Page 146 of When She Tempts (The Fallen)
“One each day. I wasn’t sure if I should give them to you, since you said you didn’t want to talk about him.”
“Have you read them?”
She frowns. “Of course not. They’re yours. I can give them to you if you want to read them.” After a moment, she adds, “Or we can burn them in the fireplace.”
I scoff and glance at the unlit hearth.
Would it hurt to take a peek at just one of them?
“I’ll take them.”
Vale nods and lifts out of the armchair. “Let me grab them from my room.”
When she opens the door, Sophia trots in and curls into a ball at my feet. I bend down to scratch her behind the ear. Weird. She has a bow wrapped around her neck. And is that a new collar?
She used to have a black leather one, but this one is red, and there’s a tag in the shape of a heart. My heart picks up speed when I read the inscription.
“Sophia De Rossi. If found, contact her owner, Martina De Rossi.”
My eyes pop wide. Giorgio’s giving Sophia to me?
I slide down to the ground beside her and reread the inscription a few times to make sure I’m not imagining it.
When the words stay the same, I wrap my arms around Sophia and peck her on her furry head. A traitorous butterfly flutters inside my belly before I will it to get on its way. This is a nice gesture, but Giorgio isn’t going to be able to gift his way to forgiveness.
“If he changes his mind about this, I won’t be giving you back,” I tell Sophia.
She twists her neck and gives my nose a lick.
“I’ll take good care of you,” I promise her. “You won’t even remember him after I give you the royal treatment for a few months.”
Vale returns with the letters and places them on the bed.
I point at the bow on Sophia’s neck. “Did you know about this?”
Her lips quirk up before she gets them under control. “I may have overheard something. I’m going to go check in with Dem. He wanted to talk to me. Are you two going to be okay here?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“I’ll come back with dinner,” she says and shuts the door behind her.
One of Sophia’s new toys—a mouse plushie—peeks out from beneath the armchair. I grab it and toss it across the room. It’s her new favorite game. As expected, she perks up and runs to bring it back to me.
I rest my head against the edge of the armchair and throw the toy a few more times.
The next time I do it, Sophie ignores the toy and comes to sniff the letters lying on the edge of the bed.
She knocks them to my lap and sits down beside me, giving me an expectant look.
“Hey, you can’t play both sides. You’re on my team now, girl.”
When my words have no apparent effect, I let out a sign and glance down at the small stack of letters. They’re bound by a black rubber band. My name peeks out from beneath it, written in Giorgio’s handwriting.
It seems silly to just keep staring at them. Now that I have them, I know my curiosity won’t let me leave them unopened. I take off the rubber band and open the envelope with the oldest date.
I haven’t seen much of Giorgio’s handwriting besides stumbling onto a few notes written in the margins of various tomes in his library. The script is elegant and has an unexpected flare.
Dear Martina,
