by Bethany-Kris
She didn’t want to talk.
Fine.
They would still be there.
They would still do this.
• • •
A month was a blink in time for Corrado, but especially when he wasn’t doing anything. Days melted into one another, turning into weeks, and then changing into a month before he even realized what had happened.
An entire month with the three of them sharing the same space. And hey, nobody had ripped anybody’s head off yet. He took that as a win.
Corrado only realized the date because his father said it in his ear, and he checked the calendar on his desk to confirm that Gian was correct. Surprise, he was.
“How is everything over there?” his father asked on the call.
“Better.”
Gian chuckled. “You know, I never realized how nosy I was until one of you five boys had something ... interesting going on in your personal lives.”
Corrado wasn’t stupid—that was his father’s sly way of asking about their situation. Mostly, his father allowed all his children their privacy and space.
Sometimes, though, he didn’t.
Like now.
“It’s a complicated thing,” Corrado said quietly, eyeing the open doorway of his office. Ginevra had been playing a game in the sitting room, and Alessio was in the gym again, beating the hell out of a punching bag. “But then again, it was a complicated thing before she ever showed up, too.”
“And delicate, I imagine.”
Corrado cleared his throat. “Yeah, that, too.”
“I’m sure you’ll get it figured out. You got that message from your mother, oui?”
“I did. She’s like you—elle est trop curieuse.”
He only got to speak French with his father, and Corrado tried to sneak it because he could. None of his brothers, except for Marcus, had picked up French from their father like he did. Just bits and pieces, but not enough for him to hold a proper conversation. He liked to use it when he could.
“She is not too curious, Corrado. That is not why she asked for lunch.”
“Right,” Corrado said fast before his father could make up another excuse for Cara, “not at all.”
“Maybe that’s the case, but she also gets whatever she wants, and what she wants right now is to spend time with—”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Corrado’s head snapped up, and he found Ginevra standing in the office’s doorway. Her gaze drifted from him to the bookshelves lining the wall at the left of his desk.
“I’ll just give you a minute,” she said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“It’s fine,” Corrado told her, and then back on the call, “I will call you back, Papa, and yes, tomorrow is a go. Tell Ma.”
“Will do, son.”
Once Corrado had ended the call, he gave Ginevra his attention. She continued standing in the doorway not coming further into the room or moving away.
“You need something?”
She pointed at the bookshelves. “I picked out a book yesterday, but I didn’t take it with me. I hadn’t finished my other one, so ...”
Corrado nodded and gestured at the shelves. “Go ahead. This space is as much yours as it is ours while you’re here.”
She passed him a curious glance, but Corrado didn’t bother to ask what for. He figured it was better he talked like Ginevra had to share the same spaces he and Alessio did daily because it was true.
She belonged here.
With them.
They needed to figure it out, too.
Ginevra moved into the office, and crossed the space with quick, quiet steps. She bent down to pull a book from the third shelf, like she had known where she left it, and straightened back up with it in her hand, ready to leave.
Before she did, she flipped it open to the title page, and a soft noise of surprise escaped her. That gained Corrado’s attention again, but she wasn’t even looking at him. Instead, her focus was on the book in her grasp.
“Something wrong?”
Ginevra glanced up, a soft smile curving her cheeks. “No, I ... there’s a note here, is all.”
“Pardon?”
She turned the book around so that Corrado could see what she meant by a note. There, a yellow sticky note with familiar handwriting scrawled across it stuck to the page. He was unable to read what Alessio had written on the note, but he still recognized the bold cursive lettering.
Corrado felt his smirk growing. “From Les.”
She shrugged. “Seems so.”
“What does it say?”
“That I will like the second half more, and to skip the first,” she said, laughing. “He gave me the page numbers of his favorites, too. It’s another book of poetry—that’s all.”
Not at all something Corrado enjoyed.
Or appreciated.
Yet, Ginevra and Alessio shared that, and he found it fascinating. “Did you show him that book when you picked it out yesterday?”
“No, I came in and looked it over before putting it back.”
Right.
But those shelves ...
All those books.
They were Alessio’s. He’d picked every single one and decided where they should go on the shelves. He recognized them front to back because not a single book went into his library if he didn’t read it cover to cover. If one of those books moved, Alessio would know about it.
Which meant ...
He’d been watching for which books Ginevra picked out on her own.
“I’m sure it seems silly,” Ginevra said, rolling her eyes, “But ... it’s nice.”
He didn’t think it to be silly. No, he didn’t appreciate books and words and poetry like the two of them did, but he grasped what Alessio had done here.
“It means he likes you,” Corrado murmured.
She scoffed, giving him a roll of her eyes. “Lately, he barely speaks to me. He keeps a distance, not that I blame him. Oh, he watches me sure, but so do you. But likes me, Corrado, that’s a stretch.”
Oh, it was way deeper than that.
“You should have figured out by now that nothing with Alessio is simple or obvious. Think about it,” he said, leaning back in the office chair to watch her over the steepling of his fingers, “you hadn’t told Les about the book which means he sought what you read, so he would be aware, and keep up with you. It means he’s thinking of you, Ginny, in his own way.”
Corrado shrugged, adding, “So, he keeps a distance, and he’s quiet. That’s Alessio. He’s working through his own shit, and when he does that, he isolates as much as he can. It’s not about you, even if it is for you.”
He didn’t miss the way her fingers tightened on the edge of the book, or how her throat jumped at his words. She shifted from foot to foot, too, refusing to meet his gaze. All those nerves of hers, he saw it all.
And Corrado hated that.
Out of all the things happening here, he did not want her nervous about this. Not about Alessio, or him, or what might come of it. Some things should be easy and them falling into step together needed to be one of those. There would be more than enough of it that would be hard, surely.
“Come here,” he whispered, tipping his head to the side.
“What?”
Corrado pointed at his side. “Get over here.”
Still tittering in her anxious way, Ginevra closed the book, and came to stand next to Corrado’s chair behind the desk. Staring down at him, he thought she looked sweet, and a little sinful. Expectant, but hesitant.
Exactly as she should, really.
Reaching up, he caught one of her stray waves of hair between his fingertips and twisted the strands around his index finger. “I like you closer, Ginny. You understand that, don’t you?”
Her tongue peeked out to wet her lips when he tugged on the strands of hair, making her lower until she bent over at her middle, and the two of them were at eye level with each other. Here, he only had to lean forward and kiss her.
Still, he held off.
For a moment ...
“Do you?”
“Hmm?”
“Like me closer.”
“More often than I get you, chérie.”
Her gaze dropped to his mouth before snapping back up to his eyes. He didn’t miss the way her lower lip trembled like she had something to say, but held it back.
“What is it?” he asked. “Say it, kitten.”
“You still call me that.”
“Because you are, soft but with sharpness. It’s perfect.”
Like her.
Ginevra let out a slow breath and glanced away. “I’m not sure what to do here, Corrado.”
“With what?”
“You, and ... him. I don’t know what to do, or how to act. I didn’t ask for any of this, and it’s hard enough handling one man who has an interest in me, let alone two. It’s confusing and—”
“I get it,” he interjected. “He knows that, too.”
She gave him a look again.
That look.
Annoyed, and amused at the same time.
“What?” he asked.
“It doesn’t bother you at all?”
“I need more to go on, Ginny.”
“To think someone else might want me—to touch me, fuck me? Or I might want to do that to someone else that isn’t you?”
Corrado blinked.
Straight to the point, then.
That’s what she worried about?
God.
That was the last thing he worried about with the three of them. It would probably be the easiest part of it all. Sex was sex, and when that was good, shit, everything else came a hell of a lot easier.
“No, actually,” he said, smiling as he leaned in closer to her, nearly able to kiss her as he spoke, “the idea of that, the person I love, and the one I’m falling in love with might love each other, too ... why would that bother me?”
She blinked.
Still and quiet.
Corrado wasn’t sure if he liked that more than her frankness in this discussion, or not. Quickly, he added, “And it turns me on.”
Ginevra made a soft noise.
Airless, he thought.
And hot.
“A bonus for you, I bet,” she said.
“Or the way it should be.”
“I don’t think this is that easy, Corrado.”
“No, some of us want to make it hard, I suppose.” His gaze dropped to her pretty, pink lips and their natural pout. “I’d like to kiss you.”
He hadn’t touched her.
Gave her space.
Didn’t push.
It stopped now, but he needed her okay, first. Their game had becoming tiring. He’d sacrificed and suffered because of what he’d done, and he took that penance, as Alessio had once said.
He’d gone without.
Waited.
He wanted from afar.
“Do you?” she asked.
“I do.”
Ginevra swallowed audibly, her lips pressing together before she said, “Then, do that, Corrado.”
He didn’t need further permission. The second those words slipped out of her sweet mouth, he closed that inch of space between them. Catching her lips with his own, he reveled in the softness of her mouth against his own. It’d been far too long since he had a taste of this woman, and he soaked in every single second.
The way her lips worked against his, slow but sure. How her tongue struck out first to tease at the seam of his lips, asking for more. The little gasp she gave when he nipped at her with his teeth, and how her tongue slashed with his, not giving him even an inch of control in this battle between them.
He loved it all.
Wanted it all.
Corrado stroked the side of Ginevra’s cheek with the pad of his thumb when he pulled away, although part of him wanted to just stay right there, with her caught up in him and those thoughts of Alessio running through her head.
Because yeah, he knew that’s what was happening.
And he was fine with that.
“My mother called this morning,” he said, holding her gaze strong, “she wants to have lunch with you tomorrow.”
Ginevra’s gaze widened. “Why?”
“Because she found out you were still in the city with me, that Alessio is also here, I imagine she has questions, and she knows better than to ask me. Oh, and because she thought you made quite an impression on her, which means she likes you. Surprise, someone else that thinks you’re amazing.”
“Corrado. Stop it.”
“But it’s not a lie.”
And it wasn’t.
“We Guzzi men try to give our mother what she wants,” he added, “or we have to deal with our father. You’re safe to leave the penthouse, even if you haven’t asked to go further than a shop for clothes. No one knows you’re here, so if you want to do lunch tomorrow—it’s not negotiable, Cara decided, so—then you can do that. Chris promised Ma he would come to pick you up, so you wouldn’t be late because they don’t trust me to let you out of here, apparently.”
Ginevra grinned slyly. “Oh?”
“Seems so.”
He let her go, and Ginevra stood up straight. A happiness lingered in her smile, but he found something else dimming her gaze.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I just ... have you heard anything about back home, or my sisters?”
He didn’t tell her about the calls and messages he’d made because Corrado didn’t want to get Ginevra’s hopes up only to watch them crash and burn when he got no response from Andino. She had enough to deal with, and that didn’t need to be something else on her plate.
“No,” he said.
“Will you try?”
Corrado sighed.
Ginevra frowned. “Please? I haven’t tried to leave, or use the phones or your laptop to contact anyone. I’ve followed all the rules, haven’t I?”
Jesus.
Why did she think he would say no?
That it depended on her behavior?
He would do it because he cared—he had been doing it because of that. Nothing else.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Quickly, she leaned down and pressed another quick kiss to his lips, winking before she turned away from his desk, and headed out of the office without a look back over her shoulder. She was gone all of four seconds before someone else came to stand in the doorway.
Alessio.
“Were you spying?” Corrado asked, never looking up from the papers on his desk. He had things to do. “Because you know, you’re more than welcome to join the conversation, Les.”
“And if I was?”
Corrado chuckled. “The door is open. I leave it like that for a reason.”
He met Alessio’s gaze.
Questions stared back.
Curiosity.
How much had he heard?
Corrado didn’t mind waiting to find out.
8.
Alessio
“Give Ma my love, yeah?”
Chris nodded at his twin where he stood next to a waiting Ginevra. “I will.” Then, the man’s gaze lifted over Corrado’s shoulder, drifting to where Alessio stood leaning against the wall further down the hall. “Les, it’s been a while.”
Had it?
A little more than a month, he supposed, since he sat with the man in that café.
“Chris,” Alessio replied. “Get her there safely, yes?”
He hadn’t meant for the statement to sound threatening, and yet somehow, it did. Except there wasn’t anything he could do about the looks coming his way now because the damn words were already out of his mouth.
Ah, well.
Corrado cleared his throat, passing a pointed look over his shoulder at Alessio. A quiet, hey, now, that’s family. Alessio only shrugged back.
“No worries,” Chris said, shaking his head as he turned to offer
a hand to a grinning Ginevra. “She’ll come back in one piece.”
She better.
At least, that time, Alessio kept the thoughts inside his head. It wasn’t lost on him that his sudden protectiveness over Ginevra was for more than just him. He also felt protective of her for Corrado, and he didn’t want to get into it.
Not yet.
Once Ginevra and Chris had exited the apartment, Corrado turned to face Alessio with a raised brow. “You don’t need to go full-on asshole to Chris, right? It’s Chris, Les.”
“Gotta make an example out of everybody, or nobody will care, huh?”
It reminded him of that whole saying if you stand for nothing, then you’ll fall for everything. In a way ...
“It’s still Chris,” Corrado said, laughing under his breath.
Yeah, yeah.
Alessio didn’t need his nonsense pointed out to him when he was glaring at him right in the face every time he looked in the fucking mirror. He changed the conversation, because all too soon, the two of them would go right back to shit that had them snapping at one another’s throats again.
Wasn’t that the way, lately?
Well ...
“I’ve been here a little more than a month,” Alessio said.
Partially passing him in the hallway, Corrado’s walk came to an abrupt halt. He looked over at Alessio and nodded. “Yeah, I figured that out yesterday. Passed quickly, didn’t it?”
He hadn’t realized he had been here with Corrado and Ginevra that long, and he’d barely left other than to take his morning jog, and pick up a coffee from that place he liked down the street.
He took a second.
And then another.
Alessio couldn’t remember a time when he had stayed in one place for longer than a month. Or rather, two weeks. The longest was for a job, and he had been alone on that one. He stayed home for a while, and then he took off again. And sure, he recognized why he did that, but it was still the urge he had.
Well, the urge he didn’t have.
Not here.
With them.
He didn’t want to run like he’d been doing for years—trying to out run his problems, their issues, and just life because it worried him what might happen when it caught up to him. He wanted to be here with them, even if it meant pain and facing his own baggage because God knew he’d been throwing Corrado’s at him for so long, now.
