Sienna POV
Luca’s breathing went a beat heavier.
“Sienna, you’re using your imagination in the wrong place.”
He didn’t look angry, so maybe I could keep pushing.
I knew men too well.
The low-grade ones, a single look hooked them.
Luca was different — he stood at the top and had been schemed against by more people than he could count.
Plain physical provocation repelled him.
It needed something else mixed in.
Something that looked like feeling.
I looked out at the clouds.
“Five years ago I thought about this a lot. If only I could hold you like this and go somewhere nobody knew us, and want nothing else. Just the two of us.”
I laid my face against his shoulder and rubbed once.
“I never thought that five years later I’d get a little of it.”
Luca didn’t move.
But I saw his Adam’s apple shift.
Five years had made him into this.
Everything was locked down underneath.
The more he pretended nothing reached him, the less calm it was down below.
I traced the line of his mouth with one finger, from the bow of his lip to the corner.
“Has Evelyn ever kissed this?”
Luca’s eyes lifted, slowly.
“What do you think?”
Not an answer.
My finger followed the buttons of his shirt down, stopped at the last one, slipped inside, and landed on his stomach.
I felt the muscle tighten under my hand.
“After I left, did the two of you ever–”
Luca’s breath caught for a moment, and his voice came out rough.
“She’s my fiancée. Whatever we do is only natural.”
My hand kept going down.
“And how does she compare to me?”
Luca’s eyes dropped to my hand.
He leaned back, putting distance between us.
“There’s no comparison.”
”I know.” I laughed once.
“Only I can satisfy you. Nobody else can.”
He glanced at me.
“You talk too much. Want to find out whether I’ll throw you off this plane?”
”No.
You wouldn’t bear to.”
This time he didn’t answer.
A few seconds later his breathing evened out.
He had actually gone to sleep.
He was probably the first man alive who could be worked over like that and then close his eyes and sleep. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
I didn’t disturb him again.
I turned and looked out the window.
The cloud deck spread out beneath the wing, sunlight falling across the white sea of it, bright enough to hurt the eyes.
Five years ago I had taken twelve billion dollars out from under him and vanished without a trace.
Five years later I was sitting beside him again, close enough to touch his body.
Sometimes I thought all of it was absurd, like a joke someone was telling at my expense.
The plane landed.
Luca’s Los Angeles partners had sent someone to meet us.
After the hotel was arranged, Theo took a phone call; his face changed, and he walked over to Luca and said something in a low voice.
Luca held out his coat to a bellman, and his hand stopped mid-gesture.
“What is he doing in Los Angeles?”
Theo shook his head.
“He says it’s personal. But the timing is too neat.”
Luca gave a cold laugh.
“Neat.”
He turned and looked at me.
“Stay close to me tonight.”
My room at the hotel was next to Luca’s.
I’d just finished drying my hair when the doorbell rang.
Luca stood outside with a box in his hand.
He looked at me once — I was in a bathrobe, my hair still wet — then looked away.
“Put it on.”
He came in and set the box on the table.
“The man we’re meeting tonight is the one who decides whether we get the ports. He had a daughter named Elena. She died years ago. Green was that girl’s favorite color.”
I understood.
The dress was bait, meant to wake the memory of a dead daughter.
“So you want me to wear her favorite color and play at being someone who reminds him of his daughter.” I tilted my head.
“Pretty rotten. But I’m good at it.”
Luca glanced at me.
“Aren’t you a very good actress?”
Acting was exactly how I’d taken him five years ago.
He was reminding me of it.
“For you, I’d learn if I didn’t know how,” I said.
Luca didn’t respond to that.
“If I get him for you,” I said, stepping closer, “how are you going to thank me?”
”That’s part of your job.”
I pulled back and turned to change.
The dress was dark green satin, cut to the body.
Once I had it on I held the front closed with one hand and reached for the zipper at the back, and couldn’t get to it.
Luca stood by the window with his back to me.
“Luca.” I called him.
“The zipper’s stuck.”
He turned.
In the glass’s reflection I could see the zipper stopped halfway, a stretch of my back bare.
He looked at me and still didn’t move.
“What are you afraid of?” I said.
“It’s not as if you haven’t seen it before.”
The fingers holding his cigarette tightened.
Ash fell onto the carpet.
He still looked unmoved.
“Forget it.” I shrugged and turned to pick up the phone.
“I’ll call the front desk–”
I didn’t finish.
A hand came from behind me and pressed the receiver down.
“I’ll do it.”
His voice came from above my head.
He took hold of the zipper pull and drew it up from just above the base of my spine, inch by inch along the groove of it.
“Done.” He took his hand back.
I turned my head and kissed him on the cheek.
Very lightly.
“Thank you.”
Luca went still for a moment, his chest rising and falling once.
Then, as though nothing had happened, he took a jewelry box from his pocket and opened it.
A full set inside — necklace, earrings, bracelet.
I looked at it and shook my head.
“No. What he wants is his daughter. Not a prop stacked with jewels. Cleaner is better.”
Luca closed the box and put it back in his pocket.
“Suit yourself.”
There was still some time before the reception began.
I sat on the sofa in the room, took out my phone, and typed the name I’d just heard from Luca into the search bar.
One thread led to another until I found the dead woman’s old social account.
There weren’t many public photos, nothing that had ever been worth reporting.
Most of it stopped a few years back — charity dinners, university events, pictures from private parties.
I went through them one by one.
Young, pretty, fond of dresses.
When she laughed she tilted her head.
Green showed up most often.
A green gown, a green scarf, even the earrings she’d worn to a university dance were green.
Then another article caught my eye.
I had only been skimming, but my finger stopped on the screen.
I read for a few seconds, and my brows drew together.
Tonight, I might need to get to know that long-dead girl all over again.