Page 302 of Alessio

Chris laughed under his breath, gaining her attention. The shrug he offered to her said that he had been watching her, and probably knew exactly what was running through her mind. He nodded like he was saying, yeah, I know, right?

She understood what he meant earlier now when he said every twin probably had a different opinion about what it was like to have someone else in the world share your face. No doubt, the two next to her had a different perspective than their older twin brothers.

“Now, do you have any siblings?” Cara asked suddenly, drawing Ginevra back to the present.

“Uh …” Corrado wasn’t there for her to ask if that was okay, so she deferred to Chris thinking he probably knew the truth about why she was there. He nodded once, and then turned to grab a drink from a passing server. “I do—two sisters.”

Well, three, if she counted Siena, now.

And she was not mentioning her brothers.

“Are you the oldest?”

“I am.”

“Ah,” Cara said, smiling, “and your mother must love that. Having all girls around her, I mean. People always think I must lack female attention with all this testosterone around me.” Just as quickly, the woman winked, her perfectly applied makeup not showing a bit of her age, and her loose chignon making her striking red hair seem like a deeper maroon under the lights in the room. “Like having all boys somehow made me into one of them, too. Don’t I look like that’s a problem?”

Ginevra laughed.

Still, in her heart … it hurt.

Cara hadn’t known it, but mentioning her mother was still a sore spot for Ginevra. She had moments where she didn’t think about her mother at all and passing time in her days where her sisters slipped her mind, too. And then, all at once, it came rushing back like a wrecking ball to devastate her again.

It happened every single time.

“But,” Cara drawled, grinning slyly, “soon they will all be married, and then I am sure I will have lots of women in this house. Won’t I, boys?”

Grumbles came from the twins.

Chris altogether avoided his mother’s stare.

Cara looked at Ginevra and rolled her eyes. “They don’t like to talk about that.”

“I can tell.”

“That doesn’t make it less true, though.”

Yeah, she liked Cara a lot.

She felt like a mother.

Ginevra really needed that right now.

“There you are.”

Ginevra turned to find Corrado coming down the steps of the porch of the east wing of the mansion. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. And it was there, in his gaze, that she found the darkness. Something was wrong, even if he was more than willing to pretend like everything was perfectly fine.

“Chris was showing me the back. It’s beautiful out here.”

“It is,” Corrado said, nodding to his twin. “Thanks, man.”

“Sure.” At her side, Chris patted a hand against her upper back. “This is where I say goodnight, but it was great to properly meet you, and not … you know, peeking around a corner at me.”

She didn’t even try to hide her snickers. “Yeah, I suppose.”

“Have a good night, you two.”

Corrado didn’t say goodbye to his twin, nor did he turn to watch Chris walk away from them. In fact, he didn’t take his gaze off Ginevra, and with every step Chris took away from them, she became more and more aware that they were alone. Sure, they were alone most of the time, but for some reason, it felt different.