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“There was a trellis.”
“Which is gone, thanks to your delicate handiwork. I can’t have amanin my rooms. There are rules.”
“You’re the Finestra. If you can’t change the rules, who can?”
“You don’t understand how my position works.”
“And you don’t understand how bodyguards work. See,I”—he pointed to himself—“guardyour”—he pointed to her, tracing curves in the air—“body.”
She half-scooted behind the screen. “Youwork forme. I give the orders.”
“I don’t half-ass any job. You want me to guard, this is how I do it.”
If she had to close the balcony doors to get him in the hall, she’d spend the night tossing in a hot, stuffy bed, with visions of leather-clad hands squeezing her windpipe. “Fine. But I’ve killed three people already, and if you try to sneak up on me while I’m sleeping, you’ll be the fourth.”
Dante kicked off his shoes. “Same.”
She squinted at him. Was he saying he’d killed three people? That he’d kill her if she sneaked up on him? Both?
Eyes locked on her like he knew exactly what she was thinking, Dante began unbuttoning his shirt. Panicked, she fled before she made an even bigger fool of herself.
How was she supposed to relax with only translucent panels between her and a half-dressed stranger?
“Dea,”she breathed. Surely he wasn’t takingeverythingoff.
Still trying to decipher his warning, Alessa determinedly steered her thoughts away from the brief glimpse of skin thatwas now branded into her memory and pulled on her most voluminous nightgown.
He was a criminal. He might be packing up her valuables already or waiting until she fell asleep to smash her head in. She should have shut her mouth in that alley the moment she realized he wasn’t the hero she’d taken him for.
This was ridiculous.
She stepped around the screen with a firm “get out” perched on the tip of her tongue, but he was gone.
The main door was closed. The bathing room was dark. A neatly folded shirt on the end table was the only sign he’d been there at all.
Her gaze flicked to every corner, then the ceiling, as though he might have taken flight. Warmth tickled the back of her neck, and she whirled, but there was no one there.
The wind shifted, carrying the scents of Saverio farther inside.
The balcony.
Dante stood just outside the doors, pants riding low on narrow hips, knives still sheathed on either side. His thumbs found the hilts of his blades, then slid off, again and again, like he was checking to be sure they hadn’t vanished. The broad shoulders and muscled back that had looked so golden and alive in the fighting ring looked like marble gilded silver in the moonlight.
He could have been a sculptor’s masterpiece:Man on Balcony.
He tensed at some distant sound:Man on Balcony Poised for Flight.
Bit by bit, his shoulders lowered, and his hands unclenched, his chest rising as though he’d ordered himself to relax, one piece at a time. He stepped forward, but paused with a slight shake of his head, like he didn’t trust the open sky before him, or fearedfreedom was a trap. Rubbing the back of his neck, he turned, looking back at the city over his shoulder.
Alessa ran away before he becameMan on Balcony Who Caught You Staring.
He’d been sleeping on floors in tavern storage rooms. She could let him have one decent night’s rest. Clearly, he had his own demons to slay, and she wasn’t one of them.
Besides, it was only one night.
Twelve
Anche in paradiso non è bello essere soli.
