Page 309 of Alessio

Like how one might smudge what remained of the stain, or how it got that way to begin with. Was it the rain? Her tongue wiping at the line of her lips? Corrado, even? Had he kissed it off her—licked it off her?

All things Alessio didn’t need to wonder.

Yet, he still did.

“Well, did you?” Ginevra asked.

“Did I, what?”

“Find what you were looking for here.”

How simple that question felt.

The answer was far from easy, though.

Because no.

No, he had not found what he was looking for. Some crazy part of him thought he would come here, lay eyes on this woman, and just know what it was about her that had Corrado willing to hide her. Whatever it was about her that made his lover prepared to throw away the trust that Alessio gave to no one.

He still didn’t know.

It pissed him off.

Pushing away from the wall, Alessio moved down the hallway faster than Ginevra could react to his oncoming form. She took a step back, though, but it was too late because he’d already come close enough to her that his proximity alone allowed him two things.

To see the darker brown flecks in the lighter tawny irises of her eyes. To see the splattering of freckles on the edges of her cheeks, closer to her hairline. To back her against the wall as she stared up at him.

And to feel the warmth of her body.

He was entirely too close.

Alessio still didn’t back up.

“No,” he said simply, “I haven’t found it yet.”

“Sorry to waste your time, then.”

Alessio arched a brow, his teeth grinding against the piece of mint gum that had, for the most part, kept him calm over the last hour while he waited. “It’s fine, no worries.”

“Really? Because I don’t think it is, Alessio. Fine, I mean.”

Her voice?

Still musical.

Not that it mattered.

“Oh, it’s definitely not fine,” he replied, “but I won’t be leaving until it is.”

Ginevra swallowed audibly, and that tremor danced over the line of her smooth shoulders again. Still damp from the rain, and naked now, as she’d pulled the straps of the silk dress down over her arms when she thought she was alone … he noticed entirely too much about this woman.

But he blamed Corrado for that, too.

This obsession.

He just wanted to know why.

Why her.