Page 14 of Enduring Caine
I looked down to my left hand braced on the white marble bathroom counter, to the black ring I wore as a symbol of my promise to love Samantha—and my unspoken promise that someday I would replace it with a wedding band. Had I known these new rules about no shared rooms, I would’ve told her we would pose as married for this visit. We’d done it over the last couple of weeks while investigating a stolen painting.
But Cristian knew the truth, so it wouldn’t have worked. The man knew too much about my life, despite barely being involved in it.
There was a knock at my door.
“Who is it?” I called out. I’d been preparing for bed and was shirtless. Wrangling one back on was more effort than I wished to endure.
“Your favorite cousin!” Cristian most certainly was not my favorite cousin. That would have been Mario, whose house I should have been at, already in bed asleep with my girlfriend. But we decided to come here and suffer through the visit to get it over with.
The rooms of the tower were similar to those in a standard hotel. Four per floor, each with a private bathroom near the entry. These were new since I’d worked here, when the original tower cells had housed many of the guards. This remodel must have required a great deal of construction.
I stalked out to the door and pulled it open. A wide quarter turn staircase dominated the eastern and northern wall of each floor. The guest rooms were all on the south and west, providing a view of the water from every balcony. We were on the fourth floor, with Samantha’s door opposite the top of the staircase and mine next to it. The center of the space opened upwards and down, with a view from the thick stone railing of the common room and the monstrous fireplace on the ground floor.
One key difference between a hotel and being aguestin my uncle’s home was the sheer number of armed guards walking the hallways—one of whom was making his way to our floor from the one above.
I raised an eyebrow at Cristian rather than snapping ‘What?’ at him.
He looked me up and down. “Keeping up with the exercise, I see?”
“Of course.” When I first arrived in Roma for my master’s degree, I’d weighed a hundred pounds more, so much that my friends called me Fat Tony. When I moved into Cristian’s apartment in Roma, he helped me change that. Mental discipline I’d known, but he showed me a physical one that transformed me into a different man.
That was the first step on a long path he and I took together. I slept around, got into fights, and railed against my parents’ expectations. It was not until I was shot collecting money from someone and nearly died that I realized which of the lessons I learned from Cristian were the good ones—healthy living—and which were the bad ones. Literally, everything else.
“Good man.” He gestured to the door, as though requesting access, but I didn’t move.
“I’m tired and want to get some sleep. It’s not time for a visit.”
Cristian bowed his head in acquiescence. “We’re going out tomorrow. Like Papa said this afternoon, he wants to show you something important. It’s a half-hour drive and we’ll be leaving before noon.”
“And Samantha?”
“Will stay here. This is for you, not her.”
“How long are we expected to stay?” I folded my arms, which caused a stab of pain, and hastily unfolded the good one, leaving the bad one in place. Samantha’s suitcase was full of what she’d brought for ten days at my condo over Christmas. The trip to Italia was a surprise to her, so she hadn’t had time to repack. I only had one change of day clothes for travel. “Neither Samantha nor I have clean clothes.”
“A week at most.”
A week? I’d lose half my time with Samantha to this ridiculous visit?
“I’ll loan you some of my things and we can launder hers.”
Henri, the chef, crested the top of the staircase, wearing a large blue tote bag across his body. He smiled warmly at me. “I’m going to close the kitchen soon. Did you need anything? Water, snacks, wine?”
Cristian put a hand out. “Sparkling, please.”
Henri unzipped the bag and withdrew a glass bottle, handing it to Cristian. He moved to Samantha’s door, hand raised to knock.
“She’s sleeping,” I said.
“Is she alright?” asked Henri. “She left so suddenly after the soup. Did it disagree with her? Are there allergies I should know about?”
“No, no, I—”
Her door whipped open, and she appeared, dressed in the loungewear the airline had provided. “Did I hear wine?”
“Bella, what are you doing up?”
“Of course.” Henri unzipped a different compartment, producing a small bottle of red wine—no doubt the red bottled from Gio’s vineyard—and a glass. “Snacks? I have a few items with me, but can prepare something in the kitchen and bring it up.”