I don’t move. I let her ride it out around me.Beautifulis a clean word. It isn’t the word I’m thinking of. Not anymore.
Mine.
That’s more like it.
For a second, there’s nothing but breath. Hers, uneven. Mine, deliberately slowed. Somewhere outside the closed door, the floor is winding down—a voice in the hall, a drawer sliding, the distant chime of the elevator.
Knock.
Bea goes rigid.
Her eyes fly open. Her head comes up off the cabinet. The panic moves through her in one clean wave—shoulders first, then down the spine, and I feel her try to push back off the cabinet and up, out, away.
I keep her exactly where she is.
One hand on her hip. One flat against her back between her shoulder blades. I don’t move inside her. I don’t let her move off me either. I just hold her there, folded over the cabinet, still connected, still mine.
“Raffaele.” A whisper. A plea.
Knock, knock.Louder this time.
She pushes at the hand on her back. She gets nothing. My grip on her hip tightens until I see her flinch, and then I ease off a fraction, just enough to remind her it’s a choice.
“Someone’s at the door,” she breathes.
“Let them wait.”
“Raffaele—”
“I said let them wait.”
She turns her head. Her hair is everywhere. Her face is flushed, her lipstick has smeared at the corner of her mouth, and she stares at me,searching for the version of me that might let her go.
He is not in the room.
I hold her gaze so she understands that.
The knocking stops.
A voice outside, muffled through the door.
“Mr. D’Amico? I have those documents you requested.”
Marcy. She’s filling in for the file runner tonight because Castellano dragged the kid to a meeting. Of course.
I shift my hips.
Small. Barely a thrust. Just enough.
Bea’s whole body jerks. Her mouth falls open on a sound that would absolutely carry through the door, and I get my hand back up over her lips before it leaves her.
She shakes her head, tiny and furious.
“Also,” Marcy continues, absolutely oblivious, “the Martinez arraignment got moved to Thursday. Judge Harrison’s clerk called. Said you’d know what that means.”
I move again. All the way out, almost, and then back into her. She whimpers into my palm. Her fingers come up and wrap around my wrist—not pulling it off her mouth, not quite, just holding on.
Judge Harrison’s clerk. Good. That means Harrison got the message about the procedural timeline and made the right call. The arraignment moves to Thursday, which means I have a full seventy-two hours to move three witnesses, fix one deposition, and make sure Antonio’s bail stays intact despite the fact that I knocked him down in my own office an hour ago.
