It was easier.
“You look really pleased to be here, yeah?”
Corrado’s walk came to an abrupt start, and his fucking heart was ready to explode in his goddamn chest at the same time. That voice. All calm, cool, and unbothered. Like it didn’t bother him at all he hadn’t seen Corrado in two weeks, and nothing had changed at all.
He turned his head, finding Alessio standing under a canopy of fake spider web hanging from the largest maple tree on the property. He wasn’t sure what it was about those specific trees, but they were Les’s favorite.
“Waiting for me?” Corrado asked.
“Or I stepped out for a smoke—it doesn’t have to be about you.”
Yeah.
Right back to normal.
Corrado smirked, giving a pointed look at Alessio’s hand. “Except there’s no cigarette, and we both know you only smoke here with Bene or Beni.”
“You can’t ever just let me have a moment, can you?”
“Where’s the fun in that, Les?”
Alessio shrugged, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his black jeans. The leather jacket he’d thrown on was new—different from the last one Corrado saw him wearing. This one had a dozen buckles, and small, silver spikes on the shoulders.
Very ... Alessio.
And he looked good.
Too good, really.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Corrado asked.
Alessio’s sly grin drifted away. “Like what?”
“Where have you been the last couple of days? I knew when you got back, and you just ... fucking took off. You couldn’t call me, or—”
“I had things to handle.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, shit to take care of that you wouldn’t.”
Corrado stiffened, his throat growing tight. “And what does that mean?”
“This,” Alessio said, pointing between the two as he met Corrado’s gaze, “it’s not all about you. It’s about me, too. And someone else because you brought her into it. You keep thinking you’re also the only person here that gets to decide about it—like the choice to say fuck it, hide away, and pretend like nothing is wrong. The rest of us here aren’t always going to just fall in line with you, Corrado. That’s not how love works.”
That ache was back in his heart.
“You don’t get—”
“Yeah, I get you don’t like shit that hurts. Don’t worry.”
“I needed a minute to figure out what I was doing, Les.”
“Well, you got two weeks, and I’m fucking tired of waiting.”
“What?”
Alessio grinned and gestured at the mansion. “Do you know why I didn’t call you or come back home the last couple of days since I got back?”
“Because you wanted to punish me?”
“Really, that’s what you think it was?”
“That’s what it seemed like.”
Alessio’s smile drifted away. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re all I have, Les.”
“No, I’m not. I am one of two people for you, Corrado. And I’m fucking sorry that life gets in the way, and you’re not sure how to deal, but you gotta learn. Like the rest of us did, okay? You can’t run when shit gets rough. You can’t.”
Corrado nodded. “Yeah.”
“I didn’t call or come home because I didn’t want to lie to you. I don’t lie to you, no matter what. And so, if I didn’t see you or speak to you, then I wouldn’t have to do that, not even by omission.”
He stared at Alessio as still as stone.
Alessio stared back, waiting.
“What did you do?” Corrado asked.
“I brought her back for us. Ginevra is here tonight.”
He hadn’t been ready for that.
He also wasn’t at all surprised.
“She left.”
“Yes, because not everything in her life will always be about us, Corrado. We had a spread of time with her away from her life—without her responsibilities, and the things she left at home. She didn’t have to worry about that during our time, but that time ended. And she needed to get back to reality, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t want to stay.”
“If she wanted to stay—”
“It is possible she both wanted to leave and stay but with only those two choices ... someone will always get hurt.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
Alessio gave him a look. “Because you never asked.”
• • •
Corrado heard Ginevra first. Her soft, tinkling laughter—unmistakable to his ear—seemed to stand out from the feminine laughter of others as it filled the hallway he walked down with Alessio at his side. It did something to his heart, still racing hard and a little too heavy in his chest, but he didn’t wish it away.
A part of him had been wishing too much away.
Right then, he wanted to feel.
Corrado wasn’t pleased with the way Alessio did this, but he stepped back and shut up. He didn’t go to Ginevra after she left, and he hadn’t given her the chance to explain anything.
So, regardless of the heaviness on his shoulders, the tightness in his chest, or the ache in his heart ... he would see her, and listen to her explain.
Because Les was right.
As he usually was.
Corrado figured if he admitted that fact a little more often, they wouldn’t have as many of these issues as they did. His pride was a real bitch.
Time to let it go.
A good portion of the main entrance, the first dining room, and one of the sitting rooms inside the mansion became a haunted house for the kids that was now ... well, empty of children, anyway. A few adults lingered in the spaces, drinks in hand. Some still dressed in costumes, and others, not. Corrado had no interest in them, though.
Corrado rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, Alessio still at his side, and came to a full stop at the sight of Ginevra in the middle of what his parents used as a ballroom when they held parties. In the middle, a fountain with an embracing nude couple carved from stone with water pouring from their outstretched hands that seemed to reach for each other.
And right in front of it?
Ginevra.
Like him, and Alessio, and most of the other people in the room, she wasn’t dressed up in any costume. Instead, she wore a black dress that hugged her curves with a slit down the middle that showed off all kinds of leg, and black, strappy heels that made his throat tighten again.
She smiled at something his mother said next to her, nodding back at the younger girl standing close to her. Cara leaned in closer to Ginevra, her gaze conspiratorial as she said something in a whisper, pointing to someone across the room.
Ginevra, though, looked happy. Perfectly content in her place, enjoying the party, and not at all bothered by the fact she was in the middle of the room, the center of attention next to his mother where they stood just a few feet away from the rest of his brothers, and father.
Like she was meant to be there.
Because she was.
Corrado had known from the start—sensed it in his heart the very second she looked him in the eyes that day she fell into his car in New York outside of the church. It’d been him and his pride that fucked this up.