“I know. She lived with me for four months, remember?”
Valentina purses her lips. I pull out a chair and sit down. A maid appears and comes over to fill my coffee cup before asking what I’d like to eat. I request two hardboiled eggs and a side of smoked salmon. The maid leaves, and Valentina stands up, tucking her book under her arm.
“Be very careful,” she warns. “If you upset her, I will kick you out. Cleo is my sister, and I will not allow you to mess with her.”
“I don’t think there’s a way around upsetting her. We have difficult conversations ahead of us.”
Valentina’s eyes narrow. “You’re lucky she’s not very good at hiding her feelings from me. If I thought she was truly over you, I wouldn’t hesitate to make you leave. But she’s not.”
I sit up straighter. Her words inject a much-needed dose of hope into my veins. “What do you—”
She shakes her head. “I’m not helping you win her over. That’s on you. Damiano told me he gave you three days. Use them wisely.” She stalks away.
“I’m planning on it,” I mutter to the empty room.
That’s why I’m here this early. I don’t want to take the chance I’ll miss her when she comes down. If all I have are three days, I’m going to be around her as much as I can. We need to talk and I have to find some way to make her listen.
I finish my breakfast and down a few cups of coffee while I wait for Cleo to wake up. Just before ten, she shuffles into the dining room in an oversized T-shirt dress, her hair tousled, and her mouth open on a yawn. The sight hits me right in the chest. This is how she used to look in the mornings when she woke up to say goodbye to me before I left for work. My gaze drags over her body, all the way down to her exposed legs.
Where did she get that tan? What has she been doing in Italy? The thought of her lying in a bikini on a beach, her perfect body on display for anyone to see, sends a surge of possessiveness through me.
When she sees me, she halts. Her expression goes from neutral to dismayed before settling on reluctant. “You’re still here.”
I press my napkin to my lips. “I am.”
I’m half expecting her to turn around and walk out of the room, but she surprises me by taking a seat across the table from me.
“Who’s running things while you’re gone?” she asks, her voice clipped.
“Alec.”
“Oh, I remember him from my birthday party.” She reaches for the bowl of fruit salad. “He’s one of your capos.”
“He’s been promoted to my underboss.” I didn’t have an official underboss until now because Nero always played the part of my second-in-command.
Cleo’s gaze darts to me. “I’m surprised you trust him enough to run things while you’re here.”
I do, and I don’t. Alec is loyal and smart, but he needs more experience before he can even come close to the standard set by Nero. A few weeks ago, leaving him in charge of my family would be unthinkable, but I didn’t even hesitate to do exactly that two days ago. The only thing that mattered was getting here. Getting to Cleo.
“I didn’t have a choice.”
She scoops some fruit onto her plate. “You always have a choice. You can go home.”
“You are my home.”
She halts, her spoon midair. Pain flashes across her expression, like my words physically hurt.
“If you keep saying things like that, I’ll have no choice but to ask Damiano to kick you out,” she whispers, putting the spoon down, her gaze on her plate.
“I can’t. Not until you and I finish our conversation.”
Her lips purse into a thin line. “Rafaele, honestly. What are you hoping to accomplish? There’s no path forward for us.”
“I disagree.”
“Do you think I can just forget that you tossed me away at the first sign of trouble?” she says harshly, trying to mask her hurt with anger, but she doesn’t quite succeed.
I stand up and walk over to sit in the chair beside her. She stiffens when I place my hand on her forearm, but she doesn’t pull away.
“A lot went wrong that day. I couldn’t handle the thought of you being hurt, and I acted in ways I regret.”
She stares at my hand. “That’s not all it was. You reacted very differently when I got hurt when we got attacked at Il Caminetto.”
“Yes, but that was before—”
Forest-green eyes flit to me, a question written in them. “Before what?”