years. Impeccably trained, they made her feel as if she was gleaming and perfectly presentable at all times. When in fact it was their ability to clean rooms while she was still in them, produce a phalanx of nannies with credentials in hand to watch Arlo whenever she needed a moment and maintain the elegance all around her so expertly that made it feel quite natural that she should find herself living in it again.
It had been different going in the other direction, from these nonchalant everyday luxuries to the challenges of real life without them, but at the time, Lily had viewed all of that as her penance. And her test. If she could manage it, she’d told herself as she’d waited tables in places the old Lily wouldn’t have dared enter, she’d earn the right to raise her child herself.
She’d given herself a deadline. If, by her eighth month of pregnancy, she couldn’t come up with a better life than the hand-to-mouth, on-the-run existence she’d fashioned for herself, then she would have to tell Rafael about the baby. Or arrange for him to get custody without directly confronting him, maybe. Something. No child deserved to struggle along in poverty at all, but certainly not when his mother could make one phone call and whisk him away from a truck stop diner to a place like this. Lily might have left her life the way she had for what had felt like very good reasons, despite the pain she knew she’d caused—but she hoped she wasn’t that selfish.
Lily had been six months pregnant when Pepper had walked into her diner, headed home after delivering a pair of rescue dogs from a high-kill shelter in Virginia to their loving new home in Missouri. Maybe it wasn’t surprising that they’d hit it off instantly—after all, Pepper had a way with strays.
And when she’d hit that eight-month deadline, Lily had been living in the guest cottage on Pepper’s land, with a job she quite enjoyed to go along with it. She’d liked her life there and had seen no reason her baby wouldn’t, too. Pepper had felt like the long-lost older sister Lily had never had. And then she’d been more like a doting grandmother to Arlo.
Lily didn’t regret a single minute of her time in Virginia, and she told herself she didn’t regret keeping Arlo’s existence from Rafael, either.
But it was shockingly easy to adjust to life in all of that Castelli luxury again, she found, regrets or no. From the stately ballrooms to the gracious salons to the many libraries, large and small, that dotted the rambling old house, every inch of the place was a song of praise to the ancient Castelli name and a celebration of their many centuries of wealth and prominence. She’d made her way to her favorite library tonight, a week after they’d arrived in Italy, while the nannies she’d have said she didn’t need tended to Arlo’s nightly bath.
This was what they’d been hired to do, she’d been informed the first night they’d come to spirit him away. Which meant Rafael had decreed it—and in this great house, what Rafael decreed was law. That took some getting used to.
“You always loved this room.”
Lily jumped at the sound of his voice. It was as if she’d summoned him out of thin air with a single thought, and it took everything she had not to whirl around and face him, the way a guilty person who remembered exactly how much she’d loved this room might do.
“I do like libraries,” she said, trying to sound vague. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“You like this one because you said it felt like a tree house,” Rafael said, and it was only when she heard how calm and even his voice was that she realized she’d been much too close to snapping at him.
Lily heard him move farther into the cozy room, all dark woods and packed bookshelves and the bay window that sat out amid the leafy green treetops in summer. This time of year the bare branches scratched at the glass and made her think about all the ghosts that stood in this room with them, none of whom she wanted to contend with just then.
She turned to find Rafael much closer than she’d expected. He stood there in casual trousers and a sleek sweater that made her palms itch to touch it—him—and she told herself the way her heart leaped inside her chest was anxiety. Panic at this awful role she had to play, when she’d never been any good at pretending much of anything.
But the heat that washed over her told a much different story, especially as it settled low and deep and heavy in her belly. And then began to pulse.
It was then that she realized that she hadn’t been alone with Rafael since that cold street back in Charlottesville. Not truly alone. Not like this—closed off in a faraway room in a rambling old house where no one could hear them and no one was likely to intervene even if they could.
Lily’s heart began to drum against her ribs, so loud that for a moment she was genuinely afraid he could hear it.
“A tree house?” she asked now. She frowned at him, then out the window and into the darkness, where the December trees were skeletal at best. Someone who had never been here before would certainly not make the summertime connection. It required having whiled away hours in the window seat, surrounded by all of those leaves. “I don’t get it.”
His dark gaze was intent on hers, as if he was parsing it—her—for lies, though he still stood a few feet away, his hands thrust in his pockets. She supposed that was meant to be a safe distance. But this was Rafael. Nothing about him was safe and there was no distance in the world that cut off that electricity that bloomed in the air between them. Even now, as if nothing had happened. As if it was five years ago and no time had passed.
No car accidents. No Arlo. Just this thing that had stalked them both for years.
“How have you enjoyed your week here?” Rafael asked. So mildly, as if he had nothing on his mind save the duties of a host and this was a mere holiday for the both of them.
Lily didn’t believe that tone of voice at all.
“It’s very pretty here,” she said, the way a first-time guest might have. “If a bit bleak this time of year. And obviously, the house itself is amazing. But that doesn’t make it feel like any less of a prison.”
“You are not in prison, Lily.”
“That’s not—” She cut herself off. “I don’t like it when you call me that.”
“I can’t call you anything else,” he said, a dark fire in his voice, his eyes, and it stirred up that dangerous matching blaze inside her. “It sits on my tongue like lead.”
She didn’t really want to think about his tongue. “If this isn’t a prison, when can I leave?”
“Don’t.”
“I don’t know you. I don’t know this place. The fact that you remember this life you think I had doesn’t change the fact that I don’t remember living it. A blood test doesn’t change how I feel.”
She thought if she kept saying that, over and over again, it might make it true.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Rafael said, in a remarkably calm tone that was completely at odds with that harsh look on his dark, beautiful face. “But things are complicated. I can’t simply let you go and hope you’ll be kind enough to stay in touch. You are somewhat more than a mere flight risk.”
Lily thought better of showing him her reaction to that. She might not have been truly alone with him since they’d arrived here, but she’d certainly suffered through too many of these sorts of seemingly innocuous barbs that she worried were actually
