Page 130 of Iron Roses

“What do you want for your birthday?” she asks, shifting in her seat to face me. “Would you like a party?”

Before I answer, the voice beside me speaks.

“Oh yes, very important question. What do you want?”

Giovanna sits with her hands folded in her lap, watching me with that half-smile she used when she was pretending to be patient. She looks good today—her hair pinned up, earrings that sparkle when the light moves across them. She leans in slightly, expectant.

I smile without meaning to. A small breath escapes me, and it almost sounds like a laugh.

Giovanna sighs, head tilting. “Don’t say anything, miss. Last year was chaos. Fire. funerals. We didn’t get a proper moment. This year, we should mark it.”

“I don’t know about a party,” I say quietly, watching the road ahead. “Maybe lunch. Something small. Cassian and I. You and Lorenzo could come.”

Allegra groans softly and rests the side of her head against the window for a second.

“No, thank you,” she says. “It’s already hard enough being the one speaking for the two of you at work. Lorenzo and I can’t carry a whole meal by ourselves.”

I turn to her, and the corner of my mouth lifts.

“So that’s what the two of you have been bonding over lately?” I ask. “He’s been sleeping a lot in your room.”

She coughs then reaches for the bottled water at her feet.

“I’m asking if you want a cake,” she says, her voice a little too casual. “Chocolate? Almonds? Something shaped like a crown?”

Giovanna nods from the far side of the seat, clearly pleased. Her legs are crossed, her toe tapping gently against the floor mat. The dress she wears isn’t one I remember owning, but it suits her. She looks younger today.

I let my head rest back against the seat.

She is always here. In the quiet moments, in the choices I don’t question, in the things my hands do before I think about them. Sometimes I feel her in the way I lift a glass, in the instinct to stand before anyone else does. She sits beside me even when I don’t look. I never have to check.

I’m not alone.

Allegra doesn’t stop talking the entire ride.

She leans toward the center console, one foot tucked beneath her, speaking to no one in particular.

“We could use the garden, maybe. If it’s not too hot. I know the caterer with the citrus tartlets Cassian liked at the spring thing. You’d like them too. Unless we want to do somethingindoors. But then I’ll need to move the mirrored table backup from storage, and that thing weighs—”

I reach across the seat and take Giovanna’s hand.

She’s sitting beside me again, her fingers folded neatly around mine, head tilted like she’s listening to Allegra with vague interest.

“You could at least pretend to be invested,” Giovanna murmurs, amused.

I give her fingers a quiet squeeze and smile. She knows that means I am.

The car slows as we turn past the gates. The Rivetti house comes into view, rising out of the green. Allegra stops talking mid-sentence.

Two figures are in the garden.

Cassian is crouched near the planter beds, shirtless, a bag of mulch open beside him. His hair is tied back. Dirt coats his forearms. Lorenzo is nearby with a trowel, sleeves tied around his waist, face red from the sun. They’re both sweating. Neither seems bothered.

Allegra opens her door and climbs out, her eyes narrowing. I follow, my sandals clicking once against the stone.

Before we speak, Lorenzo calls out.

“He canceled his meeting,” he says, pointing toward Cassian with the handle of the trowel. “Wanted to plant her favorites himself.”

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