Chapter 23
Cole
B y the time dinner arrives, the penthouse smells like heaven and chaos.
Laurent’s sprawled half off the sectional, tearing into an order of drunken noodles like he’s been starved for days. Sébastien is carefully plating things that absolutely do not need to be plated, his French perfectionism kicking in as he tries to make Pad Thai look like fine dining. Rowan sits cross-legged between them, wide-eyed and laughing, her plate already overloaded with pasta and something green and spicy that smells like it could burn your eyebrows off.
I’m not even mad about the variety. We ordered enough for ten people. There’s a tower of pizza boxes from Lucali, steaming containers of Massaman curry, hand-rolled fettuccine al tartufo from Raf’s, and a damn lobster pad kee mao that’s making even Laurent pause before devouring it like a man possessed.
“What is this ?” Rowan asks, pointing to the delicate pile of thinly sliced pasta in front of her, glistening with truffle oil.
“Fettuccine al tartufo,” Massimo says, like the words are silk in his mouth. “Handmade, imported truffle, black winter from Umbria.”
Laurent snorts around a bite of Thai basil chicken. “Basically, it’s fancy mushroom pasta that costs more than my first car.”
“And yet you’re still stealing bites of it,” Sébastian mutters, batting Laurent’s fork away.
Rowan giggles, wiping her mouth with a linen napkin. “Okay, but this curry? It’s like liquid gold. I want to bathe in it.”
“You say the word,” Laurent says with a wink, “and I’ll have a tub full of it by morning.”
“Please don’t,” Sébastien replies dryly. “The scent would haunt the penthouse forever.”
I sit back in my chair, watching them, heart strangely full. Rowan’s laughing, eyes brighter than I’ve seen them. She’s relaxed. Not completely, there’s still a wariness in her, a tension in her shoulders she hasn’t quite shaken, but it’s a start.
I pass her a slice of Lucali’s pepperoni and hot honey pizza; the crust charred just right; the cheese bubbling. “Try this,” I say. “Brooklyn classic.”
She takes a bite, chews thoughtfully, then moans, actually moans, and the room goes still for half a second.
Laurent groans and drops his head to the back of the couch. “Please don’t make that sound unless you’re prepared for consequences.”
“Sorry,” she says, clearly not sorry at all, and takes another bite.
Across the room, Massimo raises an eyebrow over the rim of his wine glass, lounging in his favorite armchair like some kind of Armani-clad Roman emperor. “If that pizza makes you moan like that,” he says, his accent thick and velvet-rich, “I may need to try a slice myself.”
“You haven’t eaten,” I say, giving him a look. “You’re just sipping scotch and judging us.”
“I was waiting for the chaos to settle,” he replies smoothly. “But if Rowan is making sounds like that, perhaps I’ve waited long enough.”
“Mass,” Laurent calls, “don’t be creepy.”
“I am not creepy,” Massimo says, standing and moving with the kind of fluid grace that makes even passing the pizza box look like a luxury ad. “I am Italian. We understand food. And pleasure.”
Rowan’s cheeks flush a little, but she grins and passes him a slice of the hot honey pie. “Prepare yourself, Massimo. It’s a religious experience.”
He takes a bite, chews slowly, and closes his eyes. “ Dio mio. This is why I left Milan.”
Laurent barks a laugh. “You left Milan because Cole offered you stock options.”
“I stayed for the pizza,” he murmurs, reaching for another slice.
Dinner winds down in a blur of satisfied sighs and empty plates. Someone’s already queued up a playlist, something low and jazzy filling the air as the table slowly clears. Laurent insists on taste-testing every dessert, dragging Sébastien along like a mischievous kid at a bakery, and Massimo trails behind them, espresso in hand, shaking his head but clearly amused. One by one, they wander off toward the media room, leaving me and Rowan in the soft, golden light of the penthouse living room.
The others have cleared out, Laurent dragging Sébastien away to help him sort through dessert options like they’re selecting rare gemstones. Massimo followed, espresso in hand, muttering something about supervising before the entire dessert cart ended up in the media room.
That leaves just me and Rowan.
She’s still curled on the couch, her knees tucked up beneath her, a mostly empty plate on the coffee table and a glass of something sparkling half-forgotten in her hand. Her hair’s a little messy now, lips slightly parted, and there’s this calm about her that wasn’t there before. Like something heavy she didn’t even realize she’d been carrying is finally starting to slip away.
“You okay?” I ask quietly, settling beside her. Not too close, but close enough.
She nods, but it’s a slow, thoughtful kind of nod. “Better now.”
“Good,” I say, then lean back, letting the silence stretch between us. It’s not awkward. It’s... something else. Comfortable. A little charged. But still soft.
“I haven’t laughed like that in... I don’t even know,” she says, voice a little hoarse. “You guys are...” Her gaze flicks to me, uncertain. “You’re a lot.”
“Yeah,” I admit, cracking a smile. “We are.”
“But it’s kind of nice,” she adds, surprising me. “It’s loud and ridiculous, but it’s real.”
That hits somewhere I don’t expect. “We are real,” I say. “Messy. Flawed. Loud as hell. But we don’t fake anything.”
She gives me this small, tired smile that makes my chest feel too tight. “I don’t know what I expected when I walked into that building, but... it wasn’t this.”
“This,” I repeat, my voice softer now. “What is this, Rowan?”
Her lips part, then close again. She doesn’t answer.
So I do it for her. “It’s the start of something. We don’t know what it looks like yet. Don’t need to. But we’ll figure it out. Together.”
She looks at me like I’ve handed her something fragile and priceless. Then she nods once and leans her head against my shoulder. We sit like that for a long time. No expectations, no demands. Just this.