Dinner had dragged on longer than I wanted. The long table, the crystal, my mother's forced smiles, Valentina's lingering glances from across the room-none of it mattered the second Isabella's hand brushed my thigh under the table. One look from her and the entire evening became background noise.

I stood first, chair scraping softly against the marble. "Isabella's room is still being turned over," I told the staff without waiting for permission. "She'll stay with me tonight."

No one argued. Not tonight. Not with the way I was already guiding her out of the dining room, my palm firm at the small of her back.

The hallway to my old...