Page 36 of Promised to the Don of Naples
VALENTINA ROSSI
I got to Posillipo on Sunday at nine at night.
I hadn't told anyone the exact time. My father had put me on a domestic flight from Palermo to Naples, and for my part, I hadn't sent Luca a single message asking for a car.
I left the airport, took an ordinary taxi, paid cash, and arrived at the Villa Moretti gatehouse without any escort.
The guard at the gatehouse looked at me for three seconds before he recognized me.
"Signorina Rossi." He spoke into the radio, and I waited. The answer came in twenty seconds. "You can go in."
The cypress drive was dark; the low lamps in the side beds lit only the trunks. The taxi driver looked at me in the rearview mirror with the look of someone who wanted to ask something and gave up halfway.
I paid, got out, and carried my suitcase to the front steps myself. The main door opened before I reached it.
Raffaele.
"Cognatina. You don't let anyone know when you're coming back?"
"I let the gate guard know."
"Thirty seconds before you got here." He took the suitcase from my hand without asking. "My brother is furious. He's been furious for two days."
"What a shame."
He looked at me. That was when he smiled, quickly.
"You came back different."
"I came back the same."
"You didn't." He carried the suitcase through the door. "I've known you for three weeks and I can see it. Careful, bella. You're about to be dangerous in a way this house can't hold."
I didn't answer.
We crossed the salon and went up the west-wing stairs. He stopped at my bedroom door and set the suitcase inside, but didn't come in.
"My brother won't come down tonight." He gave me a sideways look. "Do me a favor: tomorrow, go to him before he comes down to you."
"Why?"
"Because a proud, hurt man is a man who does stupid things. And my brother has been proud and hurt since Friday morning."
"I didn't do anything."
"Cognatina." He sighed. "You disappeared for three days with your father. For any other man, that's a family trip. For Luca, it's a betrayal he's already cataloging."
He just said that and left without closing the door. I stood there with the suitcase at my feet.
A proud, hurt man.
That had warmed something in me, and I hated it.
I didn't go to Luca in the morning.
Out of pride. My own. Because if he was hurt, so was I—and I wasn't going to go up first. I showered and put on black pants, a white blouse, and pinned up my hair.
I went down to the breakfast room at eight. Donna Beatrice was there, supervising the table, with her steel-gray bun and the usual black apron.
