Her brows lifted in obvious disbelief, but she let it go.
I did not.
The thought had already lodged itself too deep to ignore. I could leave her in Boston and tell myself that distance would help. That a week apart was sensible. Necessary. Temporary. I could come back and continue as we were, stealing hours between classes and dinners and whatever lies I could get away with for a little longer.
Or I could stop pretending this was something small enough to keep in pieces.
If I wanted Emily in my life, not the polished version of it, not the student version, not the carefully edited man I let her see, then sooner or later my father would have to be part of the equation.
That should have felt like a threat.
Instead, some instinct told me it was probably inevitable.
And if I was being honest, Alessandro Benetti likely already knew. He had raised me. He would have seen it in one glance, in the tone of my voice on the phone, in the way I had shortened our conversations, in the fact that I had come home for a funeral looking as though part of me had stayed behind and returned to Boston as soon as I could.
Nothing escaped my father for long.
Especially not when it mattered.
Emily was watching me again, that soft line between her brows appearing when she thought too hard about something.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
I looked at her, at the woman who had unsettled the entire architecture of my life in less than a week, and knew that leaving her behind was not going to solve anything.
“I’m thinking,” I said slowly, “that I dislike the idea of being in another state while you’re here.”
Something in her expression softened.
“That sounds unreasonably dramatic.”
“It is,” I said. “I’m finding that doesn’t change it.”
I walked her to the door of her building and stood there longer than necessary, the cold night settling around us while neither of us seemed especially willing to be the one to end it.
“You should go,” Emily said at last, though there was no conviction in it.
“You’re still standing here.”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “You’re very smug for someone leaving tomorrow.”
“I’m deeply unhappy about leaving tomorrow.”
“That’s not how unhappy people usually sound.”
“No,” I said. “I imagine I’m handling it unusually well.”
She laughed softly, and the sound did the same damage it always did.
“Text me when you land?” she asked, her expression so sweet I wanted to remember it forever.
“I will.”
She nodded, then glanced toward the door before looking back at me. “And maybe… I don’t know. We could talk while you’re away.”
“Talk?”
She rolled her eyes, suddenly faintly pink again. “You know what I mean.”
