I frown, lowering myself onto the single couch across from him.
“Who?” I demand, voice low and cold.
“How would I know? I can’t possibly ask her the details of her family so that you can plan to kill him, especially when we’re not sure you’re even into her.”
“I’m sure. You’re not.”
He stretches out on the couch. “We’ll find out tomorrow. I found the perfect way into her house.”
“You’re not going in,” I grumble.
He laughs. “Bro, calm down. I’m not stealing your girl. Depressed lass isn’t my thing. And if you stay obsessed afterseeing her up close, I’ll start seeing her as my mother.” He shakes his head, still laughing. “Okay, as a sister.”
I ignore his rambling and bring him back to the subject. “How are we getting into her house?”
“I heard her talking to an old woman. The old woman asked her if she could adopt her pup for her granddaughter; she said she’d have to come to her house to play with the pup. So I used the same excuse and asked if I could adopt one, she told me to come by. Then she went into some depressed state, and I took advantage and asked if you could tag along. She said yes. So we’re going to her house tomorrow at ten.”
I rise and leave. Logan’s grunts follow me. “This man has zero communication etiquette.”
I walk to my room and grab the binoculars off the table. I slide the curtain just an inch and peer into the house across from me. Her house. With the trees still small in both our gardens, I can see straight in. My room faces the side of her house, the side with her room. It’s a lucky coincidence. But if it weren’t, I would have bought this house from whoever owned it—whatever the cost.
Most of the time, she leaves her curtains open, which lets me see straight into her room. At this moment, she’s on the balcony, looking around the way she used to at her parents’ mansion.
She wears a purple T-shirt and shorts, bare without a jacket against the cold. I zoom in on her face. I can see her face so much clearer than through the camera. Her eyes are tired, fixed on nothing. After a few minutes, she’ll scan again, like a robot programmed to monitor her surroundings at fixed intervals.
Is she searching for him? Is this grief, this longing, this pain—all for him?My chest clenches, squeezing the air from my lungs, leaving a suffocating burn.
My grip on the binoculars tightens, then I consciously loosen it. I can’t break them. How would I see her without them?
Whoever he is, I’ll get rid of him. Even if it takes years, I’ll do whatever it takes to make her forget him.
I’m not fully aware of what I could do for this woman to make her mine, but I have a rough sense it would be anything and everything humanly possible.
Chapter 5
Elowen
“If someone comes at ten, tell them I’m not here, and ask them to return at one p.m. if it’s convenient.”I tell Aron, the guard at the gate.
He nods. “Sure, miss.”
I roll up the window and settle back in my seat. I forgot about the meeting with the city architect when I told Logan that time last night. I wouldn’t have remembered if Luciana hadn’t called. We have a site visit today for a mall construction. She’s shortlisted a few locations.
After half an hour, the car stops in front of a burnt building. A team of ten people roams the area. It’s one of those places still not cleared or cleaned. Remi gets out and opens my door. I get out. My shoes sink into the cushion of wild grass beneath. I almost lose my balance; Remi steadies me.
I pick my way toward the woman in her early fifties, dressed in a beige suit, talking to her assistant. She turns when she spots me, a bright smile on her red lips. It’s Luciana’s everydaylook, like a model on a runway. She glides toward me with the elegance of someone walking a red carpet, not knee-high grass. If she weren’t the genius architect she is, she’d definitely be a supermodel, or maybe a fashion designer.
She hugs me and kisses my cheek. “How are you, sweetie?”
“I’m great. How about you?”
She pulls back. “Not good until I find somewhere to get this thing out of my head.” She taps her forehead.
I smile. “Hopefully we’ll find it today, and then you can do everything you want with it.”
Luciana is the best living architect in the world right now. It was difficult to hire her, but my father reassured her she’d have total creative freedom over the city’s design. She works in strange ways, like any genius. One night she’s mapping out residential layouts; the next morning, she’ll call me, bubbling with excitement, to say she has the perfect design for a restaurant cluster.
Just like that, she called me while I was in America and said she needed to start building a mall. A design is haunting her. It’ll take her at least a decade to build this city. And since she’s the sole architect—she simply can’t work with anyone else—it’s a monumental task. But I’m sure she’ll transform this gray Naples into something beautiful.
