Page 109 of Valentino

I don't answer. The silence does it for me, and I see the answer land in her.

"Right." She nods slowly. The sheet stays where it is and she doesn't reach for it, doesn't cover herself, just sits there bare-shouldered and furious in a way that hasn't reached her voice yet. "You stay. In the country where every hired gun in Europe is shopping for your face. While I drink airline wine over the Atlantic. That's the plan everyone settled on."

"If I cross a border right now, I drag the hunt with me. Straight to Chicago. Straight to my aunt, my mother, Vittoria. Straight to you." I lean forward, elbows on my knees, because I need her to understand the plan, not forgive it. "Here, I'm hard to get to. I know this country down to the dirt. There, I'm not protecting you. I'm bringing them to your door."

"Don't explain it like I'm one of your men. I get it. I'm not stupid, Valentino. I understand the plan is smart." She swallows. "I'm asking about the part where nobody asked me."

"Because your answer was going to be no."

"My answer is no."

"It's not a question anymore. The plane leaves at eleven." I make myself hold her eyes while I say it. "I'd rather you walk onto it. But you're getting on it either way, bella, and I think you know me well enough to believe me."

She laughs once. Then she's up off the bed, pulling my shirt from the floor and dragging it over her head.

"You know what's funny?" She buttons one button, gives up on the rest, and turns back to me with her arms crossed. "I spent twenty-five years being handed itineraries. School schedules. Holiday plans. Settled arrangements from people who loved me in theory and managed me in practice. And I told myself you were different, because you made me believe my answer mattered."

"Amanda—"

"So answer me one thing." Her voice drops, and that's worse than shouting. "The passport was ready yesterday. Bruno called you yesterday. Which means this morning, breakfast, the bedroom, all of it—" she gestures at the wrecked sheets between us like evidence at a trial, "—you already knew. You had me twice today, and the whole time, you knew you were putting me on a plane tonight."

"I knew last night," I say. "I knew at breakfast. I knew when I carried you in here, and I knew every minute after. If I had it back, I'd still take every hour I had with you."

Her mouth opens. I keep going before she can stop me.

"You want me to say I feel guilty. I don't. I had one day left with you, and I took it. I wanted breakfast. I wanted the bed. I wanted you laughing before I became the man who sent you away.”

She stands there in my shirt with one button done and her arms wrapped around herself, looking at me like the damage is still happening.

"That's the most selfish thing anyone has ever said to me," she says.

"Probably."

"And the most honest."

"Also probably."

Her chin trembles once. She stops it out of spite, and Dio, I love her for that. The fury is all she has left to stand on.

"Get back in bed," I say.

She huffs out a laugh. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. We have hours before the airport. You can spend them standing in the corner hating me, or you can come here and hate me where it's warm." I pull the sheet back on her side. "Be angry next to me, bella. I'm not asking you to stop. Bring it with you."

"No."

Her arms tighten across her chest, and her bare feet stay planted on the cold floor. The shirt swallows her to mid-thigh, and she has never looked more like someone I don't deserve.

"Amanda."

"I said no." Her voice climbs. "You don't get the last day, Valentino. You don't get to plan my exile, screw me twice on the way to it, and then pat the mattress like I'm a dog who'll come when⁠—"

I'm off the bed before she finishes.

She gets out half a syllable of protest before my arm hooks around her waist and her feet leave the floor. Her elbow catches my ribs and her heel cracks against my shin hard enough to sting. I take both hits without slowing.

I put her down on the bed and follow her, caging her in with my arms before she can roll for the edge.