Chapter 20 The Letter
Dinner was never meant to become routine. It just happened.
At first, it was convenient with Sienna cooking because there was no staff left. And Dante eating her food because she refused to leave food wasted. But somewhere between the burnt omelets and the quiet pasta nights, it turned into something else,. an unspoken agreement.
Neither of them talked about it.
The table was usually the same, two plates, two glasses, the same muted clink of silverware echoing through a villa too large for one man’s silence. The only sound beyond that was the sea, endless and steady outside the windows.
Tonight, though, the silence felt different.
Dante leaned back in his chair,his half-eaten meal forgotten, his eyes fixed on her in that quiet, unsettling way of his. Sienna could feel the weight of it without looking up. She’d learned not to flinch under his gaze, but it always made her pulse react before her mind did.
She took another bite of food, even though her stomach wasn’t hungry.
“You always eat like you’re trying to prove something,” he said at last.
She didn’t look up. “Maybe I am.”
He smiled faintly, slow and deliberate. “And what would that be?”
“That I’m not afraid of you.”
He set down his fork with a soft click. “I never said you should be.”
“You don’t have to,” she said, finally meeting his eyes. “You wear your arrogance like armor.”
He arched an eyebrow, amused. “And you wear your professionalism like a shield. Guess we both have our tricks.”
The air between them grew taut, not quite hostile, but sharp-edged, like a conversation balanced on glass. Sienna folded her napkin, trying to ground herself in something small, something ordinary.
“I’m not here to play mind games,” she said quietly. “My job is to get you walking again.”
“Maybe that’s the problem.” His tone was soft now, but not gentle. “You make everything a job.”
She frowned. “It’s how I cope.”
“Cope with what?”
The question slipped under her defenses before she could stop it. For a second, she forgot how to breathe.
“Who taught you to build walls that high?” he asked, not unkindly. “Because whoever it was did a damn good job.”
Her chest tightened. “Who taught you to hide behind arrogance?” she countered, sharper than she meant to.
For a heartbeat, there was no sound, only the faint hum of the ocean outside. Then, to her surprise, he almost smiled. Not his usual smirk, this one was smaller, and softer.
“Touché,” he said, voice low.
Sienna exhaled, half a laugh, half surrender. She leaned back in her chair, finally letting her shoulders drop.
“Maybe we both need to learn a new language,” she murmured.
He tilted his head. “Something that doesn’t sound like defense?”
“Something that sounds human,” she said.
That earned a real smile fleeting, but real. He looked down at his plate, shaking his head like he didn’t quite believe she’d said it out loud.
“Careful,” he murmured. “If you keep talking like that, people might think we’re getting along.”
She smiled faintly. “We’re not.”
“No,” he agreed. “But we’re getting close to pretending.”
They stayed at the table longer than usual, neither reaching for the dishes nor moving to leave. The silence had changed shape again,it wasn't cold or sharp now. It was a silence of curiosity.
Sienna found herself studying the lines of his hands as he turned the glass slowly between his fingers. She’d seen those hands tremble from pain, clench from frustration, push her away, reach for her always with purpose, never idly. Now, they moved without reason.
She wondered if he even realized it.
“Why did you start drawing again?” she asked, nodding toward the sketchbook resting near the window.
He hesitated. “It reminds me I’m not useless.”
She blinked. “You’re not.”
He gave a short, dry laugh. “Tell that to the sponsors who cut my contracts.”
“That’s not who you are.”
His eyes flicked up, meeting hers. For once, she didn’t look away. There was something there, a quiet ache, not for pity, but for proof. Proof that someone still saw him as more than what he’d lost.
She didn’t say anything else. Sometimes silence was the only kind of mercy worth giving.
At night, when the dishes were cleared and the lights dimmed, Sienna found herself lingering near the study door. She’d come to drop off his evening medication, nothing more but the soft lamplight spilling under the door pulled her in like a current.
The room smelled faintly of cedar and ink. Papers were spread across the desk with sketches, letters, and half-finished notes. Dante was nowhere in sight. Maybe he’d gone to shower or to bed.
She hesitated in the doorway. Don’t, her conscience warned. But curiosity had already taken hold.
She approached the desk quietly, her fingers brushing the corner of a paper that wasn’t like the others. Not medical notes. Not sketches.
A letter.
The handwriting was sharp and elegant, like someone trying too hard to control emotion through writing.
“Isabelle,
I don’t know why I’m writing this. Maybe because silence is starting to sound like guilt. Maybe because the things I never said are the ones I can’t stop hearing.”
Sienna’s pulse jumped. She froze, torn between pulling back and reading further.
“You always said I’d end up alone with my pride. You were right. But if you’re reading this, know I didn’t choose the crash. I didn’t choose any of it. I..”
The rest trailed off, the ink smudged like he’d stopped mid-thought or changed his mind.
She stepped back, the room suddenly feeling smaller. Her first instinct was confusion, who was this Isabelle? The woman from his calls, maybe. The name he’d murmured in his sleep.
But beneath that confusion was something she didn’t want to name. A hollow, unwelcome ache that tightened beneath her ribs.
She folded the edge of the paper back exactly how she’d found it, her hands shaking slightly.
You shouldn’t have read that.
But she couldn’t make herself regret it either.
When she left the study, the hallway was dark, except for one dim light spilling from the stairwell. She stopped halfway to her room, realizing her heart was still pounding.
She told herself it was curiosity. It wasn’t jealousy. It couldn’t be.
He was her patient. Nothing more.
Still, as she turned the handle to her door, she caught herself glancing back toward the study at the faint glow under the door, the ghost of words she wasn’t supposed to know.
And for the first time since arriving at the villa, she felt the strange certainty that whatever had happened to Dante before she came,
whatever or whoever Isabelle was, it wasn’t finished.
It was waiting. And she was getting caught on between everything.