Page 118 of Alessio

Ginevra tensed, knowing nothing good ever came from those words. “Oh?”

“Relax.”

“What do you have to tell me?” she asked.

Alessio sighed, his tongue snaking out to drift along his lower lip before he muttered, “I have to leave soon—The League business, and whatnot. A job that has been in the works for quite a while now, and they have the okay for it. I was the contractor put up for it, and we’re not able to change those details.”

Ginevra blinked, taking in those words. “How soon?”

“Likely within two or three days, we’ll see how long I can stretch it. I got the call yesterday when you were ordering at the café; that gave me seven days to get my shit in order before I have to head out.”

“Oh.”

Alessio made a dark noise. “Don’t do that.”

She peered up at him. “Do what?”

“Sound so fucking sad, it kills me.”

“Should I be happy?”

“Well … no.”

Ginevra gave him a teasing glower. “I can’t feel nothing, either, so you get one or the other. And sad was the one you got.”

Alessio chuckled, his hands flexing against her waist again. “I get it, sweetheart. I need to go to Vegas first and grab things I need there. And if I play my cards right—or rather, work the flights right—I’ll have a daylong layover in Toronto before I head out on the assignment, but still, it’ll be soon.”

“Soon,” she echoed. “What kind of job?”

“Better not say for that.”

Ginevra shivered.

“But that wasn’t why I wanted to tell you,” Alessio said.

She met his gaze again. “No?”

“No, more like … if where you want me to return to is wherever you are, and him, too, that’s where I will be. Is that where you want me, Ginevra?”

Didn’t he already know?

“Yes, this is where I want you.”

A bouncer for the club led Alessio and Ginevra upstairs to the VIP section. He suspected that’s where they would find Corrado, considering he no longer lingered on the lower floor of the club.

“Aren’t you hot in that?” Ginevra asked, fingering the neckline of his leather jacket.

“Yes.”

“Why not take it off, then?”

“Discomfort doesn’t bother me that much.”

He thanked The League for that.

And training.

Ginevra looked like she would say more, but he pointed across the room to distract her instead. Her gaze followed Alessio’s movements, and a playful smile curved her cheeks at the sight of Corrado sitting beside Marcus in a booth.