Page 59 of Sold to the Silver Foxes

“So do you.”

She sighs. “I’m not so sure. I’m still holding on to a lie from my family.”

I stroke her braid. “Fear hooks hours; love unhooks them.”

She tilts her head to study me. “Did you just quote poetry?”

“Possibly Gibran. Possibly me on mild heart medication. Could be anything.”

She laughs—a warm ripple that eases the last knot in my chest. Her hand roams, finding my pulse point at the throat. “Steady.”

“Because of you.”

She nestles closer. “Because you shared your baggage.” She pauses. “I’ll help you carry it, if you want me to.”

I turn, press a kiss to her temple. Salty vanilla. The notion that she could, that I could want her to, no longer terrifies me. Strange, that.

Later, I wake briefly—moonlight like milk over the duvet. Tabitha sleeps, head on my shoulder, one leg tangled with mine. Her exhale brushes my collarbone. I listen to our breaths. Hers soft, mine steady.

Alana’s ghost tries a final whisper, but it fizzles. Something new grounds me. A truth that protects, not destroys.

Tabitha is that truth.

My phone buzzes once on the nightstand. My cardiologist’s daily reminder to log vitals. I silence it, smiling. Numbers tomorrow. Tonight, I follow the metronome of Tabitha’s gentle breathing back into sleep.

25

TABITHA

I’m curledin the bay window of the east-wing music room, trying to readPride and Prejudicefor perhaps the fifty-ninth time. Truthfully, I’m only half processing Lizzy and Mr. Darcy. The other half of my brain loops through surgical statistics, mortgage math, and the memory of Salvatore’s heartbeat under my ear last night.

Snow drifts sideways across the lake, muffling the world so thoroughly that even the distant sound of staff vacuuming hall runners feels hushed.

Life here is peaceful. Different. These small moments of calm mean everything to me. After working three jobs to take care of the hospital bills, being able to slow down and just enjoy the quiet feels like the biggest luxury of all.

Nico is the only brother at home. Sal is in a meeting with a textile engineer. Dante took two junior cousins night-skiing. The villa vibrates with an unusual quiet, almost like a library whose books wear tuxedos. I’ve grown fond of that quiet. It helps me separate the Morettis’ gilded universe from the sterile chill of Erin’s hospital room.

I’m still processing what happened with Sal last night when a row of black SUVs glides into the circular driveway below my window. They materialize out of the snow like sharks in the deep. Four men in wool coats fan out first, scanning sight lines. Then the rear door of the middle vehicle opens, and Pietro Dumas steps onto the gravel, brushing imaginary lint from a charcoal overcoat.

My pulse stumbles. What the hell?

They head for the front door. This cannot be good.

Not a minute later, Carla, the housekeeper extraordinaire, enters the library. “Pardon the interruption?—”

“What’s going on? Why is Pietro here?”

Her unflappable calm fractures as her lips flatten into a thin line. “Excellent question. Mr. Moretti has been notified, and your presence has been requested down the hall.”

I swallow. “Requested by whom?”

“Both parties.”

Where is my luxurious quiet now?

Nico meets us at the landing. His glasses glint under the chandelier, and his rolled shirtsleeves frame his meaty forearms perfectly. Slick and calm, yes, but his jaw flexes like an idling engine. The polite half smile he offers Pietro could be mistaken for hospitality if you don’t notice the vein ticking in his temple.

“Signor Dumas,” he says, the Italian honorific razor-sharp. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

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