5. The Dinner Where I Was Seen
Chapter Five
THE DINNER WHERE I WAS SEEN
Ethan performs best for rich people.
I’ve seen him do it for years. He lowers his voice, slows his smile, and makes everyone feel as if they’re the only person in the room he’s been waiting to impress. It used to make me proud in the beginning, back when I thought his charm was generosity instead of appetite.
Tonight, I watch him work the welcome dinner with Willow at his side.
He laughs with the Lombardi uncles near the wine table.
He compliments the bride’s mother on the floral installation I know he didn’t approve because he couldn’t remember the florist’s name this morning.
He leans close to a silver-haired investor and says something that makes the man clap him on the shoulder.
Willow floats with him, pretty and attentive. She carries nothing, solves nothing, remembers nothing. But she looks up at Ethan like he’s the sun over the lake, and I can see how much he enjoys being worshipped without the burden of being known.
Matteo doesn’t hover over me, but he keeps me near enough to include me.
“Sophie,” he says as a woman in a gold dress approaches, “you remember Allegra Bianchi, don’t you?”
I do. I met her at a New York dinner eighteen months ago, where Ethan called her Allison twice until I corrected him under the table with a note on my phone.
“Of course,” I say. “You were just opening the restored theater in Verona. Your daughter was studying architecture.”
Allegra’s face lights. “You remember Isabella?”
“She wanted to design hotels that didn’t feel like museums.”
Allegra laughs. “Exactly. She still says that.”
Matteo looks at me with something like delight, and it’s so direct I have to glance away.
Conversations unfold from there. The bride’s cousin needs a quiet place for an elderly guest to sit during the fireworks; I suggest a sheltered terrace I passed during the walk from my suite.
A seating card mix-up threatens to put two divorced relatives at the same table; I remember a spare arrangement mentioned in Ethan’s briefing notes and suggest a graceful swap.
A nervous bridesmaid can’t find the room where the welcome gifts are stored; I point her to the corridor near the lemon trees because I saw staff carrying marked boxes in that direction.
It's the kind of invisible work I’ve always done, but tonight, Matteo sees it.
He sees it, and he acknowledges it.
When the bride’s father thanks Ethan for smoothing the seating issue, Matteo says, “That was Sophie’s solution.”
The bride’s father turns to me. “Then thank you, Mrs. Pratt.”
“Call me Sophie, please.”
Matteo’s eyes warm.
Willow approaches when Matteo is called away by a staff member. She holds champagne, her fingers tight around the stem. “You’re making this worse than it has to be,” she says.
I look at her. “Am I?”
“Ethan’s under a lot of pressure. This trip is huge for him.”
“I know. I packed his cuff links.”
Her mouth pinches. “He said you wouldn’t understand.”
“He says that when he doesn’t want me to ask questions.”
She glances toward him. “You don’t know what it’s like here. The expectations. The travel. The people.”
“I know exactly what kind of people are here. I’ve been remembering their children’s names for years.”
A flush rises up her neck, and she leans closer. “First class wasn’t about you.”
“No,” I say. “That’s the problem.”
Before she can answer, a young woman with dark curls and a silver dress steps onto the terrace beside me.
“Sophie Pratt?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“I’m Teresa Lombardi, the bride’s cousin.”
I recognize her from the event deck. Twenty-four, recently finished graduate school in London, daughter of one of the investors Ethan has been chasing hardest.
Her gaze flicks toward Willow, then away. “Could I speak with you privately?”
I smile pleasantly. “Of course.”
We walk to the edge of the terrace, where the music softens and the lake laps against stone below.
Teresa twists a ring on her finger. “This is awkward. I wasn’t sure who to tell.”
My skin prickles. “What happened?”
“Mr. Pratt has been very … attentive on previous planning trips. At first I thought he was just friendly. Then he implied he could arrange access to Ruggiero properties if I encouraged my father toward the expansion investment. He mentioned private previews and special rates.”
She looks embarrassed, though she has no reason to be.
“And there were messages,” she says. “Not explicit exactly. But personal. Too personal. When I stopped responding, he became colder with our planner.”
I feel the final remnants of my marriage rearrange themselves into something unrecognizable. “Did he touch you?”
“No, but he made me uncomfortable, and I thought …” She swallows. “I thought his wife should know. Or his boss.”
I look across the terrace to where Ethan is smiling at Teresa’s father. “Yes,” I say. “His boss should know.”
Matteo’s expression changes when I tell him. “This aligns with other concerns,” he says.
“There are others?”
“Enough to warrant a formal review. Teresa’s account gives it a different urgency.”
I wrap my arms around myself, though the night is warm. “He uses women like doors.”
Matteo’s gaze rests on my face. “And you?”
“What about me?”
“Did he use you that way, too?”
The question isn’t an accusation. It’s a lamp held up to a room I’ve kept dim.
“Yes,” I say. “But we were married.”
After dinner, Matteo walks with me along the lake. The villa glows behind us, music drifts across the water, and my heels click softly against the stone path. He doesn’t try to touch me, though our hands swing close enough that I’m aware of the space between them.
“You should never have had to beg for ordinary kindness,” he says.
“I didn’t beg.”
“No, but you adapted around its absence.”
The accuracy of that stings, and I stop near a railing covered in jasmine. “You make it sound simple.”
“It isn’t simple. But it is clear.”
The lake is black silk beneath the moon. I turn toward him, and the breeze lifts a strand of my hair across my cheek. Matteo reaches toward it slowly enough that I can move away, but I don’t.
When he tucks the strand behind my ear, desire moves through me so suddenly I nearly step back from it, not because I don’t want it, but because I do.
His hand falls. “You’re safe with me,” he says. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want you. It means wanting you won’t make me careless or presumptuous.”
My breath catches.
Then my phone buzzes before I can answer.
Ethan: Stop clinging to Matteo. You look desperate.
I stare at the screen, then turn it so Matteo can see, and his mouth curves without humor. “He’s frightened,” he says.
I look back at the villa, where Ethan stands beneath the lights with Willow’s hand on his arm.
“He should be.”