“Figure of speech.”
“Alessandro—”
“Marina.” His hands found her shoulders, warmth radiating through his palms as he tried to calm her. It didn’t work. “I understand you’re concerned. But Malachar has been in my life since I was a child. If he wanted to hurt my family, he’s had countless opportunities.”
“Maybe hurting your family wasn’t the goal. Maybe keeping the curse going was.”
Neither of them spoke.
She felt him flinch. Not because he disagreed, but because some part of him, deep down, had wondered the same thing. But acknowledging that would mean acknowledging that he’d been wrong.
“You don’t know him,” Alessandro said. “You met him once.”
“And you’ve known him for decades without seeing clearly. I’m not the one with complicated feelings about him. I’m just telling you what I saw.”
“What you interpreted.”
“What I know.” She pulled away from his hands. “My grandmother taught me to trust my instincts. And my instincts say that man is dangerous.”
“Your grandmother never met him.”
“No. But she knew something.” Marina’s eyes went to the recipe book. “The Curse-Breaking Cake recipe. The counter-spell hidden in a cookbook. She knew about the curse, Alessandro. She prepared for it. Why would she do that unless she knew something about what, or who, was keeping it in place?”
He had no answer.
The words they needed were too tangled to voice.
“I should check on the afternoon prep,” Marina said.
“Marina…”
“It’s fine. We disagree. It happens.” She turned toward the kitchen, then stopped. “But I’m moving the recipe book tonight. Somewhere he can’t find it.”
“That seems…”
“Necessary.” She met his eyes. “You can trust him if you want. I choose to trust myself.”
She walked away before he could respond.
His hurt reached her anyway. His confusion. His desperate wish that she would just believe him.
But she also felt a small, frightened part of him whispering:What if she’s right?
The evening passed in strained silence. They moved around each other in the kitchen like strangers, the easy rhythm they’d developed over three weeks suddenly fractured. When their hands brushed reaching for the same towel, neither of them smiled.
Alessandro tried twice to restart the conversation. Both times, Marina shook her head.
“Not now. I need to think.”
“About what?”
“About everything.”
His frustration spiked, sharp as a slap, and beneath it, fear. He was scared of losing her. Scared that this disagreement might be the crack that broke them.
Good, she thought grimly. He should be scared. She was terrified.
Not of losing him. Of what might happen if she stayed with someone who couldn’t see the danger right in front of his face.
