MALIA
A knock on the door woke me the next morning. Before I could respond, the door creaked open and Isabella peeked inside.
“Good morning,” she tried to say in her soft, cheerful tone, but her voice was raspy, and she had a scarf around her neck. Marcello had told me that she had not been feeling well.
“Breakfast will be ready soon, and I wanted to ask if you’d like to eat in the kitchen with everyone?”
I nodded, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I looked around the room — a space that looked like it belonged in a five-star hotel. Too beautiful to hate. Too luxurious to be comforting.
“Sure. Just… tell me who ‘everyone’ is.”
She stepped inside and gently closed the door behind her, then walked over to the windows, pulling back the curtains and cracking them open like she was acting
