Page 285 of Alessio

Thwack.

Ginevra jumped in the bed at the noise again. What even was that, and why? Why at five-thirty in the morning was someone—probably Corrado—doing it?

She wasn’t lazy. In fact, she was usually the first one awake and around doing anything in this penthouse in the mornings. A month into living here, and she had quickly learned that, if he could help it, Corrado didn’t roll his ass out of bed before nine. She was usually up around seven, and ready entirely for the day, including breakfast, before he even stepped out of his room.

So, what changed?

Ginevra didn’t know, but she sure as hell planned to find out. If that meant going down the hall where that noise was coming from to tell him to knock it the hell off, then that’s exactly what it meant.

Who said she was pleasant in the mornings?

She wasn’t.

That’s why she woke up earlier than everyone else, so she could get over her shitty morning mood, and be her usual sweet self by the time she had to even think about looking at another person. Seemed simple, right?

So, why was Corrado making it hard right now?

Huffing, Ginevra climbed out of the bed, ignoring the cold hardwood floors pressing against her naked feet as she padded out of the bedroom. She didn’t bother to close her door at night because from the time she was a little girl, she’d been terrifiedthat something in her room would magically appear, and it would be the closed door that stopped her from getting out.

Stupid and silly, sure.

But it carried into her adulthood, too. Not so much the fear, but rather, the habit of sleeping with the door wide open just in case she needed to get out quickly.

Bleary-eyed, she rubbed the back of her hand against her face to wipe away any remnants of sleep as she followed that damn noise. Every couple of seconds, another thwack would make her startle again, pissing her off even more.

Too early. This is way too early.

Finally, she found the noise.

Ginevra had to blink to take in the sight in front of her, and make sure it actually was what she was seeing. Other than running on the treadmill in the gym once a day or so, she really didn’t put the space to use. She was lucky that it took very little effort to keep her body healthy and fit, but she found that running was a huge stress relief.

And she ran at night.

Before bed.

It also acted like a sleeping pill.

Never in the morning, though.

Across the gym, Ginevra found the source of the noise. Corrado, turned to the side so she had a good view of his profile and the hard lines of his body in nothing but gym shorts, flicked his wrist back before he let something fly out of his hand. She only realized it was a knife when he flicked another from his opposite hand into his palm, and let it fly with nothing more than a jerk of his wrist over his shoulder.

Her gaze followed the path of the twisting, spinning knife until it embedded itself right into a wooden block at the other end of the gym about twenty feet away. Along with the other five knives that he had apparently already thrown into the middle of the target.

Nearly perfect shots every time, it seemed.

This one, though, landed a few inches to the right. Corrado tipped his head to the side, his eyes narrowing on the slightly fucked shot as he made a grunt. That disappointment flitting over his features only served to roughen his face up more.

She liked that.

A lot.

Kind of like the way she enjoyed watching the carved-from-stone lines of his body move as he prepped another knife, the last one he held, before he threw it, too. There was something about his focus, that intensity setting his lips into a hard line, as he worked that made her mouth a little dry.

And her body hot.

She’d seen him look like that before—when he thought she wasn’t looking, and he stared at her. He held that same intensity, that same fire.

Huh.