She looked at him, really looked, and saw his own losses reflected back. His grandfather. His family’s curse. All the years spent searching for answers alone.
“Thank you,” she said. “For listening.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You didn’t try to fix it. That’s something.”
He held her gaze for a moment longer than necessary. A pulse of tenderness reached her, tentative and cautious and very, very dangerous.
Then he cleared his throat. “Would you teach me to make the lemon cake? If you need extra hands.”
She shouldn’t say yes. Getting closer was a terrible idea. The bond was temporary. This was all temporary.
“Get the butter from the fridge,” she said. “And prepare to fail spectacularly at zesting.”
Three hours later, the kitchen was covered in flour and Alessandro’s attempt at rolling fondant had produced something that looked less like cake decoration and more like abstract art.
“This is impossible,” he announced, staring at his latest failure. “The recipe says ‘roll evenly.’ I’ve rolled evenly. The fondant disagrees.”
Marina bit her lip, trying not to laugh. His forearms were dusted with powdered sugar, his sleeves rolled up past his elbows, and there was a streak of lemon zest in his hair that he didn’t seem to have noticed.
“You’re putting too much pressure on the edges. Here…” She reached over to adjust his grip on the rolling pin, and her fingers brushed his wrist.
The bond flared.
She was hyperconscious of the heat radiating from his skin, the flex of muscle beneath her fingers, the catch in his breath.
She dropped her hand. “Like that.”
“Like that,” he repeated, not quite looking at her.
He rolled the fondant. It came out lopsided.
Marina laughed—really laughed, the kind that made her eyes water and her stomach ache. She couldn’t help it. His expression of offended dignity, the powdered sugar, the three hours of increasingly frustrated attempts at baking…
His attraction spiked through the bond—her stomach flipped and her skin went warm in places that had nothing to do with the oven.
She felt him feel her notice.
Neither of them moved.
“The fondant,” she managed, her voice unsteady. “It’s fine. We can fix it.”
“Of course we can.” He didn’t look away. “It’s just cake.”
But they both knew it wasn’t just cake. Not anymore.
That night, Marina lay awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling.
The wall between her bedroom and the living room was thin. She could hear Alessandro shift on the couch, his breathing too uneven for sleep.
His awareness pressed against hers: the same restless, electric tension she was trying to ignore. They were both awake. Both knowing the other was awake. Both pretending otherwise.
Nineteen days, she thought.Nineteen more days, and this ends.
But the thought didn’t bring relief anymore. It brought dread.
On the other side of the wall, she felt Alessandro think the same thing.
