Gabriella met her stare head-on for the first time. “Yes. And I love you, Sisi.”
Her heart swelled painfully at both the words of love and Gabriella calling her Sisi. She was the only one who had ever called her that. “I love you too,” she whispered. “And I don’t ever want you feeling afraid that I’m going to turn into a snarlingbitch again when I’m with you. This dinner party Elio’s hosting tomorrow night…” She shook her head before looking back at her. “I know things can never go back to being what they were, but I want you to feel comfortable in my home.”
Something flickered in Gabriella’s eyes. “Yourhome? Things are going well in the marriage?”
The ache to confide swelled. Only months ago, Siena would have confessed to Gabriella in a heartbeat that she feared she’d fallen in love with Elio, but her world had turned upside down and inside out. Months ago Siena had still believed her father protected those he loved. The love he’d always professed to have for Gabriella’s father and the way he’d grieved for him for all those years when he’d been the one to have pulled the trigger was something she didn’t know how her heart could ever reconcile.
So many lies. So much betrayal. So many lives lost.
The man she’d fallen for had lost even more than Gabriella had. A whole world more.
Knowing she needed to say something, she whispered, “He’s not the monster we all believed.”
“Tommaso doesn’t trust him.”
“I know. I don’t either. But he’s good to me.” Not just in the bedroom but in life. Other than those hateful early days, he made no effort to control her. No effort to impose his will on her. He listened when she spoke. Really listened, as if her thoughts and ideas were worth listening to.
Her friend’s dark eyes were troubled. “Be careful, Sisi.”
Too late, she thought even as she smiled with what she hoped was the whole of her face. “I’m always careful, Gabba.”
* * *
After embracing Gabriella goodbye, Siena got into the back of the car for the short drive home.
While her heart felt lighter for having cleared the air with her, she still grieved the severing of the bond that had always been so strong between them. She could only hope that, with time, the bond could knit itself back together.
Her heart lightened even more to find Elio’s car outside the villa. He was home.
So excited was she to see him that she didn’t even look out for the dogs as she hurried inside. He was in the kitchen, fixing himself a coffee on the machine that was identical to her own, and she remembered how she’d vowed to bin her own version of it when she next returned to her apartment. She hadn’t even driven past her apartment since they’d exchanged their vows. Hadn’t missed it at all.
She didn’t hesitate to walk up to him, fling her arms around his neck and kiss him. “You’re back early.”
He wrapped his arms around her, his eyes glittering. “Now this is the kind of welcome a man could get used to.”
She smiled and nuzzled her face in his neck so she could breathe his scent into her lungs. “How did it all go?”
“Very well. The first shipment is due on Tuesday. How has your day been?”
She lifted her face out of his neck and smiled again. “Mine has gone very well too.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
But instead of answering, she trailed her hand down his stomach to the button of his jeans. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
He raised his other eyebrow.
She unzipped his fly. “Later.”
The silver eyes she so adored boring into her with unrepentant sensuality, he clasped her waist and lifted her onto the nearest work surface. “Okay, then,” he murmured, bringing his mouth to hers. “Later.”
Chapter Thirteen
Elio was pouringhimself a whisky when Siena joined him in the living room, ravishingly sexy in a sleeveless, scooped-neck black dress that clung to her curves. Her blonde hair, loose and tumbling around her shoulders, gleamed.
He could do nothing to stop his heart from ballooning painfully to know this might be the last time he ever saw her like this.
Her soft blue eyes narrowed with concern. “You okay?”
