Page 66 of The Road to You
The door shuts softlybehind him, and I lie there motionless, the covers tangled around my knees, the ghost of his mouth still between my thighs.
I should go back to sleep. But I don’t want to. Not yet.
The fan in the corner hums softly, stirring the curtain with each slow sweep. Outside the open window, the cicadas are still singing their endless lullaby, the kind that has underscored every Italian night since we started this journey together. I close my eyes, soaking in the scent of basil from the garden, warm limestone, and a hint of the soap Michele uses.
It feels surreal how light I am. How weightless. I haven’t felt like this in…I don’t know. Years?
In LA, even sleep doesn’t give me peace. There’s always something: an email, an alert, a phone call at three a.m. from mypublicist telling me I’ve been tagged in a headline I didn’t agree to, didn’t participate in, didn’t even know existed. It’s like being on a merry-go-round you can’t get off, spinning faster and faster until your stomach flips and your brain is a blur.
But here, in this old stone room with a creaky bed and a door that barely closes, there’s silence. Not emptiness, just stillness. Safety. A slowness that makes your body relax and your mind drift to a pleasant space.
And Michele.
I press my fingers to my lips, remembering the way he kissed me before he left. Slow. Certain. Like he knew exactly what it meant. Like he wasn’t scared of how deep we were falling. But I am because this was supposed to be simple. A fling. A distraction. Something golden and glittering between the cracks of what broke me back home.
Only he’s no longer a distraction. He’s a center of gravity. And if I’m not careful, I’ll start orbiting him. Maybe I already am.
I shift in bed and roll onto my stomach, then sit up and swing my feet to the floor. The tiles are cool beneath my toes. I pad to the open window and rest my forearms on the windowsill.
The courtyard is quiet now. The candles have all gone out. The big fig tree casts long shadows under the moon, and I can just make out the curve of the vineyard rows on the far edge of the property. It’s like standing inside a painting. Or maybe a dream.
How did I end up here?
The woman I was in June—the Lena Sinclair who pressed pause on her Hollywood life and disappeared from the scene—couldn’t have imagined this. That woman was brittle and hollowed out, weary of pretending she was fine, tired of smiling on cue.
But here I’m not smiling because I have to. I’m smiling because I can’t help it. I press my forehead to the wall beside the window and close my eyes.
I can still hear Michele’s laugh echoing in my memory, loud and low and utterly unfiltered. I think that’s what drew me in first. Not his body, not the way he looks at me like he’s memorizing every detail, but that laugh. Like he’s not afraid to be happy. Like he’s not afraid tofeelthings all the way to the end.
And God, the way he touched me tonight. The way he looked up at me from under the sheets, daring me to stay quiet like it was the most fun game in the world. And the way he ran off after, scared of his mother catching him, like we were in some kind of teenage sitcom.
I grin in the dark. He’s this fascinating contradiction: confident and grounded and so damned sexy, and also a little bit afraid of hismamma.
It’s adorable. And weirdly sexy too.
My stomach twists, a slow ache curling inside me. I thought I knew what this was, just two people making the most of a sultry Italian summer. But I don’t think I’m going to be able to leave this behind untouched. Unbroken.
My heart’s already cracking open.
The weight of that settles over me slowly. A realization, not a revelation. I’ve been falling for him in tiny steps since day one. Since the way he brushed the coffee stain from his shirt, and didn’t make it a big deal. Since the way he listened whenever I talked, even about the most ridiculous things. Since the way his family looked at me tonight, like I belonged, even though they barely know me.
Even his sister, Mariasole, went out of her way to be kind. To respect the weird limbo of whatever we are.Two bedrooms,she said with a gentle smile.Just in case.Like she was saying: we love you already, but we won’t push.
And now here I am, standing barefoot in an old masseria in Puglia, my heart threatening to beat straight out of my chest, wondering how the hell I’m supposed to walk away from this. From him.
The cool air brushes my skin, and I sigh, pulling the blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapping it around my shoulders. My feet take me to the doorway, then back to the bed, then to the mirror, restless, nervous energy thrumming under my skin.
There’s so much I still don’t know. I don’t know what will happen when I go back. If Hollywood still wants me. If the headlines will cool down. If I’ll get to reclaim my narrative, or if I’ve already lost control of it for good. But I do know this: I feel like myself here.
More than that, I feel like thebestversion of myself. No makeup. No press. No curated brand, stylists, or pretenses. Just me. Just Lena. And Michele sees her. All of her.
And maybe he’s starting to fall in love with her too.
My eyes sting, and I blink hard. I’m not used to feeling this way. I’m not used to feelingsafe. But with him, I don’t feel like I have to earn love. I just get to feel it.
Even if it’s not forever. Even if this ends in a week or a month, or when the summer sun finally fades. I know it’s real. I knowhe’sreal. And that’s something no headline can ever take from me.
I climb back into bed and pull the sheet up over my chest, nestling into the pillow that still smells like lavender and faintly like him.
