Page 123 of Corrado

He could see it already. Stuck between his fucking guilt, and the constant want he felt for this woman who had no clue what he had done here. Even as he conversed with her, or spent day in and day out with her, his mind was on constant loop of thoughts revolving around Alessio.

Back and forth.

Ginny.

Les.

One he missed desperately, and knewsomething wasn’t right because Alessio hadn’t called in days. And the other, he was desperate to know, and who he thought Alessio should know, too, but the way this had happened would be enough to end it before that could begin. Corrado was most sure of that.

More nails in the coffin.

Corrado didn’t ask for this.

None of it.

Back and forth he went again.

It never ended.

Christ.

“Anyway,” Ginevra said, oblivious to the battle in his mind and heart, “I think they must love you a lot, and your brothers, if they’re willing to throw you a party at this age. And not just any party … look at us, this feels like an affair.”

As she said that, the elevator came to a stop, and opened up to the front lobby of the building. Parked right in front, in full view of the windows, was the white Maserati he’d had taken out of the Toronto storage unit where he kept it when he wasn’t in the city visiting.

“And that’s ours, I bet,” she said beside him.

Corrado sighed. “It is.”

“Like I said, a whole affair.”

He really wished she would stop using that word.

But not for a reason she would know.

Corrado helped Ginevra step out of the Maserati, and her eyes widened at the sight in front of them. Parked at the very end of the long, winding drive that led up to the three-level, two-wing monster that was the Guzzi Mansion, they had a way to go yet before they properly arrived.

Not that it mattered.

She could see now.

The wealth was on full display.

“Is this your—”

“Childhood home, yes,” he said. “It sits on several acres of private land, and the mansion itself could house a good hundred people or more … living wise. It has a pool, ballroom, three dining rooms, a library that, in all honesty, is bigger than most public ones, and well, that’s just scratching the surface.”

“Who is the reader?”

Surprising him again.

Those damn questions.

Corrado almost said Alessio before he caught himself, and realized she meant in his family. Although, Alessio was his family, too. “My mother. And you should know, this place … this night, despite being for my brothers’ and my birthdays, and all of the rest of it, is my father’s doing. Like the library, and the tiled rose design at the bottom of the pool. Anything my mother wants, my father gives her. She is the queen here, and expect that she’ll be treated as such. If she wanted to sit on a throne during the party, trust that one will be provided for her to do that.”

Ginevra smiled slyly.

He didn’t miss it.