Page 12 of Alessio

She expected nothing from him.

Ginevra wouldn’t wallow on the topic, either. It only hurt her more, and she shouldn’t feel that, either.

Not now.

Eventually, she found herself in the office and library space again. Her fingers drifted along the edge of a shelf, taking in the spines of the books lined up by size. Not a single one was bigger than the other in whatever row she stared at—all matched. She often came back to this space in the penthouse because for whatever reason, this comforted her.

More than the books, and the escape provided by the words.

Something about here … she craved it; something she didn’t even find in Corrado.

Soon, Ginevra found the book she had been looking for on the fourth shelf up from the floor. A book of poems by an author named only as Anonymous. That’s what had drawn her to the book in the first place; someone didn’t want to put their name on their words. As though instead of claiming their art, they wanted to give the wordsto people without the pretense of who created them, or why.

She kept coming back to the book of poems, all ranging in topics from everything like love, to the way sunlight looked on a sidewalk in the month of May. There wasn’t rhyme or rhythm to them, but she liked that. She would come into the library, find the book, and read a few pages before sliding it back into the slot.

Someone else had read this a lot before she ever found the book. A cracked spine and the dog-eared pages told the story of someone else’s appreciation of the words inside.

Opening to her last page, she always remembered the page number and didn’t need to dog-ear to find her place, she became lost in words again. Time slipped by when she had a book in her hands, and nothing else to do.

She flipped to a new page—the start of a new poem—when a familiar voice came from behind her, almost making her drop the book.

Goddammit.

“What are you doing in here? Are you supposed to be alone where you might … oh, I don’t know, run?”

Alessio.

He had a darker quality to his voice than Corrado’s. She noticed that about him first. Both spoke with deep tenors that made her pay attention, but something was different about Alessio’s.

Like he was always holding back.

Never giving everything.

Refusing to let the man behind her see he had scared her, Ginevra continued reading the poem as she replied, “Why would I run?”

“I’m not sure if you want to be here.”

Ginevra almost laughed. “I didn’t at first; I wanted to be with my sisters, but I also don’t get a choice, so here I am.”

“That doesn’t mean you want to be here, though.”

“Right now, I do.”

He made a noise behind her—gruff, and curious. She didn’t understand what to make of that, or why he came here again, although it was his home along with Corrado, so she focused on things that made sense.

Like the book of poems in her hand.

“Did you trick him again to come here alone?”

Alessio chuckled. “And if I did?”

“He won’t like that.”

“He doesn’t seem to give a shit about what I like lately, either. Fair is fair, yeah?”

Ah.

Yeah.