114
Rosa’s POV
The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the windows, practically blinding, if I hadn’t dropped the curtains a bit when I entered. I leaned back in my chair, scrolling absentmindedly through an email on my laptop. It was some logistics report my father insisted I review, but the words were swimming on the screen. My mind was elsewhere.
It wasn’t like me to be distracted. Focus was one of the few things I prided myself on-especially in a house like ours, where any misstep could mean a weak link. And yet, here I was, replaying the conversation I’d had with Allesio in the garden last night.
Something was off with him. I could see it in the way he carried himself, the tightness in his jaw, the way his normally easy confidence felt… strained.
I tried to shake it off. It wasn’t my business. Allesio could deal with whatever was bothering him on his own. That was the logical thing to think, and I told myself to stick to it. But logic had little to do with the way my chest tightened whenever I thought about the flicker of unease in his expression.
With a sigh, I closed my laptop and made my way down to the sitting room. Maybe a break would clear my head.
When I entered the room, I wasn’t surprised to find Allesio there, leaning against the mantel with a glass of something amber in his hand. He didn’t look up immediately, and I took a moment to observe him.
His shoulders were tense, his posture rigid, as though he were carrying a weight no one else could see. His gaze was fixed on the fire, but his eyes looked distant, as if he was a thousand miles away.
“Trouble in paradise?” I asked, keeping my tone light.
He glanced at me, startled, before recovering with a half-smile. “Paradise is overrated, don’t you think?”
I stepped further into the room, perching on the arm of a nearby chair. “Maybe. But you don’t usually look this… broody.”
He chuckled softly, the sound lacking its usual warmth. “I’m fine, Rosa. Don’t worry about it.”
Fine. The universal code for ‘I’m not fine, but I don’t want to talk about it.’ I wasn’t sure what irritated me more-his attempt to brush me off or the fact that I cared enough to be irritated in the first place.
I crossed my arms, studying him. “You don’t seem fine.”
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “You’re relentless, you know that?”
“It’s one of my many talents.”
His lips twitched in what might have been the beginning of a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He set his glass down on the mantel and turned to face me fully.
“It’s nothing, Rosa. Just a long day.”
It was a good deflection, I’d give him that. But I wasn’t buying it. Allesio had been off for days now, and I wasn’t about to let him skirt around it.
“Do you always keep things bottled up like this?” I asked, tilting my head.
He raised an eyebrow. “Do you always pry into other people’s business?”
“When it affects me, yes.”
His expression shifted, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his face. For a moment, I thought he might actually tell me what was going on, but then he shook his head, that familiar mask sliding back into place.
“You’ve got enough on your plate without worrying about me,” he said, his tone softer now.
“That’s not an answer,” I pointed out.
“Maybe not,” he admitted. “But it’s all you’re getting.”
I narrowed my eyes, debating whether to push further. But something in his posture, the way his shoulders sagged just slightly, stopped me. Whatever was bothering him, it wasn’t something he was ready to share.
I sat beside him, letting the silence stretch between us, not uncomfortable but not exactly easy, either. I watched him as he reached for his glass again, the way his fingers tightened around the rim. He wasn’t just tense-he was conflicted.
“You know,” I said after a moment, “whatever it is, you don’t have to deal with it alone.”
He looked at me sharply, as though my words had caught him off guard. For a split second, I thought I saw something raw in his expression, but he quickly buried it beneath a smirk.
“That almost sounds like concern,” he said.
“Don’t get used to it,” I shot back. “I just don’t need you falling apart and making things more complicated than they already are.”
He laughed then, a real laugh, and the sound sent a strange warmth through my chest. “Noted.”
I stayed for a while longer, the conversation shifting to safer topics. We talked about nothing in particular-the weather, an article I’d read recently, a ridiculous story he told about getting lost in the city once. It was easy, natural, the kind of exchange that didn’t require any walls or pretense.
But even as he laughed, I could tell that the problem was still bothering him. And it bothered me to not know what it was. And it bothered me even more because I began to fear that I was the problem, no matter how stupid it sounded. How could I be the problem?
I got up, kissing him deeply on the mouth before walking out of the room. “Good night,” I murmured as I left, and I didn’t expect him to reply, but then he did. Quiet, but I could still hear him.
“Goodnight.”
I went straight to my room and laid in my bed, wondering what was bothering him so much. Allesio was a mystery, and I wasn’t sure how much of it I wanted to unravel. But one thing was clear-he wasn’t as unaffected as he liked to pretend.
And if there was one thing I knew about myself, it was that I couldn’t resist a puzzle. Tomorrow, if he still acted like that dark cloud was hanging over his head, then I’d find out what it was whether he liked it or not.