"Why did you come in so late?" Giorgio looked at me, and there it was—that flicker of genuine surprise, as though he had forgotten I existed entirely.
"There was no need to rush," I said.
He took an instinctive step toward me, his brow furrowing. "You're completely drenched."
"Don't concern yourself with me." I walked past him, my tone as flat as still water.
His frown deepened, something like offense flickering across his features. "Silvia's constitution is fragile. She cannot endure this kind of weather."
I stopped.
I turned to face him.
"And can I?"
He opened his mouth. No words emerged.
I found it almost amusing. Almost.
"It's fine," I said, nodding slowly. "You don't need to explain anything."
The sentence visibly loosened something in his shoulders—relief, perhaps, or the comfortable assumption that the matter had been properly resolved. That I had accepted my place in the hierarchy of his affections.
That I would continue to accept it.
The drive back felt impossibly long.
He attempted conversation. I responded only when courtesy demanded it, offering nothing more than the bare minimum required by propriety. Streetlights slid past the rain-streaked windows one by one, each one a countdown.