Ravenna
I waited until Ryder had gone upstairs for his eight o'clock call.
Then I stood up from the breakfast table and said, quietly enough, that the staff would not carry it anywhere: Walk with me.
Kate followed.
I took her to the sitting room at the front of the house and closed the door. No staff on this side. Just the two of us and the morning light coming in grey through the curtains and the sound of the house settling into its day around us.
I turned to face her. I kept my spine straight and my hands loose at my sides and I looked at her the way I had been practicing looking at people lately, directly, without apology, without the instinct to soften it.
"Show me," I said.
She had been waiting for this moment. I could tell by the way she pulled her phone out, not quickly, not
