Tears welled. “You were stern with me, but I was only worried about you.”
“I know, cara mia.” His shoulders deflating, his thin arms did not look half as strong as they used to. “Forgive me.”
I wanted to tuck my head against his chest to make sure I could still hear his heart beating, but I did not dare. Papà was not an affectionate man. I could not remember a time when he had ever embraced me. “Always, Papà.”
“That’s my Principessa.” He forced a smile before quickly dropping it. “Now, please, do as I ask. You do not need to worry about me tonight. I am merely having a business dinner. You can fret over me after it is over and my guests have left.”
I did not ask who was coming. I had learned a long time ago that Papà did not discuss anything related to business or his colleagues. I was not even sure who his colleagues were. I had caught glimpses of different men coming and going over the years, and of course I had heard the whispered rumors from the house staff, but I had always dismissed them. Papà only relegated me to my room because he was protective of me.
Especially since the accident.
I did not remember Mamma or my brother. I was too little to walk when it had happened, but I felt their loss, and I saw it in Papà’s haunted expressions when he thought I was not looking. The car accident that had taken them both weighed on Papà like the heaviness of the dirt pressing down on their graves.
He took time every day to give me his attention, but no matter how many times he smiled, I always saw it in his eyes. He missed them.
So I missed them.
But in truth, the only life I knew was Papà and the house staff, and I had been content—until two years ago.
That was when Papà’s cough had started.
The cough that was worse today.
“When will your company leave?” Normally, I would never ask, but we were alone out here in the countryside. As much as I loved this villa over the bigger home in the city, I could not deny that it worried me that we had come up here with only the driver and the cook. Papà’s doctor was an hour away. Everything was an hour away. Surrounded by rows and rows of lemon and olive trees as far as the eye could see until the horizon dipped into the Mediterranean, it was beautiful, but it was isolated.
“When we are done conducting business.” Papà gently grasped my arm and gave me a little push back in the direction of my room. “Now go, Sancia. Read your books or draw me a picture as beautiful as my only daughter. But keep to yourself, and I will let you know when we are alone again.”
I still could not let it go. “But you are tired today. I think you should postpone your dinner.”
“Cara mia, I am about out of time to postpone business dinners.”
Alarm rang through my nerves like an unexpected sharp toll of a bell tower. “What does that mean? What did the doctor say to you last week?”
Papà straightened his shoulders and posture. “Bedroom, Sancia. Now.”
“Let someone else from the bank handle the business.” Surely there were other people who could step in.
His small grunt was tired but no less authoritative. “I am the bank.” He turned toward the stairs. Then he did something he had never done before. He threatened me. “Do not make me send Vittorio up here.”
Before I could cover my surprise, Papà was descending the stairs and calling out for the driver. “Vittorio!”
Papà’s too-tall, too-big driver appeared almost immediately in the grand entry hall that was more suited to a city palace than a country villa. His steel gaze focused on me, letting me know he had heard our conversation, he replied to Papà. “Signore?”
I did not linger.
Quickly retreating to my room and closing the door, I leaned against it, pressing my ear to the cool wood, but it was of no use. All I could discern was the faint, muffled sound of their voices, neither distinguishable from the other, let alone what was being spoken.
Worried, resigned, I pushed off the door and glanced at my small desk and the open window overlooking the front courtyard. The cook had come up earlier, leaving a plate with cheese, bread, olives and figs. I knew whatever she was making for dinner would be much more elaborate, but I did not mind my meal. I preferred my food the same way I preferred my life—simple.
Warm sun, the libraries in each home, a sketchbook, and Papà healthy.
That was how I liked things.
But life had not been that simple for two years.
As it if were a forewarning instead of a spectacular golden-peach and pink-hued sunset, the last of the waning rays slipped away beneath the dusk and succumbed to the night. The artfully arranged architectural lights came on in the courtyard below and cast an artificial glow that made the sky even darker by contrast.
Sighing at the loss of another day, I paused with a horrible thought as I pulled out the chair from my desk.
Was counting down days making Papà sicker?
Was I cursing his longevity by quantifying it?
Guilt crested, then washed through me so thoroughly, my legs became weak. Taking the seat, my thoughts berated me.
I was cutting my father’s life short by deeming days as lost instead of a gift. I needed to stop that. I needed to—
The telltale, distant crunch of tires on gravel sounded.
A moment later, a sleek, black Mercedes SUV with heavily tinted windows pulled up to the front steps and stopped right in my line of sight.
Leaning back from my desk, I briefly thought of shutting the window and pulling the drapes. But I had not yet turned on any lights in my room, so I would not be visible—not unless someone really looked.
Staring at the SUV, my hand automatically going to the closest pencil, I opened my sketchbook to a new page and readied myself.
For what, I did not know, but same as everything else about today, this felt… different.
No doors had opened yet. The engine was still on. I could not see any passengers, and the dark lines of the large vehicle looked more sinister than expensive, as if it had its own breath, and that breath was as angry as a bull.
Then the engine cut off, the driver’s door opened, and a man stepped out.
I gasped.
Inky black hair, square jaw, muscles straining the sleeves of his shirt, he stood at the open door as he scanned the entire courtyard.
Staring at the most beautiful man I had ever seen, I dropped my pencil and grabbed charcoal. Desperate to capture his image, my hand began to move across the page.
Then he took off his shirt.
The charcoal fell from my fingers, and I pushed back in my chair.
His gaze immediately cut to my exact window on the second story as his fierce stare wrapped around my throat and gripped my heart, stealing all my air.
Shirtless, a gun at his waist, his body sculpted by the gods, he did not move.
He stared.
A moment that dissected my entire life passed.
Then he flicked his wrist and became a symphony of controlled motion.
Pushing his impossibly strong arms through the sleeves of a new shirt, kicking his door shut, deftly doing up the buttons, he rounded the front of the SUV.
By the time he opened first the rear, then the front passenger doors, his shirt was neatly tucked in, he had scanned the courtyard again twice, and his right hand was resting on his gun.
He said something I could not hear to someone in the front seat that I could not see, then he lifted his chin.