“You need to watch your back with him at all times,” Dante cautioned, the weight in his voice making her breath hitch. “He will try to manipulate you, use you to get to Tristan. I don’t know how but you need to be very, very careful. It will not be easy.”
Morana remained silent, swallowing down the bout of nerves trying to attack her.
“And not because he wants Tristan to be the heir. Oh no, that pleasure will be all mine,” Dante sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, sarcasm heavy in his tone.
Morana took in his weariness, her heart squeezing in sympathy. “What did you want to be?” the question slipped out of her before she could stop herself.
She waited as Dante looked up at her, his tie loose around his neck, hair disheveled.
He laughed, the sound not reaching his dark eyes. “Truly?”
Morana nodded, curious.
“A sculptor.”
Morana blinked in surprise at the answer. Dante saw and smiled, a genuine smile.
“My mother had been a painter,” he explained, his voice soft, eyes lost in memory. “One of the fondest memories of my childhood is of sculpting with clay while she painted in the same room. She always used to hum this melody and my hands…”
He let his words trail off, shaking himself out of the memory, his eyes hardening again as he breathed deeply.
Morana noted his use of past tense.
Her heart clenched, the urge to take his hand and give it a squeeze acute. But she refrained, knowing somehow that he wouldn’t appreciate it
.
“As I told you once, Morana,” he spoke quietly, “you’re lucky to be following your dream.”
She was.
Sitting there in front of Dante, while discussing the history of a man more damaged than she’d even imagined, thinking of the friend she’d left behind - the girl who’d been abducted and tortured for days for information, one who still carried the mar of that around her throat, thinking of the lost girls from years ago, of Luna Caine - of where she could be, how she could be if she was even alive - Morana felt truly lucky to be just breathing. Her past was filled only with loneliness and not true horrors, not deep scars, not lifeless agony.
“Do you want a hug?” that voice of whiskey and sin penetrated the space around them.
Morana’s gaze flew to Tristan Caine standing beside the door, not a crease on the fabric of his clothes, nothing to indicate he’d been asleep, his face a stoic mask, which did not fit with his words. Surprise filled her at the fact that she’d missed him entering the area. Usually, she never did, her body aware of him in ways she couldn’t hope to understand.
She saw Dante’s lips curl into a smile. “Fuck off, asshole.”
God, they were such guys.
There was something incredibly normal about that.
Dante turned to her as the other man pranced to the bar, getting himself a glass of whiskey on the rocks, his blue shirt hugging the muscles on his torso as he moved about, before leaning against the wall and facing them.
“Anyhow,” Dante began, drawing Morana’s attention again. “Just remember one thing - you’ll be Lorenzo Maroni’s guest. That means a lot of pretending.”
Morana nodded. “I’m good at pretending.”
She saw Tristan Caine raise a single brow in the periphery but ignored him.
Dante turned around to pin the other man with his gaze. “All done?”
Tristan Caine gave a curt nod as the captain’s voice filled the cabin, informing them to put on their seat belts, as they would be landing soon.
Heart suddenly racing, Morana turned in the seat and hooked on the belt, aware of Tristan Caine taking the seat beside hers, not touching her anywhere but his presence searing her.
Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back and focused on her breathing.