Page 41 of Promised to the Don of Naples
Almost.
There was something new in my eyes that hadn't been there when I arrived in Posillipo.
Something that looked like resolve, something that looked like hunger.
I crossed the grand salon and the east hallway. I'd told Bianca I'd come back to the music room at eleven the next day, but I wasn't going to the music room.
I knew where Luca was, because Donna Beatrice had let it slip, with the same calculated indifference as the morning before, that the padrone had asked for lunch to be served on the south terrace at twelve-thirty.
I had twenty minutes to settle something that couldn't wait.
I crossed the grand salon and went out through the double doors that opened onto the back gardens. The June sun hit my face—warm, not yet brutal.
And there he was.
Standing on the south terrace, both hands resting on the stone wall overlooking the bay, no jacket, a white long-sleeved shirt with the first two buttons open, sleeves already rolled to the elbow, looking at the sea.
He heard me coming, but didn't turn around.
"You came down early," he said.
"I came down right on time."
Then he turned around.
He took three seconds to look at me, head to foot, unhurried, with the attention of someone seeing a painting for the first time.
"You finally came back."
"I came back yesterday."
"You came back just now."
And he was right.
I walked to the wall and stopped a yard from him, resting my hands on the stone. I looked out at the bay too—because it was easier to talk to him without facing him.
"I talked to Bianca."
"I saw."
"You saw?"
"From the office window. I didn't hear, but I saw. What did you say to her?"
I looked at him for the first time that morning. His profile cut against the blue of the sea—the scar through his eyebrow, his jaw, the angle of his neck where the open collar showed his tanned skin.
"I said something I can't tell you yet."
"You're learning the game, bella."
"I always knew it. I just hadn't played yet."
"And now?"
"Now I'm playing."
He turned his body toward me and leaned his hip against the wall, crossing his arms.
