bakery would hear. She could tell you someone’s life story from the way they ordered coffee, and she was usually right.” Marina had to stop, swallow past the ache. “She made the best honey cakes I’ve ever tasted, and I’ve never been able to replicate them exactly. I think she left something out of the recipe on purpose, just to keep me trying.”
A small laugh escaped her, watery but real.
“She believed in things,” Marina continued. “Magic and fate and true love. I thought she was naive. Now I’m not sure.”
“She sounds remarkable.”
“She was.” Marina looked at him. “What about you? What did your grandfather believe in?”
“Breaking the curse.” Alessandro’s voice was flat. “It consumed him. Consumed my father too. And now…” He stopped.
“Now it’s consuming you.”
He didn’t deny it.
