Page 62 of The Price of Power

He nodded. “Just keep trying. Sometimes, it can feel like you’re bashing your own head against the wall, but keep trying nonetheless. You never know what day lightning is going to strike. You can never guess what will be the magic word that gets through to them. All you can do is keep trying.”

“Thank you, Matteo.”

“Anytime, Liv,” he said before closing the door behind him and leaving me with my phone and my thoughts.

Thirty seconds later, my brother’s voice sounded in my ear.

This is Theo Collins. You know what to do.

Voicemail. Again.

I breathed deeply, filling my lungs as I waited for the beep.

Then, once more, I tried to find those magic words Matteo was talking about.

Chapter Twenty

GABRIEL

“So then you simply roll them. Like this.”

“Like…this?”

“Hmm…not exactly. Try again.”

“Okay.”

Standing outside the kitchen door, I listened to the voices inside. Letizia was teaching Liv to bake—cornetti by the sound of it. Even though I’d only been listening for the last five minutes, it sounded like they’d been at it for a while.

And that Letizia had her hands full with Liv as her student.

“So…like this?” Liv asked again.

It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see around the corner where the two women were working the dough to see how this attempt had gone. Letizia’s disappointed groan was all the answer I needed. The woman famously had more patience than anyone in the whole history of this house, and I could hear by her voice that even she was nearing the end of her rope.

“My dear,” Letizia said with a sigh. “They are called cornetti because they’re supposed to look like little horns. Not like flaccid penises.”

I couldn’t stop the laugh that burst out of my chest at the image.

“Oh God!” Liv shouted. A second later, she rounded the corner clad in a flour-covered apron and with fire in her eyes. “Gabriel! What the hell are you doing, spying on us?”

“A man can’t spy in his own home,” I tried, but she was having none of it.

“The hell he can’t,” she scoffed. “These were going to be a surprise for tomorrow’s breakfast.”

I stepped through the door and looked down at the tray of misshapen dough phalluses on the baking tray.

“You’re right,” I laughed. “These would have definitely been a surprise.”

“Be nice,” she said, grabbing the dish towel off her shoulder and thwacking me in the arm with it. A puff of flour exploded in the air as it landed.

How long had it been since anyone other than Letizia had teased me physically like that? So long that I couldn’t remember.

Still, I didn’t say a word, worrying that if I mentioned it, she would tense up and never try it again.

“This was my first attempt at baking,” she continued.

My brows rose. “First time ever?”

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