Olivero only shrugged.
I looked at him again, trying and failing to fully adjust to the fact that the man acting like a chaotic golden retriever in expensive shoes came from a bloodline that probably terrified half the country.
I stepped down slowly, but my mind was already somewhere far ahead of my body.
I was on my way to the home of the Chicago mafia leader.
Suddenly the carefully chosen presents in my suitcase felt laughably underwhelming. What exactly was I supposed to bring people who probably owned private islands and antique weapons?
“Breathe,” Pietro murmured as he slid into the back seat beside me while Olivero took the front next to the driver.
“I’m breathing,” I said. Then, more honestly and mostly to myself, “Sort of.”
His mouth twitched. “You’re doing very well so far.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. You haven’t tried to throw yourself out of the moving car yet. That’s encouraging.”
I turned to look at him. “Your standards for success feel suspiciously low.”
“I’m trying to make this achievable for you.”
He reached across the seat and took my hand, his thumb brushing once over my knuckles. “Emily, my family is going to adore you.”
“That is not reassuring enough.”
“All right.” He tilted his head, pretending to reconsider. “If it helps, you’re the one person in this car least likely to commit a felony before lunch, so you’re already ahead on points.”
Olivero turned halfway in his seat. “Speak for yourself.”
“Eyes on the road, Olivero,” Pietro said without looking at him.
“I’m not driving.”
“Then face forward in silence.”
I laughed then, and some of the tightness in my chest loosened.
Good. That seemed to be all Pietro had really wanted.
He pressed a kiss to my temple and lowered his voice. “You don’t have to impress them.”
I looked at him.
“You only have to be yourself,” he said. “I’m bringingyouhome, not presenting a merger proposal.”
“That was almost romantic until you said merger proposal.”
“I’m versatile.”
The car rolled through tall iron gates a few minutes later and onto a drive so long that I thought we might still be approaching the house by nightfall. Trees lined both sides in dense green walls, and then at last the house came into view through them, enormous and elegant and beautiful and faintly terrifying.
I stared.
“God,” I said. “You’re rich rich.”
Pietro looked out the window as if checking whether the estate had changed shape since he last saw it. “I thought we had already established that with the plane and everything.”
