CHAPTER 7
"The day you discover that two men can be telling the truth at the same time is the day you lose your innocence."
VALENTINA ROSSI
The footsteps stopped at the door.
I didn't turn around. I kept holding the letter, my hand steady, because if my hand shook in front of him, I'd never forgive myself.
"Allora. You decided not to pretend."
"No."
"Why not?"
Then I turned.
Luca was leaning against the door frame, jacket over his arm, white shirt with the first two buttons undone.
Wet hair—he'd just showered. Black eyes fixed on mine, no surprise, no anger.
Just watching, the way you watch an animal that's escaped a cage you built yourself, deciding whether it's worth closing again.
I held up the letter.
"What day was it written?"
"The date's on it, bella."
"I know what date is on it. I'm asking what day it was written. October fifteenth, 2015 or 2019, Luca?"
"You know the answer."
"I want to hear you say it."
He came into the office, closing the door behind him. He didn't lock it. He came to the desk, but he didn't get too close—he stopped on the other side, the desk between us, and rested both hands on the edge like a man bracing for a negotiation he doesn't want to have.
"The letter is from 2015. Your father wrote it the summer Matteo stopped going to Capri."
"And why is it in the envelope with a doctored date?"
"Because someone doctored it."
"You?"
"No."
"Who, then?"
"I don't know yet, Valentina."
"You don't know yet?" I gave a mocking smile. "You brought me into this office last night, rolled up your sleeve, opened this folder, swore you'd prove your side of it, and now you're telling me someone doctored it and you don't know who."
"That's right."
"Was it Bianca?"
He went still, and his eyes narrowed a fraction.
"Why did you say Bianca's name?"
"Because she's the one who sent me to this office this morning."
Silence.
He didn't move, but I saw his jaw lock—the left side, near the scar on his eyebrow. It was the first time I'd seen Luca Moretti truly angry in front of me. Even so, he didn't raise his voice, much less slam his hand on the table.
"What did she tell you?"
"She said you have a habit of bringing women here. That you rolled up your sleeve for her in June 2018. Same desk, same folder. Is it true?"
He took three seconds to answer. Three long seconds.
"Bianca was in this office once. In 2018. Not to hear a version of a story, Valentina. To end seven years."
"What a sweet story."
"It's the truth."
"Your truth."
"The only one I have."
I set the letter on the desk between us and pushed it toward him.
"You know what I think, Luca? I think you know exactly who doctored that letter.
I think you brought me here last night because you knew Bianca would send me back today.
I think you're smarter than you pretend to be, and that last night you didn't tell me half the story—you told me the part that would make me trust you just enough not to try to run again. "
"You think that?"
"I do."
He came around to the side of the desk where I was.
Slowly. Not the shortest way—around the edge, circling, the way big men walk when they want to look bigger.
He stopped a foot and a half from me, and I looked up—because he was too tall, and because pretending he wasn't would have been a tactical mistake.
"Valentina. If I wanted to deceive you," he said quietly, "I wouldn't have left the envelope sitting on the table for you to open."
"Maybe that's exactly what you wanted—for me to open it."
"Maybe." The corner of his mouth went up, but it wasn't the smile from before. It was a thin smile, dangerous, with no warmth. "But then explain something to me, bella. Why are you so afraid to believe me?"
"I'm not afraid of anything."
"You are."
"I'm not."
"You're afraid I'm telling the truth. Because if I am, you don't have anyone left to hate."
I raised my hand. I didn't know if it was to push him or to hit him, but I never found out—he caught my wrist in the air, without force, before I could decide.
"No," he said. "Go to your room, before we say something neither of us can take back."
I left and crossed the corridor without looking back. I heard the office door close behind me, and right after, the muffled sound of something glass hitting a wall. I went up the west wing two steps at a time and into the room, locking the door from the inside for the first time since I'd arrived.
I went to the desk. I took paper and a pen and sat down. Then I wrote at the top of the page, in block letters:
WHAT I KNOW.
Underneath, in a column:
My father lied about the war starting in 2019.
My brother disappeared from Capri in 2015.
Someone doctored a letter to change 2015 to 2019.
Bianca wants me to distrust Luca.
Raffaele warned me about Bianca before dinner.
Luca doesn't deny he has information he hasn't given me.
I want to believe him.
I looked at the last line and crossed it out.
I rewrote it:
7. I want to believe him—and that's the problem.