Julia #2
I meant it. I do prefer knowing. I prefer a clear threat to a charming one. I prefer a man who scares everyone in the room honestly over one who saves his cruelty for locked doors and perfect smiles.
Ricardo sets his coffee down.
The cup makes almost no sound against the saucer.
“Spoken from experience,” he says quietly.
I look at him then.
The amusement has not disappeared, exactly. It has settled into something deeper. His face is still composed, still elegant, but the air around him has changed. He is no longer only entertained by me.
He is listening.
Really listening.
It makes me wish I had said less.
It makes me want to say more.
I fold my hands in my lap beneath the desk, where he cannot see them. “It's a consequence of the career path I've chosen and the people who tend to surround it.”
“Yes,” he says. “But that is not all of it.”
My breath catches. No. No, it isn't.
Ricardo sees that too.
Of course he does. He's far too observant for his own good.
I reach for the top folder on my desk because I need something to do with my hands. “Mario asked me to have these ready for Lorenzo by noon.”
“Then I should let you work.”
“You’re not stopping me.”
“I am distracting you.”
I look up.
His voice is calm, almost courteous.
But there is nothing innocent about it.
The pause that follows stretches just long enough for me to become aware of everything I should not be aware of.
His hand resting on the arm of the chair.
Ringless. Large, well-kept, veins faint beneath olive skin.
The watch at his wrist. The immaculate cuff.
The way he sits back like he has all the time in the world, even though men like him never do.
I notice there is no wedding ring, and I remember that he has never married. He had Dante when he was very young. Never married his mother and never married anyone else either, I guess.
I shouldn't be noticing that, and I definitely shouldn't be feeling any certain way about it.
“You are fine,” I say carefully.
His mouth tilts.
“Fine,” he repeats.
My cheeks warm.
Damn him.
I open the folder and scan the top sheet. Vendor contract. Redline notes. Mario’s handwriting in the margin, sharp and minimal. He writes like he speaks. Nothing wasted. Nothing softened.
I force myself to focus.
Ricardo lets me.
For almost two full minutes, he says nothing.
The silence should settle back into professionalism, but it does not.
It sits between us, full of all the things neither of us has said.
Every shift of paper sounds too loud. Every breath feels measured.
I am conscious of the space between the chair and my desk.
Conscious of him drinking coffee. Conscious of the fact that when I reach for my pen, his gaze follows my hand.
It is ridiculous.
I am twenty-six years old. I have stood in ballrooms where the president spoke, beside governors, senators, old-money wives with diamond necklaces and smiles like broken glass.
I have handled a donor threatening to pull half a million dollars from a hospital wing because the wrong person introduced him at a gala.
I have managed seating arrangements that required the emotional intelligence of a hostage negotiator.
I can sit across from Ricardo Conti for twenty minutes without unraveling.
I think.
“Do you miss it?” he asks.
I look up. “Miss what?”
“The charity boards.”
“No.”
The answer is so immediate that his expression shifts.
“No?” he asks.
“No.” It's not exactly a lie. Well, only a little one, anyway. I miss the charities. I don't miss the people.
“You spent your career in that world.”
“I spent my career being useful in that world.”
“That is not the same.”
“No,” I say. “It isn’t.”
His gaze moves over my face, slowly enough to feel like touch and not slowly enough to be improper.
I hate that distinction.
I hate that I am making it.
“What do you miss?” he asks.
I should tell him this is not the sort of question he needs answered. I should smile politely and say something empty about community impact. I should remember that I am at work and he is not a friend.
But his voice is not prying.
That is the worst part.
It is quiet and direct. As if he already knows the diplomatic answer and has no interest in it.
I look down at the folder.
“Being good at something without feeling watched all the time,” I say.
The words are honest enough to embarrass me.
Ricardo does not respond immediately.
When he does, his voice is softer. “And do you feel watched here?”
A laugh almost escapes me. I stop it before it becomes anything too revealing.
“This is Conti Enterprises,” I say. “Everyone is watched here.”
“Yes,” he says. “But that is not what I asked.”
My fingers tighten slightly on the pen.
I think of Harrison’s eyes across a crowded room. His smile for everyone else. The careless and often cruel words afterward. The little corrections to every aspect of my behavior. The way he could make concern sound like ownership.
I think of my father saying, “You know how these things look, Julia,” as if how things look has ever been anything but a cage.
Then I think of Mario’s office. The directness. The work. The merciful absence of pity.
“I feel observed,” I say carefully. “Not managed.”
Ricardo’s eyes darken.
Not with anger. Something closer to recognition.
“Good,” he says.
I shift in my chair and reach for another document. “You make a habit of interviewing Mario’s employees while you wait?”
“No.”
“Just me, then?”
The question is too quick. Too light.
Ricardo’s smile returns, slower this time. “Just you.”
My pulse jumps.
“I’m sure that’s because I’m new,” I say.
“Is that what you are sure of?”
I look at him fully.
There is a line. I can feel it now. Thin and dangerous. He has not stepped over it. Neither have I. But we are both standing close enough to see it between us.
He is Dante’s father.
Mario’s brother.
A Conti.
A man with enough years and experience to make me feel young in a way I resent and do not entirely dislike.
I am his son’s friend.
I work for his brother.
I am still rebuilding the parts of myself Harrison chipped away at.
The parts of me he broke.
There are a dozen reasons to look away first. I do not.
“I’m sure,” I say, “that you’re very good at making people answer questions they didn’t intend on answering.”
His smile sharpens.
“And you are very good at not answering them.”
“I’ve had practice.”
“Hmm, diplomacy.”
The sound runs over my skin and leaves goosebumps in its wake.
I pick up the coffee tray because I need to break the moment before I do something stupid, like ask him what he sees when he looks at me that way.
“More coffee?” I ask.
He glances at his cup, then back to me. “Please.”
I take it from the small table beside him.
This time our fingers do brush.
Barely.
Nothing more than skin against skin for the space of a heartbeat.
My body reacts as if he touched the inside of my wrist with his mouth.
His gaze drops to my hand.
Then lifts.
Neither of us says anything.
I turn before the heat in my face becomes obvious and walk to the coffee service. My hands are steady. Thank God. My hands, at least, have the decency to behave.
The rest of me is a traitor.
Mario’s office door opens.
I turn at once, relieved.
Malcolm Reeves steps out first, smiling too broadly in the way men do when they are trying to pretend they are not unsettled. Mario follows beside him, relaxed and immaculate, his face showing nothing except professional courtesy.
“Julia,” Mario says.
“Mr. Conti,” I reply, turning from the coffee station to face them.
Mr. Reeves gives me a quick, distracted smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Mario walks him toward the elevator himself. Ricardo rises from the chair, and the lounging amusement disappears.
Mario and Mr. Reeves shake hands near the elevator. The elevator opens. Reeves steps inside. The doors close.
For one beat, Mario remains facing the elevator.
Then he turns.
His gaze moves from Ricardo to me, and something in his eyes narrows just slightly.
My spine straightens on instinct.
Ricardo looks perfectly at ease.
“Ricardo,” Mario says when he walks back.
“Mario.”
“You’re early.”
I keep my face blank and reach for the message slip on my desk. “Your call log is updated, and Lorenzo’s documents are ready for review.”
Mario’s gaze shifts to me.
“Thank you, Julia.”
“You’re welcome.”
Ricardo looks at me then.
Only for a second.
Long enough.
“Thank you for the coffee,” he says.
My pulse betrays me one last time.
“You’re welcome.”
Mario opens his office door and gestures Ricardo inside.
Ricardo walks past me, close enough that I catch the faint scent of his cologne. Expensive, warm, and just a bit spicy.
He does not look back.
That is good, merciful.
Mario follows him into the office, and the door closes behind them.
I sit back down at my desk, place my hands on the keyboard, and stare at the email on my screen without reading a single word.