“Why, so you could send Cree to set me straight?” Corrado asked.
The man had the decency—or gall—to laugh.
“I only send Cree when you give me no other choice.”
“Right,” Corrado murmured. “And no, nothing is wrong. I just need a break. Other things to handle for a bit, and then I’ll be back to work.”
“Noted.” Keys clicked on the other end before Dare said, “That’s it, then. Call me if you need to change something, yeah?”
“Will do.”
Corrado lingered in the library, that also doubled as his office, for a while longer after he ended the call. Staring out at the busy city below, one of the only rooms in the penthouse that didn’t have full floor to ceiling windows, he found a strange comfort in this space.
Designed to be useful to him—he liked the office area—and to Alessio, who needed a million and one books because he could never find enough shit to read, the two of them often found themselves in here more often than anywhere else in the penthouse when they were in the city. It wasn’t lost on Corrado how Ginevra also seemed to favor this room since her arrival here. More often than not, she gravitated to the books, and settled into one of the sitting areas to crack it open for hours on end.
Alessio would enjoy that. Someone to entertain his need for words and knowledge until long after the fucking sun set, and the rest of the world was sleeping ...
Not that Corrado needed to be thinking about that at all.
Yep.
Quite enough of that.
Spinning on his heel, he left the office library before he could think better of it. He didn’t need to be thinking about shit that didn’t matter, anyway. Strolling through the penthouse, he rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, and came to an abrupt stop in the entryway that led to the sitting room.
The hint of a smile curved his lips as he found Ginevra standing in front of a television screen that was as tall as her, and as wide as the entire wall. With a game controller in her hands, she pressed a button and laughed when her tank on the screen blew up her opponent behind enemy lines.
For the most part, he tried to give her space. He liked his own, after all, and figured most people were the same. Since she didn’t try to seek him out, he offered her the same respect.
Like now, he would usually walk away.
He should walk away.
Instead, he stood there in the entryway, watching her from the side as she fiddled with the game, and her features lit up each time she succeeded in doing something right. He was reminded again, then, as her bow-shaped lips curved with her happiness, and her brown eyes widened with joy, that she was an exceptionally beautiful woman.
If not innocent ...
It was a silly thing, really. Simple, and not at all something that he would find amusement in any other time. That was a game he liked to play to chill a few years back, but he hadn’t touched it in a long while. It had been too long since he and Alessio came back to Toronto for a visit, anyway.
He shouldn’t be watching her at all, or caring. Not that she found happiness in his games, or that she enjoyed spending her time with Alessio’s books.
That didn’t mean anything.
Right?
Except, Corrado wasn’t that simple, and neither was his mind. He was detail-oriented. He liked to know all the things about people, and what made them tick. Ginevra wasn’t an exception to that rule, and if anything, he found himself more curious about her than he had anyone. How did she feel to be twenty-one, and in the position she now was? Who had she left back in New York? What had she wanted to be or do before this?
All those questions, and no answers.
Unless he talked to her.
That could be a problem.
“Do you want to play, or are you going to keep standing there watching me?”
Corrado found Ginevra staring at him from the side, unbothered by his presence. “It’s my home, Ginevra.”
“I prefer Ginny.” She smiled brightly—sweetly. “That’s what my mom used to call me, and my sisters.”
Corrado dragged in a heavy breath, feeling the sense of time he had never been able to forget because it was seared into his brain coming back in a flash. That time, and that man, it melted together in his brain with this woman.
He saw her face.
He heard her words.
And he also saw Alessio—heard him, too.
I prefer Les.
That memory hit him hard.
All at once.
Like a punch to the gut.
He’d been this curious once a long time ago. He remembered that day vividly—that knife room, and those few words he shared with a man that would change his whole life. This felt different in ways, and in others, the same.
Because the curiosity was there. God knew it was going to be his curiosity that got him in trouble. It always did.
Like fucking déjà vu.
Yeah, a problem.
That’s what this woman was for him.
Corrado knew it right then.
Because he had interest.
Nothing was ever simple when he found interest in something, but especially because nothing interested him anymore. Nothing but the man back in Vegas, and apparently, this woman standing in front of him.
“Well?” she asked. “Do you want to play?”
“I don’t think I should,” he replied, honestly.
Her smile fell. “Oh. Okay.”
“Don’t let me stop you from enjoying it, though.”
She didn’t reply.
He didn’t mind.
Corrado left Ginevra to her game, and he went back to Alessio’s library. Shit felt easier there. He could breathe better in that space, further away from her, and the confusion he now felt.
Except that was a lie, too.
Nothing was easier.
• • •
“Fuck.”
Corrado glared at the digital clock on the nightstand that displayed a time way too early for his fucking phone to be ringing. Even if the sun was up, it didn’t matter. Nobody needed to wake his ass up before seven-thirty.
Unless someone was dead.
And even then, it depended on who died.
“What?” he snarled into the phone.
“Woke you up, did I?”
Corrado’s brow knotted as he took in the familiar voice, and then eyed the clock again. Seven o’clock in Toronto meant it was four in the morning in Las Vegas. “Why aren’t you sleeping, Les?”
The man on the other end of the phone made a grunt. A good sign he didn’t want to answer the question, but he was probably going to do it anyway simply because Corrado asked. So was their way.
“Well?” Corrado pressed.
Pushing over in the bed, Corrado rolled to his back while keeping the phone at his ear. He waited for whatever it was Alessio had to tell him as he sat up, and used the black velvet of the headboard as a place to rest his back.
He needed to wake up.
Alessio was still quiet on the phone.
Across the hall from his master bedroom—without Alessio, Corrado rarely closed his bedroom door—he found a familiar form sleeping. Apparently, Ginevra also didn’t know how to close her door when she went to bed, although this was the first time Corrado had woken up before her in the week that they had been staying together in this penthouse. Usually, he had found other ways to distract himself when the woman was around, so then they both had their space.