Page 48 of Alessio

That it depended on her behavior?

He would do it because he cared—he had been doing it because of that. Nothing else.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

“Thank you.”

Quickly, she leaned down and pressed another quick kiss to his lips, winking before she turned away from his desk, and headed out of the office without a look back over her shoulder. She was gone all of four seconds before someone else came to stand in the doorway.

Alessio.

“Were you spying?” Corrado asked, never looking up from the papers on his desk. He had things to do. “Because you know, you’re more than welcome to join the conversation, Les.”

“And if I was?”

Corrado chuckled. “The door is open. I leave it like that for a reason.”

He met Alessio’s gaze.

Questions stared back.

Curiosity.

How much had he heard?

Corrado didn’t mind waiting to find out.

“Give Ma my love, yeah?”

Chris nodded at his twin where he stood next to a waiting Ginevra. “I will.” Then, the man’s gaze lifted over Corrado’s shoulder, drifting to where Alessio stood leaning against the wall further down the hall. “Les, it’s been a while.”

Had it?

A little more than a month, he supposed, since he sat with the man in that café.

“Chris,” Alessio replied. “Get her there safely, yes?”

He hadn’t meant for the statement to sound threatening, and yet somehow, it did. Except there wasn’t anything he could do about the looks coming his way now because the damn words were already out of his mouth.

Ah, well.

Corrado cleared his throat, passing a pointed look over his shoulder at Alessio. A quiet, hey, now, that’s family. Alessio only shrugged back.

“No worries,” Chris said, shaking his head as he turned to offer a hand to a grinning Ginevra. “She’ll come back in one piece.”

She better.

At least, that time, Alessio kept the thoughts inside his head. It wasn’t lost on him that his sudden protectiveness over Ginevra was for more than just him. He also felt protective of her for Corrado, and he didn’t want to get into it.

Not yet.

Once Ginevra and Chris had exited the apartment, Corrado turned to face Alessio with a raised brow. “You don’t need to go full-on asshole to Chris, right? It’s Chris, Les.”

“Gotta make an example out of everybody, or nobody will care, huh?”

It reminded him of that whole saying if you stand for nothing, then you’ll fall for everything. In a way …

“It’s still Chris,” Corrado said, laughing under his breath.