I dug deep, past all the darkness, pain, and doubt, and gave her the last bit of me I had left tonight.
“Does it matter?” Seconds later, I gave in to sleep.
The effort it took to open my swollen eyes to let the sunlight in was almost unbearable. Three attempts later, I lifted my heavy head and took in my surroundings. There was a note on the night table with my name written on it. I had to blink a few times to clear my vision.
“Mariano stayed the night. No one thought anything about you disappearing early. The bourbon took care of that. Everything you need can be found in the restroom, including a clean dress hanging on the inside of the door. Take your time. We are all home today. Love, Andrea.”
A long shower made me feel better. I let my hair air dry and slipped into the blue dress that was left for me. I didn’t want to know why they had a dress my size hanging around, but her face popped up, and I pushed aside the thought of Elio and Anna together. I passed on the shoes and slipped on my beloved leather heels, impressed with how they looked with the dress.
“Good morning, Sienna,” Francesco greeted me as I walked into the kitchen.
“Francesco.” I kissed his cheek, beyond happy to see my old friend. “How have you been? No, first, how are your children?”
He pulled out his wallet and shared some photos of his grandbabies.
“Look at those sweet little cheeks,” I gushed over how adorable they were. “They have your eyes.”
“They do, don’t they?” he agreed.
Someone came running into the kitchen and almost collided with one of the kitchen staff.
“Sorry!” he apologized as he steadied her by the elbow then whirled around to us.
“Oh, Sienna, have you met Vinni?” Francesco waved between us. “He’s Elio’s cousin.”
“Cousin?” I questioned. “I thought you were the driver?”
He grinned and snagged a pastry off one of the pans the girls were walking by with.
“Not normally, but the boss wanted to make sure you were taken care of.”
“Oh.” I was shocked by that, but I waved my hand, trying to place everyone. “Don’t you have better things to do than cart me around?”
“And miss a chance to drive around a pretty lady?” He smiled.
I smiled back and paused to let his words sink in. “Thank you.”
Donte emerged from the walk-in refrigerator just as Vinni left again, talking about something he had to do.
“Last night was interesting.” Donte gave me a wary look as he set two dozen eggs on the island.
“I went to bed early.”
“That explains why the boss paced the bottom of the stairs for hours.”
I shifted on my stool and glanced at Francesco, who kept very busy and pretended not to listen.
“So?” I spun an egg on the counter. “What happened? Someone fall in the pool or skinny dip?” I held up a hand. “You know what? Given the company that was here last night, don’t answer that.”
He laughed, and to my surprise, so did Francesco. “No, we had some visitors, friends of Mariano, to be exact. The boss wasn’t happy, and he shut it down quickly. Mariano has a death wish not to mention he was running his mouth about you.”
“Me?” I leaned forward, interested to know what was said.
He glanced at Francesco, who gave him a nod to go on. “He was running his mouth about you and him and how close you’ve gotten. You know, intimately. The boss lost it and punched him straight in the nose.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen those two be like that toward each other.”