Page 116 of Casanova LLC

Collecting our wineglasses.

Moving to the kitchen.

Turning on the sink.

I came up on an elbow.

“It’s later than I thought. I have a meeting.”

I looked at the ornate rococo clock above the mantle. “It’s ten.”

“Time got away from me.”

“You have a meeting at ten o’clock at night?”

“It’s the only time she had.”

She? I said it aloud: “She?”

He dried the glasses now. “Prospective client.”

“You have a client right here.”

“Clients pay.”

My anger flared. “Fine. How much to not be an asshole? And I thought we were guests.”

He set the wineglasses down and walked over to the bed. Stood above it.

Stood above me.

“Trust me, this is what you need right now: distance. I’ll be back by midnight. You’re welcome to stay until then.”

With that, he turned heel, picked up his jacket, and walked to the door.

And…left.

I couldn’t stay here a moment longer.

Shaking, I clambered out of the bed, got dressed, tried to gather my wits so I didn’t leave anything—dear God, please don’t let me leave anything—hastily ran my fingers through my hair, fumbled with the straps of my shoes, and staggered to the door. I turned back once more, looking at the bed. The site of my humiliation.

I knew what I had to do.

I opened my purse and pulled out my wallet. Seven-hundred-fifty euro. A fraction of his value, an insulting amount. And yet: all I had to my name. I walked back to the bed and left it there, right in the middle, in the divot my shoulders had created, still warm. He would never be able to say he did me a favor. This was a transaction. Services paid, services rendered. Quality product, timely delivery. Five stars.

Choking back sobs, I left, leaving the door unlocked behind me.

Episode 8

“Few of my readers will fail to testify that the sweetest pleasures are those which are hardest to be won, and that the prize, to obtain which one would risk one’s life, would often pass unnoticed if it were freely offered without difficulty or hazard.”

? Giacomo Casanova

Alessandro

I took the stairs two at a time to my room and grabbed the Riva’s keys.

My hope of not seeing Jacopo in the cavana was shattered when I arrived there, greeted by the sight of him standing at a sawhorse, sanding some wood, two work lamps looming over him like he was in surgery.

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