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It feels like I just walked into a museum.
“Come,” Furio said. “I will show you to your quarters in the east wing.”
Oh, the east wing,I thought.I don’t have a room—I have quarters. And they’re in an entire wing.
Our footsteps echoed off the cavernous hallways as we walked what felt like three miles through the manor home before reaching my quarters. Thick rugs covered the floor to the sitting room, which was large enough to play tennis in. Tapestries hanging from two walls depicted Roman battles, full of men on horseback wielding gladius swords and pteruges skirt armor. A bedroom shone with light through another arching doorway; a fire was roaring in a hearth there, banishing the chill from the marble floor.
“I hope this is acceptable to you,” Furio said with complete sincerity.
“Acceptable, yes,” I said faintly. All in all, the combination of rooms had more square footage than my entire house back in San Mateo.
Furio nodded. “Excellent. I will leave you to it. I am sure you are quite tired…”
It was only noon back home, but my internal clock was all messed up. Iwasexhausted from the events of the day. The bed was calling to me, and I knew I would fall asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.
“I am tired,” I admitted.
Furio hesitated, like he was hoping for a different answer. But he covered his disappointment quickly, and then wrapped me in another hug.
“Goodnight, Amber,” he whispered into my hair. “I am so glad you are here.”
We pulled apart, but remained in each others’ arms. Furio was several inches taller than me, and I had to tilt my head up to look into his dark eyes. Eyes which drank in the flickering light of the fire in the adjacent room, flames that danced with life and warmth and promise.
He wants me.
The realization flashed across my mind with the certainty of a well-known fact. And in that moment, I knew I wanted him, too. I had wanted him since we first met in the ACS office, and that desire had only intensified since then. Now it was a smoldering fire, growing from my chest and spreading in all directions, gathering between my legs and pushing my lips toward his, eager to taste his tongue against mine…
And then Furio pulled away from me. The room seemed to grow colder as the man in the fine suit departed, the massive doors closing behind him with the hollow scrape of wood against stone.
I’m glad I’m here too.
44
Amber
Furio was warm and friendly at breakfast the next morning, which was held in a dining room that was larger and more open than the big entrance space back at the ACS office. We sat together at one end of a table that was long enough to feed a full Roman legion, plates of thin ham and slices of melon and biscotti with soft white cheese.
He was too busy to accompany me to theeTodooffice, so I was driven there alone. Edoardo was much quieter and helpful today, inviting me into his office as soon as I arrived and going over all of the code I had written yesterday.
He was notfriendly, but he acknowledged my technical expertise. He was respectful. And I could tell it wasn’t because of anything Furio may have said to him. Once again, I was glad I was able to prove myself yesterday without anyone else’s help.
For the next three days, we spent all day creating a roadmap for the future ateTodo, just like I had done at ACS. The market in Italy was significantly different than in America, so the roadmap had to be custom-tailored to their specific needs. Edoardo and I sometimes disagreed on specific strategies, but he was never rude about it. Sometimes I caved and went with his solution, and other times he dipped his head and deferred to me.
As we got down into the weeds of the company’s platform, I realized Furio was a genius for buyingeTodo. Their platform was lean and simple and streamlined in a way that other European cryptocurrency exchanges were not. Integrating with them would give ACS a tremendous advantage in the European market, far more than I had originally suspected. Maybe Furio had gotten lucky with his purchase, but I suspected it was his keen mind and sharp eye that convinced him to buyeTodo.
Furio and I had dinner together every night somewhere in the city. The driver always parked several blocks away, which allowed us to walk slowly to the restaurant while Furio described interesting historical facts about that neighborhood or street.
And at the end of every night, we went home and awkwardly said goodnight. The desire I saw that first night was still in Furio’s dark eyes, but he never acted on it. And as an awkward coder girl who was afraid of failure, I was too chicken to make the first move.
I found myself missing Jude and Owen, too. I had never been away from them longer than a day, yet now I had been gone for four. We occasionally texted, but the nine-hour difference made it difficult to get a long conversation going. When I woke up, they were already asleep. When I was going to bed, it was early afternoon for them.
On the second-to-last night, after Furio had once again lingered in my goodnight embrace but refused to act on it, I felt myself becoming sexually frustrated. I tried to encourage myself to leave my bedroom, to walk across the sprawling palace-like manor home and bang on the door to his room and demand to know if the desire in his eyes was real. But I lacked the constitution to do something so forward, and I remained under the covers of my bed.
I pulled out my laptop and connected to my work VPN. There were several new employees listed on the work chat program, names I didn’t recognize. Even while I was gone, the rapid growth continued.
Owen was offline, but Jude’s icon showed green. Available.
Moltisanti, Amber: Hiya. Holding down the fort without me?
