Simone saw me first. His face went through three expressions in the space of a second. Surprise. Confusion. And then something harder. Something that rearranged his features into the cold mask he wore when a soldier had overstepped.
He ran his thumb along the edge of his jaw. Slowly.
"Grazia? What the hell. Do you really have to follow me here?" His voice was low, controlled, but the accusation cut through the quiet corridor like a blade. "You stalking me now?"
I shifted my eyes to Silvana.
She stood half a step behind him, her hand resting on her stomach in that protective, proprietary way that pregnant women hold themselves. When my gaze found hers, she looked away. A quick, practiced aversion. The kind that looks like modesty but is actually strategy.
Then she touched the hollow of her throat with two fingers.
"Simone, don't accuse her like that." Her voice was gentle. Chiding. The voice of a reasonable woman calming an unreasonable man. "Do you really think she'd stalk us? I mean, we're here for the baby. Grazia gets the situation." She turned to me with a smile that was warm on the surface and surgical underneath. "Right, Grazia?"