Dominic's POV
Adriana leaned in closer, a sly grin curving at the corner of her mouth. "Dominic, you think there's any chance those two crawl back to each other?"
She pitched it just loud enough to carry across the room, past the low murmur of made men and the clink of glasses at the bar.
Nora's head came up on cue. When she caught sight of me standing a few feet off, something flickered behind her eyes, the look of someone caught between two loyalties. She said quickly, "I'm not thinking about getting back together with him. He's just drunk. I'm helping him out."
I gave her a calm smile and shook my head. "I understand, Nora. Lorenzo looks half gone. Why don't you take him home?"
Her brows drew together at the way the name sat on my tongue, formal, distant, a door closing. But she didn't argue. She twisted the thin gold bracelet at her wrist once, then went still and slid her shoulder under Lorenzo's arm. Before she left, she turned back to Adriana. "You two should head home soon. Don't wander around too much."
I watched them disappear down the hallway, her body already angled toward him, toward the door, the way it always was the second his name entered a room.
A sharp, needle-like pain pricked at my heart.
All I could do was laugh, low and bitter, at how pathetic the whole thing felt.
In my last life I got what I wanted. Nora became mine, the secret I kept hidden because a Falcone daughter would never let it be known she'd bound herself to a man ranked beneath her. Yet happiness never followed.
On my name day I asked for nothing but a quiet hour with her. Instead she told me, "I'm buried in business. Can you stop bothering me?"
Later I saw the photographs going around, the ones Lorenzo's people posted like trophies. He and Nora had gone up to the mountains to ski that same day.
And there was more. When a stomach ulcer had me doubled over and I asked her to come with me to the doctor, one of ours, a made physician who asked no questions, she brushed me off. "I'm not a doctor. If it hurts, go get it seen to. Why are you telling me?"
Not long after, I saw her there myself. Standing beside Lorenzo, who'd come in for nothing worse than a cold.
Then there was the anniversary I planned to surprise her. On the road back, it happened. A matter on the road, the kind that in our world may or may not be an accident.
The doctor called her, the call that had to be answered, blood on the line, asking her to come and give the word for my surgery.
Her answer? "Is he dead? If not, don't bother me."
In the background I heard Lorenzo's voice, bright and pleased with himself. "Nora, look at that. The lights over the water. This trip was worth every mile."
When the line went dead my body was drenched in blood, half the bed dark with it.
I could still feel the twisting pain in my chest as I lay there and died. Even now the memory alone made it hard to breathe.
I pressed a hand over my aching heart and let out a pale, bitter laugh.
Nora, if my love is such a burden to you, then I'll never love you again.
That night Adriana and I didn't linger. We went back to the estate early.
The next morning I surfaced from sleep and reached for my phone to check the hour.
The first thing waiting for me was a message from Lorenzo.
He'd sent a photograph of Nora asleep in his place, with a line beneath it.
[Lorenzo: Nora stayed over at my house last night to keep me company.]
I looked at it without a trace of feeling and sent back one word.
[Me: Oh.]
I gave him nothing more, but he wasn't finished.
A moment later came another photo. Breakfast this time.
[Lorenzo: Nora made me breakfast this morning. She even did the eggs in little hearts, just for me.]
Nora had never set foot in a kitchen the entire time she was mine.
She used to say, "I'm the principessa of my blood. My people spoiled me rotten, and I'm not about to lower myself now that I'm with you."
So to take care of her, I'd gone and learned the work myself, hours spent learning every dish she loved. As long as I was near, she never once ate anything cold or gone stale.
Knowing she'd gone to all that trouble for Lorenzo turned every one of those hours into the cruelest joke I'd ever been dealt.
I looked at his message, didn't answer, and set the phone down to finish eating.
Five minutes later a message came from Nora herself.
She said nothing about the night before.
Instead it read:
[Nora: Those meatballs you made last time weren't bad. Make me some today. I'll be waiting at the office.]
Then, right after, another.
[Nora: Oh, and don't forget. No cilantro.]
