Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Julian
By Monday afternoon, my desk is covered with the kind of work that usually travels with me without much inconvenience: acquisition summaries, European operating reports, a revised capital proposal from Zurich, and a stack of documents Vivian wants signed before I leave.
None of it is urgent enough to justify the hours I’ve spent on it, but unlike the manufactured infrastructure problem from last week, these are matters I actually need to settle before I’m out of New York.
Daniel sits across from me with his tablet open while I finish reviewing the last page of the Milan briefing.
“The regional team moved Thursday’s strategy session to 10:00,” he says.
“That leaves the afternoon open for the manufacturing site before dinner.”
“That’s better.”
“The client list for dinner is final. I’ll send you the updated biographies tonight.”
“I already know most of them.”
“You know seven of the twelve.”
“Then send me five.”
Daniel makes the adjustment without comment.
He’s spent the last several days coordinating Italy with the efficiency I expect from him, which means the trip now exists as a sequence of departure times, cars, meetings, hotels, security details, and carefully protected windows for anything that might go wrong.
Sophie appears throughout the itinerary almost as often as I do. Her arrival time. Her interviews. Her access clearance. Her transportation from Malpensa. The Milan hotel. Lake Como. I turn the page before I linger on any of it.
“Anything else?” I ask.
“Nothing that requires you today,” Daniel replies.
“The rest can be handled from Milan.”
“Good.”
He gathers his tablet and stands.
“Try leaving before 9:00 tonight.”
I look up at him. “Was that professional advice?”
“It was a scheduling observation.”
“I don’t remember asking for one.”
“No,” Daniel says as he reaches the door.
“You rarely do.”
He leaves before I can answer. I lean back and look through the glass wall toward the city.
Sophie was here for three days last week.
Not constantly. She moved between interviews, archive sessions, conference rooms, and the visitor office while I maintained my own schedule.
Still, her presence had a way of registering wherever I was.
I’d pass her in a corridor and find myself carrying the image with me into the next meeting.
She called twice after leaving the office to clarify points from her notes, and both conversations lasted longer than the questions required.
The second call only ended when she realized it was nearly midnight.
I remember her laugh when she apologized.
I remember too much about the sound of it.
I close the Milan briefing and reach for the Zurich documents instead.
The problem isn’t that I don’t understand what happened between us. I understand it perfectly well.
I wanted her.
I still do.
What I’ve been less willing to examine is everything that comes with that fact. The article will end. The anniversary interviews will end.
Italy is the final scheduled portion of her access, and once we leave Lake Como, there’s no legitimate reason for her calendar to stay connected to mine. No archive session. No follow-up interview. No company dinner that places us in the same room under the protection of professional necessity.
The realization doesn’t arrive with drama. It just settles. I look down at the report without reading it.
For this past month, Sophie has been part of the architecture of my days.
Sometimes deliberately, sometimes because Daniel put her on a schedule, sometimes because she called with a question and I answered when someone else could have done it.
Soon, none of those reasons will exist. The obvious solution comes before I can stop it.
I could ask her to stay.
Not in Italy—not at the estate–but in my life. The thought is so direct I almost laugh at myself. I’ve negotiated multibillion-dollar acquisitions with less hesitation than the idea of asking one woman what happens after an article is published.
I know what I’d want to say. That whatever exists between us doesn’t have to end because the assignment does.
That I’d like to see her without a recorder on the table or an interview waiting afterward.
That Boston wasn’t an aberration I’m trying to forget.
None of that is difficult to put into words, but saying it is something else.
Sophie has built her career on maintaining control over her own choices.
I’ve already complicated her work simply by becoming personally involved with her.
The Blackwell name guarantees that anything between us will carry consequences she didn’t ask for, and I don’t trust myself to offer her something casual when nothing about my reaction to her feels casual anymore.
Worse, I’m not even sure I know how to offer anything else. My relationships have always existed around the edges of my life. Dinner when schedules allow. Weekends when convenient. Women who understood that work would come first and rarely asked me to rearrange it.
Sophie has been rearranging it without asking. That should probably tell me something. I’m not ready to decide what. I close the Zurich folder and sign the approval page before placing it in the outgoing stack.
By 8:40, the executive floor has thinned to a handful of lights. I shut down my computer, leave the remaining files for the morning, and finally take Daniel’s unsolicited advice.
The penthouse is quiet when I arrive. I leave my jacket over a chair and loosen my tie as I cross toward the bedroom, where an open suitcase sits on the bench beneath the windows.
My housekeeper has already laid out several shirts and trousers, along with the dark suits I’ll need for Milan, but I prefer to finish packing myself.
It’s one of the few routines I’ve never delegated.
I fold a navy sweater into the case and reach for another shirt as my phone vibrates on the dresser.
For one irrational second, I expect Sophie’s name.
It’s Daniel.
Daniel: Final Milan confirmations are in your email. Estate manager is available tomorrow morning if you still want to speak with him personally.
I type back.
Julian: I do. Set it for 8:00.
Daniel replies almost immediately.
Daniel: Done.
I set the phone down and continue packing.
The trip should feel familiar. Milan has been part of my schedule for years, and the estate on Lake Como has belonged to my family longer than I have been alive.
I know the roads, the rooms, the staff, the shape of the lake from the western terrace when the sun starts to fall.
This time, I find myself imagining Sophie there.
I can already picture the way she’ll study everything before asking questions, pretending the surroundings don’t impress her while noticing every detail anyway.
She’ll probably ask about the house before she’s even finished putting her bag down.
She’ll want records, photographs, stories about my father, my grandfather, decisions made before either Adrian or I were old enough to understand what Blackwell would eventually become.
The thought brings an unexpected ease with it.
For the first time since Boston, I let myself anticipate seeing her without immediately trying to classify what that anticipation means.
At 8:00 the following morning, I take the call from the Lake Como estate manager from my office rather than leaving it to Daniel.
“The house will be ready before you arrive,” the estate manager says.
“The west guest suite has been opened, and the staff will have everything prepared.”
“Use the lake-facing suite for Ms. Callahan,” I reply.
There is a brief pause on the other end.
“The larger one?”
“Yes.”
“The east suite is usually used for guests.”
“I know.”
He does not question me further.
“I’ll make the change,” he says.
I turn toward the windows while he reviews the remaining preparations.
“The cellar is stocked as usual,” he continues.
“Is there anything specific you’d like brought up for the dinners?”
I think about Sophie choosing Bordeaux in Boston and the way she held the glass between her fingers while telling me about her father.
“Pull two bottles of the Saint-émilion,” I say.
“The older vintage.”
“For the final evening?”
“Yes. Keep one in reserve.”
“I’ll have them decanted.”
“Not too early.”
“Understood.”
He moves on to meals, staffing, and transportation. Most of the arrangements are already complete, but I stop him when he mentions keeping the boat stored unless we request it.
“Have it ready,” I tell him.
“The launch?”
“Yes. Fueled and staffed.”
“We weren’t expecting to use it.”
“We may.”
Another small silence follows.
“I’ll arrange it.”
I glance at the itinerary open beside me. The final interview is currently scheduled for late afternoon on the second day at the estate.
“Move Saturday’s interview to the morning,” I say.
“That will leave most of the afternoon open.”
“That’s the idea.”
“For additional interviews?”
I look down at the schedule.
“No. Leave it open.”
The answer comes easily enough that I don’t examine it.
We work through a few remaining details before ending the call.
By the time I set down the phone, the estate has become subtly different from the version Daniel arranged: Sophie’s room faces the lake, the wine she preferred will be waiting, the boat will be prepared, and an entire afternoon has been cleared without anything specific assigned to it.
Each decision is reasonable on its own. Together, they look considerably less accidental.
Daniel appears in my doorway a few minutes later.
“Everything settled?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“You changed the guest suite.”
“I did.”
“And the interview time.”
“Yes.”
Daniel nods slowly.
“Anything else I should know before the estate manager calls me to confirm that the entire schedule has changed?”
“The entire schedule hasn’t changed.”
“Only the parts involving Ms. Callahan.”
I look at him.
Daniel’s expression remains professionally neutral.