Chapter 5 The Waiting and the Return

For two days, nothing happened and that was the problem. Waiting was not his thing.

Alessandro De Luca was used to escalation—retaliation, information leaks, a body surfacing where it shouldn’t. Silence usually meant something was moving underneath, and he hated not knowing where to aim his attention. He went about his routines with a precision that bordered on aggression. Meetings were shorter. Answers sharper. Raffaele noticed and wisely said nothing. The city felt too loud, too slow, like it was conspiring to irritate him.

At night, Alessandro stood at the windows of the house, watching the city lights flicker like nervous thoughts. He replayed her absence instead.

The café chair across from him.

The almost-kiss.

The way her voice had changed when the phone rang.

No name.

No explanation.

No goodbye worth the word.

By the second evening, anger had edged out curiosity.

He told himself it was pride but he very well knew that it wasn’t.

Finally something did happen. Something unexpected.. A delivery.. it arrived just after noon on the third day.

A small box. No logo. No courier name. No return address.

It was placed carefully on the entry table, like someone had taken their time with it.

Alessandro walked past it twice without stopping. By the third pass, his jaw tightened.

“Check it,” Raffaele said from the doorway.

“No,” Alessandro replied.

Raffaele hesitated. “You sure.”

“Yes.”

Raffaele left.

The box remained.

It shouldn’t have mattered. It was too small to hold a threat. Too ordinary to be a statement. And yet, Alessandro stood there staring at it like it had dared him.

Finally, he picked it up. Light. Almost nothing inside.

He opened it. There was no note, no envelope, no explanation..

Just a book.

The same one. The one she had pulled from the shelf without thinking. The one she had said she’d read more than once. The one he had held and pretended not to care about.

His breath slowed. He opened the cover. On the first page, written in precise, elegant handwriting that felt unmistakably hers, were just a few words:

Noon.

The same place.

If you still want to know me.

There was nothing else. No name. No signature. He didnt need it anyways, he knew.. he knew it in his heart that was already beating faster.

Alessandro closed the book slowly and laughed once—short, incredulous, sharp.

“So that’s how it is,” he murmured.

At noon, he was already there.

She arrived three minutes late, wearing a simple dress and that same calm composure that made it impossible to tell what she was thinking. She saw him immediately.

Relief crossed her face before she could stop it.

“I didn’t know if you’d come,” she said as she sat.

“You sent a book,” he replied. “That was unfair.”

She smiled. “I thought so.”

They ordered lunch. Ate slowly. Talked more this time—not deeply, not carefully, but comfortably. Like two people who had already crossed some invisible line and weren’t pretending otherwise.

She told him about living abroad. About cities that never quite felt like home. About learning how to leave before people learned how to ask questions.

He told her about his mother’s cooking. About cousins who argued too loudly. About family dinners that turned into debates and never resolved anything.

When she laughed, it wasn’t restrained anymore.

It startled him how much he wanted to protect that sound.

His phone buzzed mid-sentence.

He checked it and swore quietly.

“Family,” he said. “I need to go back for a few hours.”

Her expression didn’t change, but her shoulders relaxed slightly—as if the world had just reminded her of something familiar.

“Come with me,” he said, the invitation natural, unforced.

She blinked. “Are you sure.”

“Yes.”

She didn’t hesitate. “Okay.”

The house was warm with movement when they arrived—voices overlapping, someone arguing about nothing important, the smell of food drifting down the hall. Isabella paused at the threshold, uncertain.

Alessandro took her hand.

Just once.

That was all it took.

Introductions happened quickly, imperfectly. She was welcomed like she’d always belonged there. Questions came—where she was from, what she liked, how she’d met Alessandro. She answered without lying, without revealing.

They loved her anyway.

Alessandro watched it happen with something like disbelief.

“She’s good for you,” someone whispered to him later.

He didn’t disagree.

He tried to show her around.. the gardens that made him relax, the study, his own book collection and the finally his room, and that is when the world finally quieted.

They sat close. Talked softly. Touched without urgency. And they kissed, a real kiss, the kind of passion that makes your throat burn. She had always been in control of her feelings but this time she just gave in to him. She felt that she belonged to him. All the danger that should scare her completely forgotten. They started with their shirts, the way he touched her skin burned even more. His breath in her ear telling her that she is the most amazing woman. She felt that she would explode, but she had to tell him. She looked at those passionate eyes put her finger on his wet lips and whispered "you will be my first"..

He pulled back immediately.

“I’m a virgin,” she said. “And I’m scared.”

The admission trembled between them.

Alessandro’s breath hitched—not with disappointment but he did not exprect this.

He kissed her instead. Slow. Gentle. Patient. Like he had all the time in the world and no intention of using it against her.

They stayed like that until the night settled fully around them.

Later, as they stood by the door, he reached for his jacket.

“I’ll take you home,” he said.

She froze.

Then she looked at him, eyes steady and vulnerable in a way she hadn’t been yet.

“If I leave now,” she said softly, “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to see you again.”