Chapter 10 — You Are Not a Guest Here
869 Words
Dinner at eight was, in fact, a negotiation with silverware.
The dining room was long and candlelit, and Luca was already seated when she arrived precisely at eight, because she'd decided that lateness was a tool she would save for when she needed it more. He stood when she entered.
She hadn't expected that.
"You stand for people," she said, sitting.
"I stand for my wife," he said. He sat. He picked up his wine glass.
She processed that. "Am I your wife or your arrangement?"
"Both," he said. "The distinction matters to you?"
"It might," she said. "Eventually."
The food arrived, brought by staff she was cataloguing as they moved: a housekeeper named Ginevra, approximately fifty, who moved through the villa as if she'd been built into its walls. Two younger staff members. A cook she had not yet seen but whose risotto she was already willing to trust.
She ate. He ate. The silence between them was not uncomfortable, which surprised her. She had expected the silence of two strangers with nothing. Instead it was the silence of two people watching each other carefully and both aware they were being watched.
"Tell me the rules," she said, after the first course.
"I've told you—"
"Generalities." She looked at him across the candles. "I need specifics. I'm going to break whatever rules you have because I don't yet know what they are, and I would prefer to break them deliberately." A pause. "Mostly."
Something moved across his face. "The south wing is staff quarters. They value their privacy."
"Fine."
"The study on the second floor is mine. Knock before entering." "And if you're not there?" "Don't enter." She filed the study. Immediately. "The locked room at the end of the east corridor?"
The quality of his stillness changed. She had touched something real and she felt it like a change in air pressure.
"That room is private," he said.
"I wasn't going to open it," she said. "I was noting its existence."
He looked at her for a moment. "The gates close at nine. If you want to go into town, I'll provide security."
"I'm not a prisoner."
"You're not," he said. "You're also not safe outside these gates without protection, and I will provide that protection. You can go where you like within those parameters."
"Milan. Como. Rome?" "Milan and Como freely. Rome with advance notice." He picked up his wine. "Not further without discussion."
She considered it. For someone who'd been shot at that morning, it was not objectively unreasonable. She could work within it.
"My friends," she said. "My life in Milan. People who will notice a disappearance."
"You haven't disappeared. You've married."
"Same result if it isn't handled properly." She held his gaze. "I need to be able to see people. To move. If you need me to function convincingly as your wife in public, you need me to appear to have chosen this willingly and I cannot project that from behind a gate."
He was quiet. The logic was sound and they both knew it.
"Within reason," he said. "With precautions."
"Defined by you."
"Defined by security."
"Fine," she said.
He looked faintly surprised that she'd agreed. That pleased her considerably.
"Under one condition," she added. "You tell me something true about yourself every day. One thing. Small or large — your choice."
"What?"
"You have every piece of information about me that exists," she said. "I have know nothing about you except what newspapers chose to print. I refuse to be married to a complete stranger." She met his eyes. "One true thing per day."
He was very still. The candles moved in some current from the windows.
"I read at night," he said. "When I can't sleep. Which is most nights." He said it as fact no drama, no invitation.
"What do you read?"
"History. Rome, primarily." A pause. "Occasionally crime fiction. The kind where I know the procedural details are entirely wrong."
She almost laughed. She stopped it, but barely, and the almost was visible. Something shifted in the room — not dramatic, not obvious, but real.
"I paint," she offered. "Badly. I've been trying to paint the cat on the rooftop across from my apartment for three weeks. It keeps coming out looking personally offended."
"Cats generally are," he said.
"By me specifically."
"Possibly." He set his glass down. "There's a room with north light on the third floor. If you want to bring your materials."
"I found it already," she said. "This afternoon. While I was exploring."
He looked at her. "Within the permitted areas," she said, with complete innocence.
She watched him decide whether to be annoyed. She watched the decision happen behind his eyes.
"The east room," he said instead. "On the third floor. Best light in the house."
"I noticed," she said.
They looked at each other across the candles and the silverware and the careful architecture of a negotiation disguised as dinner.
She had broken three of his rules before the meal ended. He had told her something true. She had told him something true in return.
It was, she thought, a beginning.
She didn't yet know what it was beginning toward.
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