And I had not chosen it.
CHAPTER 17
EMILY
Iloved Pietro’s family.
Or at least most of them. I loved his mother and little sister, and I respected his father in the slightly terrified way I imagined half the city did.
Sandro Benetti carried power the way other men wore expensive coats: effortlessly, as if it had been tailored for him so long ago he no longer noticed the weight of it. His dark eyes always seemed to see too much when they landed on me, enough to make me want to apologize for things I hadn’t even done.
But he was also, very obviously, a loving man.
Not in a loud or easy way. He wasn’t warm with me exactly, but he didn’t need to be for me to see it. Victoria alone was proof enough. She was a tiny, adorable menace with the confidence of someone who had never once doubted she was loved, and only a truly good father would have let a little girl grow into that much fearless personality without trying to tame it.
Lily was different. Softer on the surface, maybe, but strong in all the places that counted. She had a nurturing kind of presence that made you want to lean closer without ever letting you mistake her for fragile. And the way Sandro kept finding hisway back to her, as if drawn by instinct, was so intimate it made something ache inside me.
Because once I saw it, I couldn’t stop wanting it.
Which was probably why by the time we left for Seattle, some dangerous part of me had already started thinking of Chicago as a place I could come back to. The plane was quieter this time, or maybe my mind had simply found other things to obsess over.
Sophie. The surgery. Home. Adam. The way apprehension appeared every time I let myself picture the town again.
Pietro must have noticed, because his hand found mine not long after takeoff and stayed there, warm and steady over my fingers.
“What?” he asked.
I looked at him. “Nothing.”
His expression didn’t change.
“Emily.”
I let out a breath and leaned back in my seat. “I just feel a little guilty.”
One dark brow lifted. “About what?”
“About dragging you into this without really introducing you properly first. You came with me for something huge and awful and stressful, and now you’ll be stuck in a hotel room like a dirty little secret.” I looked down at our hands. “It doesn’t feel fair.”
Pietro’s thumb moved once over my knuckles. “You are going home for your sister. There is nothing unfair about that.”
“Still.”
He turned slightly toward me, his expression settling into that calm, immovable certainty of his that never felt dismissive when it was aimed at me.
“Emily, you are there for something far more important than introductions,” he said. “Your sister needs you. That is all that matters right now. We have time for the rest. Once she’s better, we can come back properly, and I’ll meet everyone undercircumstances that do not involve hospitals and emotional collapse.”
I smiled. “Very optimistic of you to assume my family won’t cause emotional collapse anyway.”
“I’m from Chicago,” he said dryly. “I’m difficult to impress.”
My smile softened. “I just… I feel safer with you there.”
That struck him. I could see it in the way his face changed, just slightly, as if the words had gone deeper than I meant them to.
Before he could answer, Olivero looked up from across the cabin.
“And me too, right?”
