I said nothing. I didn’t trust myself to.
He nodded once, as if my silence was answer enough for now. Then he stood up, reached for his coat, for his cane, collecting all the pieces of himself he had walked in with, and the simple movement of it hurt more than the sight of the ring box still on my table.
At the door he stopped and looked back at me.
“I’ll prove to you,” he said quietly, “that I’m smart enough to learn from my mistakes.”
Before I could answer, before I could decide whether that promise infuriated me or undid me, he crossed the small distance between us and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
It was so gentle it almost felt cruel.
Then he stepped away and let himself out.
I stayed exactly where I was, listening to the door close, to his footsteps fading down the hall, to the silence that rushed in after him and settled through the apartment like dust.
I had let him go.
I stayed strong.
I held the line exactly where I needed to.
And standing there alone with my heart still beating too hard and his warmth still fading from my skin, there was a small, traitorous part of me that wished he would.
CHAPTER 26
PIETRO
Note to self: never take romantic advice from mafia dons.
Ever.
It did not matter whether they were Italian or Japanese. Criminal empires apparently did not translate into emotional intelligence worth relying on. In fact, if this whole disaster had taught me anything, it was that advice from men in general should be treated with suspicion.
Ask her to marry you. You’ll see, she’ll fall right into your arms.
Tell her you’re sorry. She’ll forgive you.
And Matteo’s contribution, naturally, had been the most unhinged of all:Just kidnap her. Your father still has that island, doesn’t he? Perfect. She can’t run.
That had been said with enough sincerity to make it genuinely concerning.
Which was why I was currently moping in a scalding bath, trying to loosen muscles that seemed to have turned to wire from stress, guilt, and general romantic incompetence.
The water should have been relaxing. It wasn’t. It was only hot enough to make my skin red and my thoughts marginally less murderous, which at this point counted as self-care.
I tipped my head back against the edge of the tub and stared at the ceiling, letting out a long breath.
I missed her.
That was the central problem. I missed Emily with a kind of persistence that had become humiliating. I missed her voice, her expression when she was trying not to laugh, the way she looked at me when she forgot to protect herself from how much she cared, and the highly unflattering Christmas sweater she had somehow still managed to look beautiful in while dismantling my character with terrifying accuracy.
The worst part was that she had not been wrong.
I had been a coward.
A well-intentioned coward, perhaps, but history was not kind to men who insisted on being judged for their motives rather than their choices.
I sank lower in the bath and scrubbed a hand over my face.
