Page 62 of Valentino

"I keep tasting metal," I say before I can stop myself. "In my mouth. It won't go away. I drank a whole glass of water, and it's still there."

She's quiet for a second. I hear her swallow.

"That's the drug," she says. "It should go away soon." A shaky breath leaves her. "I'm so sorry."

"You don't owe me an apology."

"I sent you a bodyguard, and I should have sent you home. I should have called and told you to get on a plane the second Bruno mentioned Milan. I knew. I had a feeling⁠—"

"You had a bad feeling. That's not the same thing as knowing. If you'd known, you would've shown up yourself and dragged me to the airport by my hair."

A sound catches in her throat. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sob.

"Probably."

"Definitely."

"You're impossible."

"You're dramatic."

"You're my person," she says, and her voice finally cracks straight through. "You've been my person my entire life. There is a very short list of people I would burn the world down for, and you're at the top. Somebody put their hands on you while you were on the other side of an ocean, and I couldn't—I wasn't⁠—"

She breaks off, and the silence fills with the sound of her crying.

I've never heard Vittoria cry like this. She cried at Riccardo's funeral, but that was different. That was grief with somewhere to go.

"Okay," I say softly. "If you keep crying, I'm going to start again."

A wet laugh punches out of her.

"Sorry."

"I missed you," I say.

For a minute neither of us says anything. We just breathe, an ocean and a phone line between us.

Down the hall, something sizzles in the dented pan.

"He's making me pasta," I say.

"Who is?"

"Valentino."

The silence stretches.

Usually Vittoria has something to say within half a second.

"Valentino is cooking for you."

It's not a question.

"He asked if I could eat." I pick at a thread on the hem of the borrowed shirt. "It's weird, Vee. He sat on the floor outside my door all night. He didn't come in. He just sat there. And when I woke up scared, he didn't grab me. He just kept saying his name until I knew who he was."

"Amanda," she says carefully.

"I know. I hear it too."