“For you.” He held it out for a second, realized she wasn’t going to take it from his hands, and tossed it back on the table.
She’d known the envelope was coming, but the sight stole her breath.
Alessa didn’t want his keen eyes on her when she read it, but the letter refused to be ignored, like a persistent buzzing in her ears. She picked it up, turning it over a few times before breaking the seal and scanning the flowery script. When she finished, she crumpled the paper in her fist, squeezing until sharp corners jabbed her palm through her thin gloves.
Dante eyed the mangled paper in her grip. “Love letter?”
“A summons.” Alessa dropped the crumpled ball into the trash. “The Consiglio is convening tomorrow.”
He raised his eyebrows. “That was fast.”
“Very.” She swallowed hard. “I thought I’d have a few more days, but it seems they’ll have the next poor soul trussed up and delivered by tomorrow evening.”
Dante turned to her bookshelf, running a hand down the leather spines as if the books were precious or potentially dangerous.
“My guards usually stand outside the door at night,” she said, walking toward the privacy screen. “But you can take a chair if you’d be more comfortable.”
Studying the faded spine of one book, he gestured at the couch. “I’ll sleep there.”
Alessa cut off a yawn. “No, you won’t.”
“I didn’t come to a castle to sleep in a chair.”
“Then drag the cushions into the hall. You can’t sleep in here.”
“Why not?”
“These are my rooms.” Her sanctuary, where she shed her layers and didn’t have to worry about her every movement terrorizing others. But she couldn’t say that. She refused to bare her pain to a rude stranger.
His biceps tested the linen fabric of his shirt as he crossed his arms. “How’d the guy who tried to kill you get in?”
She blinked. “The door?”
“Or the balcony.”
“You think he scaled the side of a four-story building?”
“There was a trellis.”
“Which is gone, thanks to your delicate handiwork. I can’t have a man in my rooms. There are rules.”
“You’re the Finestra. If you can’t change the rules, who can?”
“You don’t understand how my position works.”
“And you don’t understand how bodyguards work. See, I”—he pointed to himself—“guard your”—he pointed to her, tracing curves in the air—“body.”
She half-scooted behind the screen. “You work for me. I give the orders.”
“I don’t half-ass any job. You want me to guard, this is how I do it.”
If she had to close the balcony doors to get him in the hall, she’d spend the night tossing in a hot, stuffy bed, with visions of leather-clad hands squeezing her windpipe. “Fine. But I’ve killed three people already, and if you try to sneak up on me while I’m sleeping, you’ll be the fourth.”
Dante kicked off his shoes. “Same.”
She squinted at him. Was he saying he’d killed three people? That he’d kill her if she sneaked up on him? Both?
Eyes locked on her like he knew exactly what she was thinking, Dante began unbuttoning his shirt. Panicked, she fled before she made an even bigger fool of herself.
How was she supposed to relax with only translucent panels between her and a half-dressed stranger?
“Dea,” she breathed. Surely he wasn’t taking everything off.
Still trying to decipher his warning, Alessa determinedly steered her thoughts away from the brief glimpse of skin that was now branded into her memory and pulled on her most voluminous nightgown.
He was a criminal. He might be packing up her valuables already or waiting until she fell asleep to smash her head in. She should have shut her mouth in that alley the moment she realized he wasn’t the hero she’d taken him for.
This was ridiculous.
She stepped around the screen with a firm “get out” perched on the tip of her tongue, but he was gone.
The main door was closed. The bathing room was dark. A neatly folded shirt on the end table was the only sign he’d been there at all.
Her gaze flicked to every corner, then the ceiling, as though he might have taken flight. Warmth tickled the back of her neck, and she whirled, but there was no one there.
The wind shifted, carrying the scents of Saverio farther inside.
The balcony.