My cold Mafia husband

apology

~ Eleanora's POV ~

I avoided him the whole next day.

Not in any dramatic way. I just didn't stay in the same spaces for long. Library in the morning. Terrace after lunch. My room by evening.

It wasn't strategy. I just wasn't ready to see him again.

The argument had left something unsettled between us. Not resolved, not broken either. Just... open.

And I kept thinking about the parts I didn't know how to file away.

I still heard his voice from last night.

I still didn't like it.

Not the words themselves. The way he said them.

Like they had slipped out before he could stop them.

I kept seeing him afterward too - standing in the entrance hall, hand pressed to the wall, completely still.

That image stayed longer than it should have.

I did not know what to do with a Vincenzo who slipped.

By evening, I gave up on my thesis and sat outside with a glass of wine, watching the lake turn gold, then darker as the sun went down.

The door behind me opened.

I didn't turn immediately. I knew it was him.

His steps always came the same way - controlled, deliberate, like he chose the distance between each one.

He stopped a few feet away.

Silence first. That was his habit.

"I owe you an apology," he said.

I turned then.

He wasn't looking at me. Just out at the lake.

His hands were in his pockets. Jaw tight, like the words cost him something.

"I spoke to you last night as if you were something I needed to manage. That was wrong."

A pause.

"There is a difference between your safety and your freedom. I treated them as the same thing."

The lake had shifted to a deeper colour now, almost dark blue.

"The man," he added, and something tightened in his voice, "what I said about not liking it-"

He stopped. Restarted.

"That wasn't about ownership."

He finally looked at me.

"I want you to understand that."

I studied him. "Then what was it about?"

He didn't answer immediately.

I thought he might not.

Then he said, quietly, "I don't know yet."

No performance. No defence.

Just that.

It landed harder than anything else he could have said.

I looked away first.

"Thank you," I said.

He gave a small nod and turned back to the lake.

We stayed like that for a while.

In complete silence

Just the sound of water below and evening settling over the hills.

Then, without looking at me, he asked, "Where in Naples did you grow up?"

I glanced at him. "Chiaia. Why?"

"I know it."

That made me pause.

"My grandmother lived there," he said. "We used to visit every summer. Via Caracciolo.

I felt a shift in my chest, but I didn't name it.

"That's close to where I grew up," I said. "Via Toledo."

A beat.

"I used to buy sfogliatelle there," I added. "Ricotta ones."

"The ricotta ones are better," he said.

"Obviously."

Silence again.

Then he smiled.

Small. Brief.

Real.

It didn't last long. Barely there.

But it changed his face enough that I didn't look away fast enough.

He turned before it could stretch into anything.

"Good night, Eleanora," he said.

And went inside.

The door closed.

I stayed outside longer than I needed to, fingers tight around the glass, staring at the lake that suddenly felt too calm.

I had seen something I wasn't supposed to see.

And I was no longer sure which part of that unsettled me more.