He smirked when he realized he had rendered her speechless again.

“I’m leaving now,” she finally said.

He glanced at the clock above her desk. “Look at the time. I should finish up my meeting with Dr. Stevens before I go. After all, I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

Beatrice shook her head. “You bastard,” she muttered through a clenched jaw.

He held open the door, but his arm shot out when she tried to walk past him. His hand curled around her waist, and he felt the familiar frisson of electricity run between them when they touched for the first time in five years. His temperature rose when he leaned over and murmured in her ear.

“I’m back, Beatrice. I’m back for you, and I’m not going anywhere. You’re not a girl anymore, so run home for now but know that I’ll see you again tomorrow. And I’m not leaving you again.”

She turned her head to meet his green eyes and her mouth was only a breath away.

“What if I ask you to go?” she whispered. “Are you just going to hang around and be a nuisance forever?”

He paused, the words almost catching in his throat. “If you ever had any feelings for me, give me a chance. Please.”

She didn’t respond, pushing his arm away from her body before she rushed down the hall. He heard her pass through the reading room to say goodnight to her boss before she exited out the glass doors. When she left the building, the energy fled with her, and he slumped against her office wall.

“This is going to be harder than I thought.”

He finalized plans with Dr. Stevens before he left the Huntington that night, strolling the four blocks to the large Tudor-style home he’d purchased the month before. He was still getting used to the layout of the house but had been charmed by the dense trees that surrounded the property and the tiered gardens and ponds that filled the yard.

As he walked through the front doors, he looked around and listened for the activity that should have been going on in the library on the first floor. He heard nothing except the bouncing of a basketball behind the garage. Laughing under his breath, he turned and walked silently through the kitchen and out the back doors.

The boy was bouncing the ball in a pool of light that shone from the back of the garage. He was bent over, dribbling through his scrawny legs, his attention focused on the rhythmic bouncing of the orange ball in his hands. Just then, he crouched down and shot up, tossing a precise shot toward the basket mounted over the garage door.

“He shoots…he scores!” the boy shouted when the ball sailed through the hoop. “And the crowd goes wild for Ben Vecchio, lead scorer of the—” He turned then and spotted Giovanni, leaning against the wall.

“Scorer of the what?” Giovanni asked with an amused smirk.

“Um…of the top college in the country, which I will be getting into with no problem because I already finished my math and my Latin translation?”

“Reading?”

“Done before you woke up tonight.”

“History?”

“Well, not quite…”

“Composition?”

“You know, you’re back a lot sooner than I thought you’d be.”

“How about piano?”

Ben’s mouth gaped open and his shoulders slumped. “It hasn’t even been delivered yet!”

Giovanni frowned. “I forgot that part. Did you call the movers today?”

Ben nodded. “Yep, they said that it’d be here next Thursday at the latest and to make sure that we had room for the truck.”

“Excellent. Toss me the ball then.”

“Pass, Gio. Pass the ball.”

“Fine, whatever,” he muttered as Ben passed the ball to him. He dribbled it, then tossed it toward the backboard, where it bounced off the rim before Ben ran over to catch it. He bounced it back to Giovanni.

“Okay, you need to square up your shoulders with the basket before you shoot. Try again.”

Giovanni dribbled the ball a few more times before he tried again, squaring his shoulders like Ben had directed. “You know, if you put half the concentration into your composition that you do into this game—”

“Game, Gio. Remember? We’re supposed to talk about non-school stuff when we play.”

He rolled his eyes and shot again, this time getting slightly closer to the square behind the hoop.

“There,” Ben encouraged. “That’s better.” The boy rebounded the shot and took some time dribbling it before he tossed it toward the hoop, where it sailed in. “So, did you talk to her?”

Giovanni watched as the boy ran around the small court, shooting baskets and chasing rebounds. His lanky limbs and awkward gait seemed to disappear on the basketball court, as he exhibited the natural confidence that had brought him to Giovanni’s attention when he’d seen the boy in New York over a year ago.

“I did.”

“Is she really mad at you?”

He nodded as Ben passed him the ball. “Yes, she’s…fairly angry.”

“Did you tell her about me yet?” he asked in a small voice.

“Not yet,” he smiled. “I told you, Beatrice is far more apt to like you than me at the moment. Don’t worry about that.”

Ben gave a nonchalant shrug. “Girls always like me more, G. It’s ‘cause I’m so good-looking.”

Giovanni chuckled and passed the ball back to him. “I worry about your self-esteem, Benjamin. Really, I do. Have you eaten dinner yet?”