Page 76 of Promised to the Don of Naples
"You know."
"Different. In a good way."
"Bene."
His hand kept moving through my hair, and we stayed quiet for a couple of minutes. I could hear his heart through the skin of his chest—slower than yesterday, steadier than any heart I could remember resting against.
"Luca, I'm hungry."
He laughed. Louder. For the first time, a real laugh—his chest rising, the sound coming up out of his throat with nothing held back.
"Bella mia, me too."
He reached over and picked up the intercom on the nightstand, pressing a button.
"Donna Beatrice, send breakfast for two up to my room." A pause. "Yes. For two."
He hung up and looked at me.
"In fifteen minutes she'll knock on the door with a look on her face like she doesn't know a thing."
"She knows."
"She knew the moment she saw me carry you down the hall yesterday. The whole house knows, bella. In Donna Beatrice's jurisdiction, you've been signora Moretti since last night."
"I'm not signora of anything yet."
"You are to her. To me. And to yourself, if you're honest."
Donna Beatrice knocked fifteen minutes later.
I was wrapped in a black robe of his, big enough to go around me three times. I sat on the bed, legs tucked under me, my hair in a loose, half-undone bun, no makeup at all.
He opened the door in pajama pants and a white shirt with the top three buttons undone—his wounded shoulder bandaged, but no visible pain.
Donna Beatrice came in without looking at me, without looking at him. She set the tray on the low table between the two reading sofas and straightened the sugar bowl by a centimeter. Then, before she left, she stopped in the doorway and looked at me.
"Signora Moretti. Would you prefer your pancakes with honey or with jam next time?"
"Honey."
"Capisco."
She left, and Luca looked at me.
"Bella…"
"Shut up, Luca."
He smiled again and sat down beside me on the sofa, picking up a cornetto from the tray, biting off half, and offering me the other.
We ate in silence for about five minutes.
Black coffee. Cornetto. Fruit. Fresh bread with buffalo mozzarella. A family eating breakfast.
Aside from the detail that he was the Don of the Camorra and I was the daughter of the man he wanted to kill, it was the most domestic thing I'd experienced in that house.
"Luca. The attack…"
