Page 125 of Casanova LLC

I forced myself to get up and do…things. Polish something. Make ziti. Read. Sit on the window seat and look out at the changing light as the earth rotated. At midday, I thought about switching to wine for the night, dialing it back a notch.

I opened a bottle of whiskey.

The next day wasn’t better. I had thought by setting the bar so low it wouldn’t be hard to clear, but I’d been wrong. I did shower, though. Then I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since I wasn’t sure when, so I ate some nuts. It was late afternoon when Jacopo knocked. This time he dared to open the door a crack and stick his head in.

“Can I make you some food, eh? My special tortellini with?—”

“No. Go away.”

“Okay. I go. I am here, but I go. When you want to talk?—”

I walked into the bathroom and closed the door.

I woke up the next day when the wine bottle I’d been sleeping with on the window seat clattered onto the floor.

I swung my feet over the side, my head toddling after like a kid brother trying to keep up, and I dropped my elbows onto my knees. Okay. I needed to do something other than everything I was not doing.

I cleaned the guest apartment. It was nearly impossible, but I persisted. I scrubbed the room the way I wished I could scrub my mind.

My own apartment, I avoided. Because there was a ghost in there. A hastily sketched ghost on a charred blush canvas that haunted me.

I treated myself to a mezcal negroni in the sala when I was done. Just one. I had to reacclimate to the taste. I had to train myself to not see a backless dress at Raines Law Room when I tasted it, her hand down her black panties, an askew mask above kiss-plumped lips.

Why did I have to retrain myself?

Because my next guest was arriving tomorrow.

I finally stripped the sheets. It felt like closure. Like seeing that open casket closed and lowered into the ground. Forever.

I was days behind. I hadn’t shopped, I hadn’t made any plans, I hadn’t even looked at the preference sheet.

I brought it up on my phone.

It was perfect.

British football wife who wanted, essentially, a shopping trip with some light BDSM experimentation at night. Fantastic. I could go sit in Prada and carry her bags and keep the Cristal flowing. Some silk restraints, some spanking, some “good girls,” and I’d be done. She even wanted a scene where I didn’t say anything. Just came in while she was getting dressed and took her.

Took her.

I set my phone down.

Here was a new woman, a new opportunity to help. This was what I was made for.

But was it who I was? Why didn’t I know anymore?

One thing I did know, I didn’t want to take her. I didn’t want her, period.

So? What I wanted didn’t matter. I’d had a taste of it mattering and now it didn’t. And I had to be okay with that.

I was okay with that.

Claire was my test. My Forever. And I’d passed. Like all the Casanovas before me.

I felt a sudden surge of righteous adrenaline. This was good. This was great, actually.

I was me again.

There was still one niggling thing, just the smallest little thought in the back of my brain. Like a hangnail, so minute, but impossibly irritating: why did resuming my life feel like ruining it?

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