25
GAbrIELA DUARTE
The invitation came from Sofia, though Luca was sitting right beside her.
“We’re having dinner in Milan next Sunday,” she announced at breakfast on Monday. “I want you there, Gabriela.”
I looked at Luca.
“Is it a board dinner?”
“Family,” he replied.
“Then I shouldn’t be there.”
Sofia tapped her spoon against her saucer.
“I’ve invited you. That settles it.”
“My grandmother thinks invitations are orders,” Luca remarked.
“I learned from you.”
I hid my smile.
“Who’ll be there?”
“Lorenzo, a few cousins, two aunts, and Beatrice,” Sofia said.
My smile vanished.
“Beatrice is family?”
“A distant cousin on her mother’s side,” Luca explained. “She’s been coming to these dinners since she was a child.”
“Of course.”
He heard my discomfort.
“You can say no.”
“It’s my invitation,” Sofia said. “Beatrice doesn’t choose who comes.”
I looked at Luca again before answering. “All right. I’ll come.”
I tried on three dresses and rejected all of them.
I didn’t want to look too plain, as though I didn’t understand the occasion, or too sophisticated, as though I’d rehearsed to win their approval.
It irritated me that I cared. Men rarely had to prove through their clothes that they weren’t opportunists.
In the end, I chose a navy dress my mother had given me. I’d had the waist taken in; I still remembered her insisting I take the earrings too. I picked up both. Cris approved over video chat.
“You look like you,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That you’re neither dressing up as a rich person nor apologizing for being there.”
It was what I needed to hear. I still hadn’t asked Luca how he’d introduce me. The board knew about us, Sofia had invited us to a family dinner, and yet I was afraid I’d arrive as someone whose presence needed an explanation. The question stayed with me all week.
On Sunday, we traveled in separate cars to Villa Bellandi, outside Milan. The property had belonged to Luca’s father and was now used only for family gatherings. I arrived with Sofia. Luca had come earlier to talk to his uncles about the Palazzo.
I found him in the entrance hall, surrounded by men in dark suits. When he saw me, he broke off the conversation and came over.
“You came.”
“Sofia threatened to send security.”
“She would have.”
He lightly touched my back and led me to the others.
“Gabriela Duarte,” he introduced me. “The architect leading the Palazzo delle Rose restoration, and Augusto Duarte’s daughter.”
It wasn’t a lie. Still, it hurt that those were the only ties he chose to name.
I shook hands, accepted compliments, and listened to stories about my father.
An aunt said Augusto would be proud. When a cousin asked whether I’d live in Italy after the opening, I said I was still deciding.
Luca stood beside me without adding a word.
Beatrice arrived last, wearing red. She greeted Sofia, kissed relatives on both cheeks, and approached Luca with the confidence of someone who knew every rule of that world.
“I hope there’s still a place for me.”
“There are place cards on the table,” Sofia replied. “Sit where yours tells you to.”
My card was on Luca’s left. Beatrice sat two places down, beside Lorenzo. Over dinner, the conversation moved from hotels to weddings to children. One of the cousins had announced her third pregnancy, to general delight. Luca stayed silent while everyone discussed names and nurseries.
I remembered our conversation in Venice and noticed how tightly he held his glass. Under the table, I touched his hand. He turned it palm up and threaded his fingers through mine.
The tablecloth hid the gesture. To everyone else, he remained distant, attentive to the conversation. To me, the thumb stroking my fingers said I wasn’t entirely alone.
“And you, Gabriela?” one of the aunts asked. “Do you want children?”
Luca went still.
“One day, yes,” I said. “If life allows.”
“Augusto started talking about grandchildren the moment you turned twenty.”
“My father liked planning other people’s futures.”
“Had he picked names?” she asked.
“A whole list. Not one we could use.”
“He wanted three grandchildren,” Sofia recalled. “He said one child alone wouldn’t stand a chance of outvoting Gabriela at home.”
Everyone laughed except Luca. His fingers felt cold beneath mine. The innocent conversation was touching a wound he hadn’t fully explained. I squeezed his hand, not to promise him children, but to tell him he didn’t have to face the subject alone.
Beatrice noticed him lean toward me. Her gaze moved from his face to mine, and she set down her glass.
“Three is ambitious,” she remarked. “Especially when nature has other plans.”
Luca released my hand and looked up.
“What do you mean?”
“Only that there are things a family can’t plan,” she replied, watching him.
Her tone was light, but Luca’s reaction told me she’d chosen her words knowingly. She knew something I didn’t.
“Men love planning children for women,” she added, looking at me.
I recognized the provocation and kept my voice calm.
“That’s not what my father did.”
Luca remained motionless beside me.
“Younger women can know exactly what they want too.”
Beatrice smiled.
“Until they find out the price.”
“Beatrice,” Sofia warned.
“I mean their careers. Of course.”
Luca rested his arm along the back of my chair. This gesture was visible.
“Gabriela’s career will survive everyone’s concern at this table quite well.”
The subject changed. Later, over dessert, Lorenzo came over to pour wine.
“Settling into the family?” he asked me.
“I didn’t know I was being assessed.”
“Everyone gets assessed here.”
“Including you?”
His smile thinned.
“Especially me.”
He leaned toward Luca.
“The lawyer called. The Lisbon deed will be ready next week.”
I was talking to Sofia, but I heard. Luca shot his brother a sharp look.
“We’ll talk later.”
“An acquisition?” I asked, turning back.
“One that’s in progress,” Luca replied.
He turned to his glass. I recognized the way he closed off a subject, but I didn’t press in front of the others. Beatrice watched the exchange from across the table.
After dinner, Sofia insisted on a family photograph on the terrace. I stepped back, but she caught my arm.
“You’re staying.”
“I’m not family.”
“I invited you. I want a photograph with you too.”
Luca heard. His eyes met mine, but he said nothing. We arranged ourselves in front of the villa doors. He stood beside me. When the hired photographer raised his camera, Luca’s hand settled on my waist.
“Look this way,” the man said.
For a few seconds, I let myself imagine it was real: me beside Luca, welcomed by Sofia, with no closed doors or dark hallways. Then flashes came from beyond the gate. Press photographers had found out about the dinner. Luca took his hand away at once.
Security moved forward. Relatives hurried inside. A reporter shouted, asking whether the Brazilian architect was Luca Bellandi’s new girlfriend. He said nothing.
I was ushered inside beside Sofia. The place where his hand had rested felt cold.
“Would you like me to stay with you?” she asked.
I nodded. She stayed beside me all the way to the entrance hall.
I rode back with Luca. The partition separated us from the driver. Neither of us spoke for ten minutes.
“Are you going to issue a statement?” I asked.
“No.”
“And if they ask you directly?”
“I won’t deny it. But I don’t want to answer on my own doorstep, surrounded by photographers.”
“I don’t want an interview at the gate either.”
“Then what did you want me to do?”
“Why did you take your hand off my waist?”
“Reflex,” he admitted. “I’ve spent my life keeping anything important out of reach of cameras.”
“I’m not a thing.”
“I know.”
“And you weren’t just protecting me. You were protecting yourself from that image.”
He leaned his head against the seat.
“Yes.”
The honesty eased my anger without taking away the hurt.
“What went through your mind in that second?”
“That they could use the photograph to attack you, the project, and the group.”
“Did you think about how I’d feel when you took your hand away?”
“No.”
“It looked as though you wanted to get away from me.”
He looked down at his hands.
“That wasn’t it.”
“I was standing beside you. I saw what happened.”
He opened his mouth, but I’d already turned to the window.
“It reminded me of being seventeen, trying to work out whether you’d noticed me. I don’t want to spend my life looking for that sign again.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“I noticed.”
“I want you to stop giving me a place in private and pulling away when someone looks.”
He was silent.
“I confirmed it to the board.”
“I know. That’s why I expected something different today.”
He looked down at his hands.
“I still react before I think. I don’t have a better explanation.”
When we reached the Palazzo, he tried to take my hand. I pulled back.
“Not tonight.”
“You’re going to your room?”
“Yes.”
“Gabriela . . .”
“I’m not ending anything. I just need to remember what it’s like to have a place that doesn’t disappear when the cameras arrive.”
I went in alone.
The next morning, Paola showed me a response the press office had sent to journalists.
It described me as the family’s “technical aide.” Before I could react, she opened the correction Luca had demanded.
My role was lead architect for the Palazzo restoration; my appointment and retention had been assessed against documented criteria.
The corrected response bore his approval.
“The press officer warned him it would invite more personal questions,” Paola told me. “Luca said they wouldn’t use silence to diminish your role.”
He didn’t come looking for credit. At the afternoon meeting, he treated me as the project lead and challenged my budget in front of everyone. I defended the figures, won the argument, and left without either of us mentioning the photograph.
Later, I found a copy of the correction under my door. Luca had circled my name and title without adding a message. I filed it with my work papers and took off my shoes. My phone vibrated. Sofia had sent the photograph taken before the reporters arrived.
Luca stood beside me, his hand firm on my waist, looking at me instead of the camera. In the photograph, I was exactly where I wanted to be. In his life, I still didn’t know whether that place existed in daylight.