The passport sits in my inbox all day, like a sin I haven’t committed yet.
I don’t reply.
I don’t delete it.
I move through the villa like a ghost with a bomb in her pocket.
Mia watches me, but doesn’t ask. Maybe she senses that if she pushes, I’ll either spill everything or shatter.
Dante is everywhere and nowhere.
Meetings. Calls. Luca is in and out of his office with that clipped, coiled energy that says the outside world is pressing harder than usual. Whenever I’m in a room, he gravitates there eventually—like we’re tethered by something neither of us knows how to cut.
But he doesn’t corner me.
Doesn’t force a talk.
He just…hovers at the edges, trying to be gentle without knowing what that looks like on him.
By late afternoon, the villa feels too big and too small at once.
I
