4
LUCA BELLANDI
On the sixth day, I discovered that Gabriela had an irritating habit of getting there before me.
At six fifteen in the morning, the project room windows were already lit.
I found her amid an organized mess of plans, photographs, and empty cups, giving Carlo instructions in Italian and someone on the phone instructions in Portuguese.
A pencil held her hair up. There was a blue smudge on her sleeve and another near her chin.
She raised a finger for silence without even looking to see who’d come in.
No one did that to me. I stayed by the door.
“Cris, I can’t get into this now,” she said into the phone. “I know how much the payment is. I told you I’d handle it… No, don’t sell anything before I get back. Especially my father’s drawing boards.” Carlo took the technicians over to another table to look at a plan, giving her some privacy.
She paused, her shoulders tight.
“I miss you too. Call tonight, okay?”
I had no idea who Cris was. I disliked him immediately. Gabriela ended the call and turned back to the team.
“Carlo, if we run the pipe along here, we won’t need those three holes through the original wall. It’s a longer run, but the pressure loss is still within tolerance.”
“What will it cost?” I asked.
She looked at me for the first time.
“Good morning to you too.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-eight thousand more to install. A hundred and forty thousand less in future repairs.”
“Approved.”
Carlo gathered the plans and left with the other technicians. Gabriela started stacking reports.
“Did you sleep here?”
“No.”
“How many hours did you get?”
“Is that part of my assessment?”
“Anything that puts the project at risk is part of your assessment.”
She pulled the pencil from her hair and twisted the bun tighter before securing it again.
“I got enough.”
“That usually means less than four hours.”
“And that question usually means someone’s trying to control something that’s none of his business.”
I came over to the table. An unopened package of cookies sat beside the computer, along with cold coffee. No sign of an actual meal.
“Paola will arrange the shifts so you’re off site by nine.”
Gabriela dropped the report.
“No, she won’t.”
“I gave her the instructions before I came here.”
“Take them back.”
“No.”
“The crew works until midnight.”
“The crew takes turns. You get here before everyone else and leave after the last worker.”
“It’s my job.”
“Your job doesn’t require you to pass out over a set of plans.”
“I’m not going to pass out.”
“Good. These instructions should help keep it that way.”
She planted her hands on the table and leaned toward me.
“You don’t get to decide when I sleep.”
My gaze dropped to her open collar before I could stop it. One button was undone. I caught a glimpse of pale lace and looked back at her face a fraction too late. She’d noticed. The silence grew warmer.
I knew desire. Beautiful women, discreet games, relationships ended before anyone expected promises. None of it had prepared me for standing in front of Gabriela, wanting to do up her shirt and undo the rest of it at the same time.
“You can give me orders at work,” she said, more quietly. “Not in my personal life.”
“As long as you’re on this site, I’m responsible for your safety.”
“Then make sure there’s someone to take over my shift. Don’t use it to dictate what I do when I leave.”
“Augusto would disagree.”
I regretted it even before the hurt showed on her face.
“My father is dead. You don’t get to keep using his memory to put me where you think I belong.”
She walked past me and out. I stood there alone, unable to get an answer out.
I opened my last conversation with Augusto. The message had survived every new phone. I’d never answered it.
“Look after Gabi if I don’t make it. She’ll tell you she doesn’t need you. She’s inherited too much from me for you to believe everything she says.”
I’d received it on a flight from London to Dubai. I was going to call when I landed. Then there was a car waiting, a meeting running late, other messages demanding decisions. Augusto’s went unanswered.
I’d arranged help through the lawyers: more time to pay, two creditors held off, monthly reports on the firm. All the things I knew how to do. And Gabriela could barely look at me.
“You have a remarkable gift,” Sofia Bellandi said from the doorway, “for making concern sound like an insult.”
I wasn’t surprised. My grandmother entered rooms quietly and reached conclusions before anyone else. At eighty, Sofia still wore structured dresses and pearls, and treated her silver-handled cane more like a weapon than a support. She came in and surveyed the chaos Gabriela had left behind.
“What are you doing here so early?”
“I came to see my roses.”
“I don’t even know if there are any roses left.”
“Time you found out, then.”
“The garden’s been closed for more than thirty years.”
“And you’re still using that as an excuse, I see.”
I said nothing. Sofia touched one of the plans.
“She looks like Augusto when she works.”
“I know.”
“She left here furious. Is that what you were trying to achieve?”
“Don’t start.”
“I started forty-four years ago, when I had the misfortune to acquire a grandson who mistakes stubbornness for character.”
She came to the table and opened the cookies. Broke one in half, regarded it with contempt, and put both pieces back.
“Is this what she calls breakfast?”
“Apparently.”
“Then invite her to eat instead of rearranging her working hours like a petty dictator.”
“She’d say no.”
“Perhaps. You could at least ask.”
“I have teams to manage, nonna.”
“Gabriela isn’t a team. That’s the part you keep missing.”
I picked up my phone.
“I have a meeting.”
“I’m going to eat. If you see Gabriela, tell her there’s a place at the table.”
She left before I could end the conversation.
Just before ten, as I was getting ready for a video call with the board in London, Paola brought me a request for temporary cover over the southeast tower. Gabriela and Carlo were up there inspecting the damage from the last rain. The cost needed my approval.
I asked them to delay my part of the call and went to the tower. A narrow spiral staircase led up beneath the roof, where seventeenth-century beams held a covering that had been patched countless times. Two workers stood on the first landing.
“Where’s Ms. Duarte?”
One pointed up.
“Checking how far the damp goes.”
The air got colder with every turn of the stairs. At the top, I saw Gabriela on a temporary walkway, secured by a safety harness. She was photographing a beam while Carlo held a flashlight from the other side.
“I thought this area was closed off.”
She didn’t even turn.
“It is. We’re here for the inspection. Restricted access, with a safety line.”
“Do you know how much of the roof needs replacing?”
“That’s what we’re finding out.”
She tapped the wood, listened, and marked a spot with chalk.
One of the workers came up and handed her a meter.
She thanked him by name. Carlo listened to her observations, checking them against the drawing spread on the landing.
I’d arrived intending to solve the problem.
I didn’t even know where it was safe to put my feet.
“Can we discuss the cost downstairs?”
“Just this last spot. Then I’ll come down.”
“There’s more rain coming.”
She turned on the walkway.
“That’s why I asked for the cover. Carlo can show you where it’s going while I finish.”
Carlo turned to the drawing. I took a step toward it, still on the landing. A crack made me look up. Part of a roof tile broke through the ceiling beside Gabriela. She jerked back, lost her footing, and fell off the plank.
“Gabriela!”
I moved without thinking. The lanyard caught her. She hung beside the beam, less than a meter from the walkway. Carlo was already reaching for the auxiliary gear.
“Stay where you are, Luca!” she shouted. “Don’t add any weight!”
I stopped, my heart in my throat. There seemed to be nothing beneath her feet but endless space.
Carlo steadied the line. Gabriela braced a boot on a crosspiece, caught the edge, and pulled herself back up.
Only when she reached solid flooring could I help her stand. I gripped her arms far too hard.
“Are you hurt?”
“No. The harness caught me.”
I looked at the hook secured to the steel beam. She followed my gaze.
“That’s why we put it there.”
I couldn’t let go. I’d seen enough accidents to know a life could end in a second. She was here, talking, unharmed, irritated with me, and I was still digging my fingers into her arms.
“Luca. You’re hurting me.”
I released her at once.
“The tower is closed.”
“Carlo’s already called the crew. We need to stabilize the roof before anyone comes back.”
Her agreement left me with nothing to fight. She unfastened the equipment and handed it to Carlo, then faced me.
“You were going to come across,” she said quietly.
“I saw you fall.”
“I was attached to a line. You weren’t.”
I rubbed a hand over my face. She looked at my shaking fingers and said nothing more. For the first time since she’d arrived at the Palazzo, I wished she would argue with me.
“I want the report as soon as it’s ready,” I told Carlo.
I turned and went down before she could answer. The rain was getting heavier in the courtyard. I stopped under the arcade and tried to steady my breathing.
With one hand against the cold stone, I called Paola. I approved the temporary cover and told her to keep the tower cordoned off. Only then did I realize I was holding the phone in both hands.