The weeks that followed were a surreal, stolen dream. By day, Dante was Don Conti—ruthless, decisive, conducting his business from his study or in meetings across the city. But in the glass house, with her, he was someone else.
He began to share pieces of himself. He told her about growing up in Sicily, splitting his time between his nonna's sun-drenched lemon grove and the shadowed back rooms where his father conducted business. He spoke of his mother, an artist whose studio was her sanctuary, and whose death had extinguished the last soft light in his world.
In turn, Valentina painted. She started a large canvas, a turbulent abstract of grays, blacks, and startling slashes of gold and crimson. It was her subconscious on display—the darkness of her situation, the violence of his world, and the fierce, bright streak of what she felt for him. He would stand for hours, watching her work, saying nothing, but his presence was a tangible force of encouragement.
One afternoon, he brought home a small, carefully wrapped package. Inside was the unsigned landscape by the impressionist painter—the one stolen from his mother's villa.
"I found it," he said simply. "The last piece of hers that was missing."
Tears filled Valentina's eyes as she looked at the small, beautiful painting of a twilight sea. "It's exquisite."
"It's yours," he said.
She looked up, shocked. "Dante, no. This is your mother's. It belongs with you."
He took her hand, placing it over the painting. "She would have liked you. She believed beauty and strength could coexist. She would see that in you." He cleared his throat, a rare show of vulnerability. "Keep it. For our home."
Our home. The words echoed in her soul.
Their nights were a continuous exploration. He was a demanding, exhilarating lover, attuned to her every sigh and shudder. He taught her the language of his body, and she, in turn, learned to command his. The power between them was no longer one-sided; it was a dynamic, electric current that flowed both ways.
But the outside world was not so easily banished.
Leo, ever-present, began to look more concerned than impassive. Silvia would sometimes pause in her dusting, a worried frown on her face as she watched Dante smile at something Valentina said. The fortress was not immune to whispers.
The dream cracked during a dinner party Dante was forced to host for allied families. Valentina, wearing a stunning black gown Dante had chosen for her, played the part of the elegant, mysterious companion. She felt the speculative, often hostile, stares of the other men and their wives. She was the Rossi girl, the debt, the mistress. A curiosity.
An older Don, a friend of Dante's father, pulled Dante aside. Valentina, fetching a shawl from the study, overheard.
"She's beautiful, Dante, I'll give you that," the old man grumbled. "But keeping her like this? It's a distraction. A weakness. Your father would have settled the debt and been done with it. This… sentiment, it will get you killed."
Dante's reply was cold steel. "My father is dead, and I am Don. My choices are my own. And Valentina is not a subject for discussion. Capisci?"
The warning was clear, but the damage was done. The word hung in the air: weakness.
Later, in the quiet of his bedroom, she asked him about it. "Am I a weakness, Dante?"
He turned from the window, his face etched with fatigue and resolve. "You are the only thing that feels like a strength," he said honestly. "But in my world, love is a target. It is the thing your enemies aim for. By wanting you, I have painted a bullseye on your back."
He crossed the room and knelt before her where she sat on the edge of the bed, taking her hands in his. It was a gesture of submission that stole her breath. "I am trying, Valentina. I am trying to build something legitimate, something clean for us. But the past is a hungry ghost. It is not done with me. With us."
For the first time since their first night together, real fear, cold and sharp, trickled down her spine. His love was a shield, but it was also the very thing that made her vulnerable. The gilded cage had become a haven, but she was only now realizing the wolves were still circling, and they'd just been given the scent of what mattered most to the king.