Page 311 of Alessio

At least?

Corrado thought so.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” Ginevra asked, her voice barely breaking a murmur. She wouldn’t look at him entirely, but she still watched him through her lashes. It was enough for Corrado. “The other person, I mean.”

He nodded. “It is. And I know you don’t want to hear it right now, but I’m so—”

“You’re right, I don’t want to hear it.”

“All right.” He gestured at the hallway, knowing Alessio was likely already waiting for him in the office. “I have to take care of that, but you’re … it’s been a long night, Ginny. You should relax.”

She scoffed at his back when he passed. Corrado didn’t acknowledge it.

Then, behind him, she said, “He’s …”

He hesitated in his next step. “What?”

“He’s overwhelming,” she whispered.

Corrado shot her a look over his shoulder and laughed bleakly. “I know.”

Because where was the lie?

Alessio had always been overwhelming.

In every sense of the word.

Corrado found Alessio sitting on the edge of the desk, using the arm of a guest’s chair to rest his foot on as he sliced through the top of a letter with his favorite pocket knife. He said nothing as Corrado stepped into the office and closed the door just enough that there was a crack to see out into the hallway.

Mostly because he wanted to watch for Ginevra.

All the while, Alessio said nothing. He pulled the bill out of the envelope that he opened, looked it over, and then tossed it aside. Just as quickly, he picked up another from the pile, clicked his tongue as he slid the knife under the paper, and opened it, too.

“That’s what you want to do right now?”

“Why not?” Alessio asked, reading over the paper in his hands. “It’s not like you care to look at the bills—they fucking sit in a pile.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong …

Corrado simply preferred to let Alessio do those types of things because he found it mundane and fucking boring.

“The maid handles that here,” Corrado said. “Because someone needs to keep up on it when we’re not around, Les.”

“Right, right.”

As fast as the bill had been in Alessio’s hand, it too was tossed to the desk. Discarded, and forgotten in a blink when his gaze turned on Corrado standing in front of the door.

And there it is.

That fury.

The sting of it.

A war raged in Alessio’s eyes, and Corrado didn’t look away. He couldn’t. Alessio was still owed that, after all, and Corrado would let him have it even if every second of it hurt him, too. That’s what one did when they hurt someone they loved, or so he thought.

Not that he figured Alessio wanted to hear that right now.

“We’re going to talk now, right?” Alessio asked. “Talk, Corrado, which is something we probably should have done, oh, what … about a month ago, or so?”