Page 150 of Thin Lines (Donati Bloodlines 2)

Emma nearly flinched at the affection in Calisto’stone.

Affonso moved past Emma, smiling widely. “Calisto, myboy.”

Calisto stood from the bed, balancing on his one goodleg. Awkwardly, he one-arm hugged his uncle, and then sat back down on the bed.

“Where have you been?” Calisto asked.

“I was on vacation,” Affonso explained, chuckling.

Calisto nodded in Emma’s direction with a grin. “Ithink she wandered into the wrong room, zio. I don’t mind, look at her.”

Affonso’s smile faded away as he looked back at Emma.“She didn’t wander into the wrong room, actually.”

The confusion on Calisto’s handsome, bruised featureswas heartbreaking. He didn’t understand, and he was struggling to figure it allout.

“I don’t …” he started to say, trailing off quietly.

Affonso lifted his left hand, showcasing a weddingband that matched Emma’s feminine version. “She’s my wife, Cal.”

Calisto’s brow furrowed, and he stayed quiet.

Emma stood against the door and watched as Calisto’sworld changed once again. Everything he thought he knew after waking up fromhis coma was different from what it actually was. She stayed silent as Affonsoexplained the two years of Calisto’s life that he had lost, and the things thathad changed in that time.

Affonso left a lot out.

Like the things Calisto’s learned about Affonso’sattack on Camilla.

Calisto’s paternity.

His anger.

His resentment.

The pain he’d been in for two years.

Affonso said nothing of that, he didn’t even broachit. Calisto’s pain was still clear to see as he learned all over again that hismother had died, and she was buried in a grave at their family’s church.

Calisto asked about Emma, when the marriage hadhappened, but little else. Affonso explained the arrangement between thefamilies, but he left out the lost pregnancies, and the friendship that hadbeen gained between Calisto and Emma over the past year.

Just like that, Calisto looked past Emma.

Suddenly, she wasn’t important to him.

She was no longer a woman he loved and knew.

She was now the wife of his uncle.

A man he adored.

Emma was entirely off-limits.

Maybe she should have been before, but he had givenher a chance, and that little bit of care had gone a hell of a long way.

But what could she say?

Calisto kept holding onto that poker chip, and therosary. He rubbed the beads between his fingertips, and flicked the chip in hisother hand.

Emma grabbed onto that.