Livia watches every movement. Then she set the mug down. “We should probably stop doing this,” she says quietly.
“Doing what?”
Her gaze flicks toward me. “Whatever this is.”
I twist the bottle cap loose and drink from it. Silence ensues in the time that I do that.
After a few seconds, I set the water bottle on the counter. “You're probably right.” I look at her. “But the question is do you want to stop? Do you want to tell the truth?”
She scoffs, crossing her arms. “There's no truth, Valentino.”
I nod. “Thought you'd say that. But how about this: you answer honestly and I guarantee no consequences on my end. It doesn't affect our professional relationship. In fact, I'll drop this…” I breathe out. “This attraction.”
I step closer. “Were we ever together in Venice?”
She opens her mouth. Then closes it.
The teasing leaves her face first. Then the defensiveness.
What remains underneath is uncertainty. I can almost touch it.
She wets her lips once before answering. “No, Valentino. I’ve never even been to Venice.”
I watch her for a long moment, then I nod once. My instincts say one thing. Her eyes and words say another. I don't know which one to trust so I leave the kitchen without another word.
My footsteps carry me down the short hallway to the main bedroom and I close the door behind me.
The room is dim, lit only by the spill of moonlight through half-drawn curtains. The bed is untouched. Crisp linen. Neutral tones. Everything arranged with the same sterile precision as the rest of the cottage.
A space designed for rest, not thought.
I don’t sit. I don’t switch on the lamp.
Instead, I stand there with my hand still resting on the door, feeling the afterimage of the kitchen conversation press against the inside of my skull.
No, Valentino. I’ve never even been to Venice.
Bullshit.
I sit on the edge of the bed and let my thoughts turn inward. I’m piecing it together with the same methodical focus I apply to every security threat.
Part of me feels fully certain it is her. The math aligns. The timeline. Her flight from Dante.
Yet another part of me wonders if I’m reaching. She denied it plainly, not once, but repeatedly. Denied ever being in Venice.
But that twenty percent of doubt gnaws at me, mixed with something sharper. Fear.
What happens if it really is her? What happens when this fragile thing between us combusts? She's my employee. The logical CEO in me knows this should be an automatic no.
Pursuing her risks everything. The company. The deal with the Aurelius Consortium. My carefully controlled life.
A small part of me, the cold strategist, wants to believe I’m constructing connections where none exist. That this is simply attraction amplified by proximity and the fake engagement.
That she’s not the woman who has haunted my memories for years.
The doubt does not silence the certainty. I need perspective. I pick up my phone and call Vaughn. He answers on the second ring, voice rough with the late hour but alert as always.
“Valentino. Everything stable at the retreat?”
