Page 27

Valentino

The hotel lobby glows with that fake gold light all expensive places use. I scan the faces until I find Elio.

He sits in a low chair near the elevators, dark suit, hands folded, watching the doors. His jaw tightens when he sees me. I give him a single nod and tilt my head toward the street.

He follows me out.

"I'm taking her to the palazzo," I tell him. "You bring your own car. You'll be inside tonight too."

His eyes narrow. "I thought you wanted me on the street."

"I did. Tonight's different. Too many faces in that room. I need more eyes, and yours are the ones I've got."

He considers it. He's not stupid; he knows this is also me keeping him close enough to watch. But he nods, because he can't argue. "Fine."

"Front of the room, by the bar. You see anything unusual, you do nothing. You find me."

"I know how to do my job, Conti." He wants to say more, but chooses the smart option and walks away.

I light a cigarette. The first drag fills my chest, slow and bitter, and I lean against the cool stone of the hotel front and wait. I tell myself it's just like waiting for anyone else.

Then the glass doors slide open and she walks out. The cigarette nearly falls out of my mouth.

She's in pink. The dress is long and it moves with her, sliding around her legs with each step. Her hair is up, off her neck, pinned high so the line of her throat runs clean from her jaw to her collarbone. I think about my hand there, then quickly shake the thought away.

As she gets closer, I see her face properly under the streetlight. Light makeup. Two small gold earrings, round. The whole effect is simple, and yet, on her it's exquisite. Which is so much worse. She's a knock out, and she is trying to kill me.

"You're early," she says, with a smile starting at the corner of her mouth, that quick clever smile she uses to take control of a moment. "And smoking. Very on-brand."

"Get in the car."

"Romantic." She rolls her eyes, but her cheeks color.

I drop the cigarette and crush it under my heel. She's two steps from me, close enough that I catch her perfume. Vanilla and something darker under it, like she's hiding heat behind sweetness.

Then a voice calls from behind her.

"Scusi, signorina. I think something fell."

An older woman comes out of the hotel with a small gold earring back pinched between her fingers

Amanda turns.

My world fucking stops.

Nothing in my life has prepared me for the back of that dress. And life has prepared me for many things.

There is no back to it. Nothing. The fabric clings to her shoulders and then it's just gone, a cut that runs all the way down, past her shoulder blades, past the small valley of her spine, to the base of it, where the pink finally remembers itself and gathers again low on her hips. Her back is smooth, golden, unmarked, and her muscles shift as she reaches for the earring. I lose the ability to do anything but look.

"Oh, thank you," she says to the woman. She fixes the earring back with two fingers, tilting her head, and the movement makes the muscles along her spine move with elegance. "I keep losing these."

The woman says something kind and walks on. Amanda turns back toward me, and she catches the look on my face before I can smooth it away.

I have spent decades learning and ensuring my face shows nothing. Tonight I might as well be made of glass.

Her lips part.

"You're staring, Conti," she says. The smile is back, but her voice has dropped, gone softer, less sure.