Chapter 106

Alessandro

The morning light filtered through the curtains with the kind of golden warmth that made everything feel possible. I had been awake for nearly an hour, but I hadn’t moved, couldn’t bring myself to disturb the way Isabella looked curled against my chest, her dark hair spilling across my shoulder like silk, her breathing deep and even against my ribs.

Nine months. Nine months since the fire that had burned away the last of Tio Carlo’s hold on my family’s legacy, since Aria had walked back into my life with her own scars and her own strength, since Isabella had begun staring at me with so much warmth and love in her eyes, no longer as though I was some lousy superior or evil taskmaster. Three months of building something I had never thought I deserved.

The house felt different now. Where it had once been a fortress, cold marble and calculated angles designed to intimidate, it had become something else entirely. Isabella had brought warmth into corner