Page 31 of The Road to You

LENA

T here’s a soft thump in the corner of the room, like someone’s gently nudging the old stone walls.

I blink awake, the moonlight casting silver shapes across the terracotta floor.

My window is half-open, letting in the scent of warm earth and jasmine, and the distant sound of crickets buzzing in the olive groves.

I squint toward the doorway, heart picking up pace, until a familiar, tall shadow steps fully into view.

“Michele?” I whisper.

“Shh.” He presses a finger to his lips, eyes sparkling as he closes the door behind him with exaggerated care.

He’s barefoot, in a white T-shirt and sleep-rumpled shorts, hair wild like he’s been tossing and turning in bed.

“I didn’t mean to wake you. I stepped on something outside your door. Think it might’ve been a Lego.”

“A Lego? In a centuries-old fortified farmhouse?”

“We’re a modern family.”

I choke down a laugh. “You scared me.”

He crosses the room in just a few steps and crouches by the edge of the bed, elbows on the mattress. “Sorry, I couldn’t sleep.”

“Did you try counting sheep?”

“Yeah, but they all looked like my cousins and started asking me when I’m getting married.”

That gets a giggle out of me, and I swat at him lightly. The room feels smaller now, filled with his presence. The citrusy clean scent of his skin, the warmth rolling off his body, the low husk of his voice in the quiet of the masseria tickles all my senses in the best way.

The walls are thick here, whitewashed stone that holds the day’s heat outside, guarding our sleep while the earth outside releases the intense temperature of the scorching sun.

My room is spare but cozy, with high ceilings and exposed beams. The bed is soft and creaky, the kind that hugs your weight and promises heavy dreams. There’s a lace curtain swaying at the window and a painted ceramic bowl on the nightstand with dried lavender tucked inside.

The whole place smells like summer and old stories.

“You’re sneaking into my room like a teenager,” I tease, shifting onto my side to face him. My voice is soft, sleepy.

“I feel like one. Except back then, I didn’t have legs full of screws.”

I touch his wrist gently. “How’s your leg?”

“It’s fine,” he says quickly. “Doesn’t hurt unless I overdo it.”

I narrow my eyes. “So you overdid it.”

“Maybe.” His smile is sheepish, and for a beat, we just look at each other. The silence stretches, but it’s not awkward, it’s warm, like a familiar quilt pulled over our shoulders.

I pull the blanket back in invitation, and he doesn’t hesitate, climbing in beside me like he’s done it a hundred times. He lies on top of the sheet, his bare legs brushing mine, and it feels dangerous and easy all at once.

“How do you feel?” he asks, brushing a strand of hair from my cheek.

“About what?”

“Today. My family. This whole…mess.”

I laugh, but quietly. “Your family isn’t a mess. They’re a force of nature.”

“True.”

“I feel weirdly peaceful.” I stare at the ceiling, where the moonlight dances across the beams. “I forgot about LA today. Forgot the scandal. The headlines. Even forgot that I’m Lena Sinclair for a few hours.”

His fingers find mine under the sheet. “You’re still you here.”

“But not that version of me. Here, I’m just a woman sitting at a too-long table, trying to explain what kale is to your grandmother.”

“She said it sounds like cow food.”

“Exactly.” We both laugh again, muffling the sound into the pillow.

He shifts, propping his head up on his arm to look down at me. “You were amazing tonight. They all love you.”

“I was grilled like a swordfish.”

“You passed the test.”

“I didn’t even study.”

His grin is lazy and a little crooked, and a sharp feeling settles in my chest, both wonderful and terrifying. “I mean it. No one’s ever fit in like this before.”

“Like what?”

He shrugs one shoulder. “With them. With me.”

There’s something thick in the air between us, like a string pulled taut. I want to grab it and wrap it around my fist, hold onto it before it slips away. Instead, I ask, “Are you going to get in trouble?”

“For what?”

“For being in here.”

He pretends to gasp. “Lena. Are you trying to seduce me?”

I roll my eyes. “You snuck into my room, Moretti.”

He leans in closer, lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Maybe I missed you.”

His breath is warm, and my skin breaks out in goosebumps. “We’ve been apart for what, an hour?”

“Exactly.” He kisses my neck gently, reverently, and I shiver. I know where this is going. And I know where it won’t.

Not tonight. Not here. But in between there’s still something electric, something playful and dangerous and real.

“You’re not going to try anything,” I say, my voice way too breathy.

“Me?” he whispers. “Never.”

His mouth trails kisses down the side of my throat and lower, and even though everything about the masseria feels safe and timeless, my heartbeat races like a kid sneaking into the neighbor’s pool at midnight. It feels dangerous and forbidden and so exciting.

“Michele…” I start to protest, but he grins, wicked and boyish, looking up at me from under his thick lashes.

“Shh,” he says again. “Bet you can’t stay quiet.”

He kisses me between my breasts while he grazes his thumbs over my peaking nipples under the fabric of my tank top.

“You’re terrible,” I half whisper, half moan.

“I’m Italian,” he murmurs, biting my breast lightly.

“What does that even mean?” I chuckle.

He raises my tank top over my stomach, nipping and licking his way down toward the waistband of my panties. I think I’m losing the battle of keeping it quiet.

“According to the stereotype, I’m a charmer and passionate in bed,” he teases with a smirk on his face.

That makes me snort. “Not a valid excuse.”

He ducks under the sheet like a ghost, and my laugh dies on my lips when his mouth touches the inside of my thigh and his fingers slip my panties down my legs.

My breath catches in my throat when, with a series of wet kisses up my inner thigh, he reaches the apex where my clit is already begging for attention.

Michele licks along my folds, sucking on the bundle of nerves.

I grab the pillow and press it over my face, biting it so as not to moan and beg for more.

Knowing his parents are just around the corner makes me feel naughty, reckless, and alive at the same time.

He licks and nips and sucks with such an intensity that I don’t think I will last long before the orgasm pooling in my lower belly will explode like fireworks.

When he slips one finger into my wet core, I whimper softly in pleasure.

When he slips a second, I have to press the pillow over my face to not let the moan escaping my lips reach anyone’s ears.

When he starts pumping them in and out of my wetness, I tense and arch my back, pushing my hips against his face, giving him more space to suck on my clit and build my approaching orgasm.

It takes him a few masterful strokes, bending his fingers inside me to make me come undone under his expert tongue. Wave after wave of pleasure ripples through my body, making me want to scream my lungs out. I press the pillow firmly on my face and let out a moan I’m sure everyone can hear.

He doesn’t let up. He keeps sucking and teasing, prolonging my pleasure to the point that my sensitive bud wants to beg him to stop. My teeth almost hurt from biting the pillow.

I don’t win the bet. God, it’s a miracle if we don’t wake up everyone in this house.

When I finally breathe again, my chest is rising like I’ve run a marathon. He kisses my hip, the inside of my knee, then the hollow just above my belly button before slipping back out of the covers.

His hair is a mess, and he looks extremely proud of himself.

“Now, who’s seducing who?” I whisper.

He smirks, kissing the corner of my mouth. “I should go. Before my mom catches me and tells you we’re too young to make babies.”

I giggle against his chest. “You’re afraid of your mom.”

“You should be too. She makes her own sausage.”

I grab his wrist when he starts to move off the bed. “Stay.”

He freezes. Not in hesitation. In temptation. But then he brushes his lips against mine, gentle, grateful, full of something that scares me more than any paparazzi ever could.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he whispers. “Bright and early.”

“You better bring espresso,” I say, stifling a yawn.

“Only if I get a kiss first.” He smiles sweetly.

I give him one. And then another. And another.

Until he finally pulls himself away, slipping out of the room like a dream you will remember in the morning.

The door shuts softly behind him, and I lie there motionless, the covers tangled around my knees, the ghost of his mouth still between my thighs.

I should go back to sleep. But I don’t want to. Not yet.

The fan in the corner hums softly, stirring the curtain with each slow sweep.

Outside the open window, the cicadas are still singing their endless lullaby, the kind that has underscored every Italian night since we started this journey together.

I close my eyes, soaking in the scent of basil from the garden, warm limestone, and a hint of the soap Michele uses.

It feels surreal how light I am. How weightless. I haven’t felt like this in…I don’t know. Years?

In LA, even sleep doesn’t give me peace.

There’s always something: an email, an alert, a phone call at three a.m. from my publicist telling me I’ve been tagged in a headline I didn’t agree to, didn’t participate in, didn’t even know existed.

It’s like being on a merry-go-round you can’t get off, spinning faster and faster until your stomach flips and your brain is a blur.

But here, in this old stone room with a creaky bed and a door that barely closes, there’s silence. Not emptiness, just stillness. Safety. A slowness that makes your body relax and your mind drift to a pleasant space.

And Michele.

I press my fingers to my lips, remembering the way he kissed me before he left.

Slow. Certain. Like he knew exactly what it meant.

Like he wasn’t scared of how deep we were falling.

But I am because this was supposed to be simple.

A fling. A distraction. Something golden and glittering between the cracks of what broke me back home.

Only he’s no longer a distraction. He’s a center of gravity. And if I’m not careful, I’ll start orbiting him. Maybe I already am.

I shift in bed and roll onto my stomach, then sit up and swing my feet to the floor. The tiles are cool beneath my toes. I pad to the open window and rest my forearms on the windowsill.

The courtyard is quiet now. The candles have all gone out. The big fig tree casts long shadows under the moon, and I can just make out the curve of the vineyard rows on the far edge of the property. It’s like standing inside a painting. Or maybe a dream.

How did I end up here?

The woman I was in June—the Lena Sinclair who pressed pause on her Hollywood life and disappeared from the scene—couldn’t have imagined this. That woman was brittle and hollowed out, weary of pretending she was fine, tired of smiling on cue.

But here I’m not smiling because I have to. I’m smiling because I can’t help it. I press my forehead to the wall beside the window and close my eyes.

I can still hear Michele’s laugh echoing in my memory, loud and low and utterly unfiltered.

I think that’s what drew me in first. Not his body, not the way he looks at me like he’s memorizing every detail, but that laugh.

Like he’s not afraid to be happy. Like he’s not afraid to feel things all the way to the end.

And God, the way he touched me tonight. The way he looked up at me from under the sheets, daring me to stay quiet like it was the most fun game in the world. And the way he ran off after, scared of his mother catching him, like we were in some kind of teenage sitcom.

I grin in the dark. He’s this fascinating contradiction: confident and grounded and so damned sexy, and also a little bit afraid of his mamma .

It’s adorable. And weirdly sexy too.

My stomach twists, a slow ache curling inside me. I thought I knew what this was, just two people making the most of a sultry Italian summer. But I don’t think I’m going to be able to leave this behind untouched. Unbroken.

My heart’s already cracking open.

The weight of that settles over me slowly.

A realization, not a revelation. I’ve been falling for him in tiny steps since day one.

Since the way he brushed the coffee stain from his shirt, and didn’t make it a big deal.

Since the way he listened whenever I talked, even about the most ridiculous things.

Since the way his family looked at me tonight, like I belonged, even though they barely know me.

Even his sister, Mariasole, went out of her way to be kind. To respect the weird limbo of whatever we are. Two bedrooms, she said with a gentle smile. Just in case. Like she was saying: we love you already, but we won’t push.

And now here I am, standing barefoot in an old masseria in Puglia, my heart threatening to beat straight out of my chest, wondering how the hell I’m supposed to walk away from this. From him.

The cool air brushes my skin, and I sigh, pulling the blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapping it around my shoulders. My feet take me to the doorway, then back to the bed, then to the mirror, restless, nervous energy thrumming under my skin.

There’s so much I still don’t know. I don’t know what will happen when I go back. If Hollywood still wants me. If the headlines will cool down. If I’ll get to reclaim my narrative, or if I’ve already lost control of it for good. But I do know this: I feel like myself here.

More than that, I feel like the best version of myself. No makeup. No press. No curated brand, stylists, or pretenses. Just me. Just Lena. And Michele sees her. All of her.

And maybe he’s starting to fall in love with her too.

My eyes sting, and I blink hard. I’m not used to feeling this way. I’m not used to feeling safe . But with him, I don’t feel like I have to earn love. I just get to feel it.

Even if it’s not forever. Even if this ends in a week or a month, or when the summer sun finally fades. I know it’s real. I know he’s real. And that’s something no headline can ever take from me.

I climb back into bed and pull the sheet up over my chest, nestling into the pillow that still smells like lavender and faintly like him.

I let the night hold me. Let the summer wrap itself around my bones, and I fall asleep smiling, already dreaming of him sneaking in again tomorrow night.