The air in the dining hall was thick with the scent of jasmine and expensive floor wax, a sterile, haunting perfection that felt like a slap to my sensory memory. I stood at the foot of the mahogany table, my cream-colored cashmere dress clinging to my skin like a shroud I had already worn and discarded. My hand was still stinging, the ghost of the silver Sucre’s jagged edges lingering in my palm, though my hand was now empty.
Roman sat at the head of the table, the morning sun through the high windows catching the silver in his dark hair. He looked younger, the exhaustion of the Mediterranean war wiped from his face, but his eyes—those turbulent, grey storms—were old. They were the eyes of the man who had held me in the surf of Positano. They were the eyes of the man who had watched his
