To see the darker brown flecks in the lighter tawny irises of her eyes. To see the splattering of freckles on the edges of her cheeks, closer to her hairline. To back her against the wall as she stared up at him.
And to feel the warmth of her body.
He was entirely too close.
Alessio still didn’t back up.
“No,” he said simply, “I haven’t found it yet.”
“Sorry to waste your time, then.”
Alessio arched a brow, his teeth grinding against the piece of mint gum that had, for the most part, kept him calm over the last hour while he waited. “It’s fine, no worries.”
“Really? Because I don’t think it is, Alessio. Fine, I mean.”
Her voice?
Still musical.
Not that it mattered.
“Oh, it’s definitely not fine,” he replied, “but I won’t be leaving until it is.”
Ginevra swallowed audibly, and that tremor danced over the line of her smooth shoulders again. Still damp from the rain, and naked now, as she’d pulled the straps of the silk dress down over her arms when she thought she was alone ... he noticed entirely too much about this woman.
But he blamed Corrado for that, too.
This obsession.
He just wanted to know why.
Why her.
Why?
Alessio took a step away from Ginevra when he heard the knob on the penthouse door begin to turn. He glanced to the side, a grin curving his lips as it opened, and the man of the hour finally arrived.
Corrado looked to him first when he stepped inside, and then he checked on Ginevra, too. He didn’t seem surprised to find Alessio in the penthouse, but more like he expected it. No one was better acquainted with the asshole in Alessio than Corrado, frankly.
Quietly, Corrado said, “We should talk, yeah?”
Alessio winked. “You think?”
“Les—”
“Yeah, let’s fucking talk, Corrado.”
Time to really get this show started, then.
27.
Corrado
“Where do you want to—”
“The office,” Alessio said, taking two steps backward.
Further from Ginevra.
Corrado wasn’t really worried on that. Alessio wasn’t the type to get violent when he was feeling some kind of way. At least, not to women. Men, on the other hand, were an entirely different story.
Fair game, as Alessio would say.
“The office, then,” Corrado said.
He tried to keep his tone calm, but it was harder than he thought it would be. Mostly because he’d figured out quickly that Alessio had fucked him over tonight, and that wasn’t like him at all. The second he stepped into the penthouse and saw Alessio stepping back from Ginevra like he’d had her backed against the wall, well ... Corrado simply wanted to put some space between the two.
Make Alessio think.
Corrado needed a second, too.
“Yeah,” Alessio muttered, shooting Corrado a look.
Just like that, the other man turned in the hallway, and walked away without as much as a look over his shoulder. Not that it made a difference. He could just tell ... Alessio wasn’t happy, but honestly, neither was Corrado. This could have been done a hundred different ways, but he didn’t have to come in like this, either. The tension was still far too thick in their air; Corrado could practically taste it, for fuck’s sake.
Once Alessio rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, Corrado looked to Ginevra, but she stared at the floor between them. Like it was far more interesting than him, and maybe in that moment, it absolutely was to her.
Who was he to say?
Still, he needed to check ...
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Ginevra nodded, her fingers tightening on the clutch in her grip. “Yeah, Corrado.”
“You’re sure?”
Her chin tipped up, and through her lashes, he saw the anger and pain staring back at him. It really showed through in the frown that marred her pretty lips, and the tightening in her jaw. Jesus. The girl was good at hiding it—no doubt about it, and he wouldn’t deny her that truth. But fuck him, if it still didn’t cut him deep to see that leveling on him.
He deserved it, though.
Corrado knew that.
All the hell that was about to come his way from two entirely different people ... yeah, he earned every bit of it. He wasn’t so stupid or selfish that he didn’t recognize the fact Ginevra and Alessio were both due their thoughts about what he had done to them. And so, he planned to let them do whatever they needed so that he understood their feelings on it all.
Didn’t he owe them that?
At least?
Corrado thought so.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” Ginevra asked, her voice barely breaking a murmur. She wouldn’t look at him entirely, but she still watched him through her lashes. It was enough for Corrado. “The other person, I mean.”
He nodded. “It is. And I know you don’t want to hear it right now, but I’m so—”
“You’re right, I don’t want to hear it.”
“All right.” He gestured at the hallway, knowing Alessio was likely already waiting for him in the office. “I have to take care of that, but you’re ... it’s been a long night, Ginny. You should relax.”
She scoffed at his back when he passed. Corrado didn’t acknowledge it.
Then, behind him, she said, “He’s ...”
He hesitated in his next step. “What?”
“He’s overwhelming,” she whispered.
Corrado shot her a look over his shoulder and laughed bleakly. “I know.”
Because where was the lie?
Alessio had always been overwhelming.
In every sense of the word.
• • •
Corrado found Alessio sitting on the edge of the desk, using the arm of a guest’s chair to rest his foot on as he sliced through the top of a letter with his favorite pocket knife. He said nothing as Corrado stepped into the office and closed the door just enough that there was a crack to see out into the hallway.
Mostly because he wanted to watch for Ginevra.
All the while, Alessio said nothing. He pulled the bill out of the envelope that he opened, looked it over, and then tossed it aside. Just as quickly, he picked up another from the pile, clicked his tongue as he slid the knife under the paper, and opened it, too.
“That’s what you want to do right now?”
“Why not?” Alessio asked, reading over the paper in his hands. “It’s not like you care to look at the bills—they fucking sit in a pile.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong ...
Corrado simply preferred to let Alessio do those types of things because he found it mundane and fucking boring.
“The maid handles that here,” Corrado said. “Because someone needs to keep up on it when we’re not around, Les.”
“Right, right.”
As fast as the bill had been in Alessio’s hand, it too was tossed to the desk. Discarded, and forgotten in a blink when his gaze turned on Corrado standing in front of the door.
And there it is.
That fury.
The sting of it.
A war raged in Alessio’s eyes, and Corrado didn’t look away. He couldn’t. Alessio was still owed that, after all, and Corrado would let him have it even if every second of it hurt him, too. That’s what one did when they hurt someone they loved, or so he thought.