Chapter Thirty #2
“She wore scarves under it.”
“I offered to buy her another.”
“She probably thought that missed the point.”
Matteo’s expression softens.
“Those were her exact words.”
For several minutes, we talk about her.
Matteo tells me about the first glass horse. Maria found it ugly, then bought another in Newport because she decided the first looked lonely.
I tell him about the stories she invented for them.
“The horse was afraid of crossing rivers.”
“He should have been. Maria nearly drowned both of us trying to sail one.”
I laugh.
Matteo looks at me as though the sound has reached into his chest and closed around something.
The first course arrives.
He waits until the server leaves.
“How is the Rossi building?”
“The contractor started the permit applications. We’re replacing the windows first.”
“We?”
“The people I hired.”
“You’re managing the project yourself?”
“With Evelyn and the contractor.”
“You don’t have experience overseeing a renovation.”
“No.”
“You should have someone who does.”
“I do. That’s why I hired a contractor.”
Marco looks down at his plate.
I recognize the effort required not to smile.
Matteo notices.
“Something amusing?”
“No,” Marco says.
“Your wife is spending millions restoring a building she may never make profitable.”
“It isn’t intended to make a profit.”
“That doesn’t concern you?”
“It isn’t my money.”
“You have no opinion?”
“I have several.”
“And?”
“She didn’t ask me.”
I look at him.
The glance lasts only a moment.
Matteo sees it.
His jaw tightens.
“What exactly do you intend to put in this building?” he asks me.
“A resource center.”
“For whom?”
“Women and children leaving abusive homes. People who need identification, legal help, job applications, or somewhere safe to make plans.”
“That’s charitable.”
The word sounds like a synonym for inconsequential.
“It’s necessary.”
“You’re the sole heir to two organizations. Your time may be better spent learning how to manage them.”
“I’m the beneficiary of the Rossi trust.”
“You are a Rossi.”
“Yes.”
“And a Moretti.”
“The laboratory established paternity. It didn’t change my name.”
“That can be arranged.”
“I don’t want it arranged.”
“You may feel differently when you understand what the name carries.”
My fingers tighten around my glass. The stem presses against my palm.
“If I feel differently, I’ll tell you.”
Matteo leans back.
The first course is removed.
His gaze settles on Marco.
“You returned her to Mikhailov.”
I close my eyes briefly.
“We are not doing this tonight.”
“I want to understand how a man claims to love you after delivering you to captivity.”
“I don’t claim anything,” Marco says.
Matteo looks at him.
“I wasn’t speaking to you.”
“You were speaking about me.”
“And I said we aren’t doing this,” I repeat.
The server enters with the main courses.
No one speaks until the plates are arranged and the door closes again.
Matteo turns his attention to Gio.
“What is your role in the Catenzio organization?”
“I oversee our restaurants and hospitality businesses.”
“And when you aren’t doing that?”
“I irritate Marco.”
“It’s a full-time occupation,” Marco says.
I look down at my plate.
Matteo does not.
“You treat everything as a joke,” he says to Gio.
“Not everything.”
“My daughter’s marriage, apparently.”
I put down my fork.
“Matteo.”
He doesn’t look at me.
“Your brother married her under coercion, and you decided that was an opportunity.”
Something changes in Gio.
The humor disappears so completely that for a second, he looks more like Marco than I have ever seen him.
“I decided nothing.”
“You expect me to believe you happened into an affair with your brother’s wife?”
“We aren’t having an affair,” Gio says.
“Then what would you call it?”
“I’d call it none of your goddamned business.”
Matteo doesn’t look the least bit surprised.
“Stop speaking as though Gio did something to me,” I say.
His expression hardens.
“You’re married.”
“I know.”
“To his brother.”
“I know that too.”
“And you don’t see how this appears?”
“To whom?”
“To everyone.”
“Everyone isn’t sitting at this table.”
“You carry the Moretti name whether you acknowledge it or not. Your choices reflect on this family.”
I go still.
“I have known I was a Moretti for one day.”
“You have been one all your life.”
“And where was that family while I was living with Viktor?”
The question lands hard enough to silence him.
I keep my voice controlled.
“I understand that you didn’t know. I don’t blame you for that. But you don’t get to arrive after twenty-four years and tell me my life embarrasses you.”
“I didn’t say you embarrassed me.”
“You said my choices damage your name.”
“I said they could.”
“They’re my choices.”
“Yes.”
The answer comes after a pause.
That pause bothers me.
Matteo turns to Gio.
“And what are your intentions?”
I inhale sharply.
Gio could make a joke.
It’s what Matteo expects.
He doesn’t.
“Whatever Lucy wants them to be.”
“A convenient answer.”
“No. Convenient would be wanting less.”
Across the table, Marco becomes very still.
I look at Gio.
Matteo’s expression doesn’t change.
“What does that mean?”
Gio holds my gaze.
“It means I love her.”
The words leave the room silent.
He has never said them to me—not directly.
I imagined he might eventually, but not here.
Not across a table from my father while Matteo questioned whether I was something he had taken from his brother.
I stare at him.
Gio doesn’t look away.
He doesn’t smile or soften the words with a joke.
Matteo is the first to break the silence.
“You’ve known her for two months.”
“Long enough.”
“You expect that to reassure me?”
“I’m not trying to reassure you.”
“What are you trying to do?”
“Answer your question.”
Matteo looks toward Marco.
“And this is acceptable to you?”
“That isn’t the relevant question,” Marco says.
“It should be.”
“No. The relevant question is whether it’s acceptable to Lucia.”
Not theirs.
Mine.
Matteo’s gaze moves between them.
“You’ve discussed this.”
“We don’t lie to each other,” Gio says.
My eyes flick toward Marco.
His gaze meets mine across the small distance between our chairs.
I don’t know whether what passes between us is the kiss waiting somewhere in our future or the memory of the one I gave him at the church.
Perhaps both.
Matteo cuts into his meal.
“You’re both remarkably comfortable allowing her to believe this can continue.”
I go still.
“Allowing me?”
“I chose the wrong word.”
“No. I think you chose exactly the word you meant.”
“Lucia—”
“You wanted to know my life. This is my life.”
I gesture first toward Marco, then Gio.
“I don’t know what either relationship will become. Neither do they. But I decide that. Not you.”
Matteo’s expression closes.
“I’m trying to understand.”
“Then listen.”
For several seconds, only the sounds of the restaurant beyond the closed doors reach us.
Muted conversation.
Silverware against china.
A burst of laughter from another table.
Finally, Matteo inclines his head.
“All right.”
It isn’t surrender.
It may not even be agreement.
But the subject changes.
He asks about my childhood.
I give him careful pieces.
School uniforms I hated.
A dog Alexei brought home and Maria made him return because it ate one of her shoes.