Chapter 19
EMILY
Getting my parents away from Sophie long enough to sneak Pietro in turned out to be harder than I thought.
And despite the joy of seeing her so bright and hopeful, and the cautious encouragement from the doctor, by the time I went back home that afternoon I realized something I couldn’t ignore anymore.
Seattle no longer felt like home.
After the confrontation with Adam, after the way my parents still refused to see the truth of what had happened and insisted on framing my choices as an overreaction, I understood with cold certainty that I had completely outgrown the version of me who once lived here.
Emily Gallagher no longer existed.
I was Emily Hart.
I asked Pietro for help getting my parents out of the way, mostly as a joke because what exactly was he supposed to do? Bribe them? Threaten them? Manufacture a plumbing emergency?
The answer was: quite a lot.
Because that evening, on what was supposed to be my last night in town before flying back, my mother received an email informing her she had won a dinner for two at one of the most exclusive restaurants in the city, the one with three Michelin stars, a waiting list half a year long, and prices that required emotional preparation.
She didn’t remember entering a contest.
That did not, however, stop her from accepting immediately.
“Do you realize this kind of trick is going to ruin you financially?” I joked as Pietro stepped out of the lift onto Sophie’s floor.
“Not really, no,” he said. “Hoka owns it.”
I slipped slightly on the linoleum.
He barely even glanced at me. Just offered me a hand as though men casually revealing that their uncles owned Michelin-starred restaurants was a normal daily occurrence.
We reached Sophie’s door, and I stopped with my hand half-lifted toward the knob.
Pietro looked at me then.
“You’re nervous,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
I laughed under my breath. “Apparently.”
“Why?” he asked gently. “It’s your sister, not your parents.”
That only made me laugh more.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s worse.” I looked at the door and then back at him. “Sophie’s special to me.”
His expression softened at once, some of the teasing leaving it.
“Then I should be concerned,” he mused.
“Very.”
“Good. I prefer to know when I’m being evaluated by the people who matter.”
“That was annoyingly smooth.”
“I’m trying to make a strong first impression.”
“You’re meeting a fourteen-year-old recovering from surgery, not negotiating a merger.”
“I am far more efficient at the latter.”
I shook my head, then opened the door before I could lose my nerve.
Sophie was propped up in bed with far too many pillows, the television on low in the background and a half-finished cup of Jell-O balanced precariously on the tray table in front of her. She looked up the second we walked in, and whatever tiredness had been dragging at her face vanished.
Her eyes went straight to Pietro.
More specifically, to the cane in his hand.
“Oh my God,” she said, before either of us could speak. “You look so cool.”
Pietro stopped.
I watched the words hit him in real time, the slight straightening of his spine, the tiny flicker on his face that was easy to miss. But I knew him now. I saw it.
And I would have bet a great deal that very few people in his life had ever looked at that cane first and called it cool.
Sophie, oblivious to the significance of what she had just done, pointed at it with open delight. “Is it silver? It looks like something out of a movie. Like if a hot villain had taste.”
I choked on a laugh.
Pietro, to his credit, recovered almost immediately. “A hot villain?”
Sophie shrugged. “You’re wearing a black coat and glaring like you’ve banned joy. It’s a vibe.”
“I’ll take that as praise.”
“It was.” Her gaze dropped to the cane again, then lifted to his face. “I won’t need the double crutches anymore once PT signs off, but they said I might need a cane on bad days.” She wrinkled her nose. “I was sort of hoping I could at least make it look cute.”
Pietro stepped further into the room then, slower now but not cautious, more like he was calibrating himself to her instead of the other way around.
“Cute is achievable,” he said. “Though personally, I’d recommend elegant and intimidating.”
Sophie’s whole face lit up. “Exactly.”
He inclined his head once, as if they had just reached an important diplomatic understanding. “If you want, I can have one designed for you.”
She blinked. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Like custom?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my God!” She looked at me with complete betrayal. “Emily, where did you even find him?”
I crossed my arms and leaned against the doorframe. “In the library, actually.”
“That is the least helpful answer you could have given me.”
Pietro had moved to the chair beside her bed by then, and when he sat, it was with that same careful economy of movement that I had noticed from the beginning, never making a show of it, never asking anyone to look away or pretend not to see.
Sophie noticed too, but where other people might have gotten awkward, she only seemed to relax more.
“Do you name your canes?” she asked.
I had to bite the inside of my cheek.
Pietro looked almost offended. “Of course not.”
Sophie narrowed her eyes. “That was too fast. You absolutely have.”
“I have not.”
“Liar.” She pointed at him. “You look like a man who names things in secret and then denies it under torture.”
His mouth twitched again, and I saw it coming before he said anything.
“For the record,” he said, “if I did name it, I would also deny it under torture. Your reasoning is flawed.”
Sophie laughed, bright and immediate, and just like that it was gone.
Any lingering weirdness, any awkwardness about me smuggling a man into her room after surgery, any caution she might have had about Pietro being older, richer, more intimidating, more everything than the boys she actually knew—gone.
“Can I still get stickers for a cane?” she asked.
Pietro looked at her as though taking the question with grave seriousness. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether the stickers are tasteful.”
Sophie gasped. “There will be no taste. Only chaos.”
“Then yes,” he said solemnly. “Definitely stickers.”
I looked between them and felt something warm deep in my chest. Something close to wonder.
This was what mattered, in the end. Not the money, not the danger, not the plane or the hotel or the terrifying family empire waiting for him in Chicago.
It was this. The way he sat in my sister’s hospital room as if he had always known how to fit himself into the tender places of other people’s lives without making it about him.
The way he made space. The way he listened.
Sophie was still grinning at him like she had discovered some kind of rare artifact she fully intended to keep.
“I like you,” she announced.
“That,” he said after a second, “is an honor I will try not to squander.”
Sophie nodded“Good. Because you’re clearly in love with my sister and I need to know your long-term intentions involve continued excellent behavior.”
I covered my face with one hand. “Oh my God.”
“What?” Sophie asked. “You said he was serious.”
Pietro looked at me then, and whatever answer he might have given her remained unspoken, something in his eyes going softer.
And standing there in that room, watching my little sister claim him as if it were the most natural thing in the world, I felt a dangerous certainty settle quietly into place.
He fit.
Not in the obvious ways.
In the ways that mattered.
“Think about what you’d want,” Pietro told Sophie, leaning back in the chair like the matter was already settled. “Color, shape, whether you want elegant, intimidating, or complete chaos. Then when you’re on the East Coast, we’ll go and have it done properly.”
Sophie stared at him. “Done properly?”
“Custom.”
“Like actually custom?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my God.” She clutched the blanket dramatically to her chest. “This is the coolest thing that has ever happened to me and I had major surgery yesterday.”
“An impressive ranking,” Pietro said dryly.
“You’re winning by a mile.”
He stood then, smoothing one hand over the front of his coat. “I’ll let you both recover from my overwhelming charm. Think about the cane.” He turned to me and winked. “I’ll wait in the car.”
Sophie grinned. “Oh you’re going to regret that. I’ll get the coolest cane ever and stop being so nice or I’ll force you into best friend role.”
“I’ll do my best to prevent it.”
“You won’t.”
“Probably not.”
He looked at me then, and the warmth in his eyes made my chest pull tight in the best possible way.
“Take your time, sweetheart,” he whispered, brushing his lips on my forehead.
Then he left us, but the room felt fuller rather than emptier.
The second the door shut behind him, Sophie turned to me with a look so pointed it almost made me laugh.
“I like him.”
I smiled and sat down on the edge of her bed. “I bet you do. He’s offering you presents.”
She rolled her eyes with all the impatience of a girl burdened by a sister who clearly understood nothing.
“That’s not why.”
“No?”
Sophie shook her head. “I like him because he makes you smile.”
She kept going before I could say anything.
“And because he looks at you like you’re his whole world, which is honestly a little intense but also kind of beautiful.”
I let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
“Soph—”
“No, listen.” She shifted carefully against the pillows, serious now. Gearing up to talk, she seemed older than fourteen. “I like him because he doesn’t make you smaller. He makes you more you.”
That went straight through me.
“And I like him,” she said more softly, “because you’re stronger around him. Like you remember yourself when he’s there.”
I looked down at my hands because suddenly looking anywhere else felt impossible.
Sophie reached out and nudged my knee with her fingers.
“I like him because he loves you,” she finished simply.