Chapter 13 #2
“Good night, Sophie.”
The doors close before either of us says anything else.
***
I am back at the Milan office with coffee in one hand and my recorder in the other.
Matteo takes the first interview, walking me through the expansion of Blackwell’s European operations without trying to make every decision sound inevitable.
Alessandra follows with a considerably less polished version of the same history, including the operational failures, abandoned partnerships, and regional disagreements that never found their way into annual reports.
By late morning, my notebook is filling quickly.
I spend another hour touring the operations floor and then sit down with Carlo Bianchi, a longtime European executive who worked with Richard during Blackwell’s earliest push into Italy.
Carlo speaks about those years with the comfortable irreverence of someone who has known the family too long to be impressed by the mythology surrounding it.
“Richard hated being told something couldn’t be done,” Carlo tells me.
“Julian hated being told something had been done badly. There is a difference.”
I smile as I make a note.
“Which one was easier to work with?”
Carlo glances toward the glass wall behind me, where Julian is speaking with Matteo several yards away.
“I am still employed,” Carlo says.
“I’ll let you decide what that answer means.”
I laugh, and when I look through the glass again, Julian’s attention has shifted toward us.
He holds my gaze before Matteo says something that draws him back into the conversation.
The interview ends shortly before lunch, and I catch Julian alone near the corridor while I am reorganizing my notes.
“You’re very popular here,” I tell him.
Julian looks over. “That sounded accusatory.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I close my notebook. “You’re different here.”
His attention settles more fully on me.
“Different how?”
“Less guarded,” I say.
Julian considers that for a moment.
“Maybe you’ve gotten better at reading me.”
I lift an eyebrow.
“That sounds dangerously close to a compliment.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
The faint amusement in his eyes makes it difficult to look away. For several seconds, neither of us seems particularly interested in returning to work.
Then Alessandra calls my name from the end of the corridor.
I step back. “Saved by operations.”
Julian’s mouth shifts. “For now.”
Lunch is served in a private dining room upstairs with most of the regional team.
I take the open seat between Carlo and one of the younger finance directors, while Julian ends up across the table beside Alessandra and an elegant woman from the legal team named Giulia Moretti.
The seating arrangement should make no difference to me, but I discover almost immediately that it does.
Carlo is entertaining, and the finance director asks thoughtful questions about American business journalism, so I have no trouble participating in the conversation. Still, my attention occasionally drifts across the table.
Giulia says something to Julian that makes him smile. It is a small smile, nothing remarkable, but irritation catches unexpectedly beneath my ribs. I reach for my water.
Carlo leans closer. “You’re going to make me nervous if you keep studying the table like that.”
“I’m listening.”
“To three conversations at once?”
“It’s an occupational hazard.”
He laughs.
When I glance across the table again, Julian is watching me. His eyes move briefly toward Carlo before returning to my face.
Interesting.
A few minutes later, Julian joins the conversation on our side of the table.
“You seem to have won everyone over,” he says.
I look at him. “Was that part of the assignment?”
“No.”
“Then you sound disappointed.”
“I’m not.”
Carlo smiles between us.
“Should I be offended that neither of you appears to remember I’m sitting here?”
“You should be used to executives ignoring you by now,” Julian tells him.
“Your father was much better at it.”
“That’s because he had practice.”
The table laughs, and the moment dissolves easily enough, but when I reach for my wineglass, Julian’s gaze remains on me for another second.
Later that afternoon, I am standing beside Alessandra reviewing a set of old regional reports when Julian joins us. He is halfway through a comment about the expansion timeline when his phone vibrates.
He glances at the screen. The change in him is immediate. The faint ease disappears from his face, his jaw tightening as his eyes move across whatever he is reading. I catch Vivian Cross’s name at the top of the screen before he turns it away.
“Excuse me,” Julian says.
He walks toward the far end of the corridor and answers the phone before he reaches the door.
I cannot hear the words, but I can see enough.
His shoulders go rigid. One hand settles against his hip while he listens, then he turns partially away from the room and says something short into the phone.
The call lasts less than three minutes, but when he returns, the relaxed version of Julian I have been watching all day is gone.
Alessandra studies him. “Problem?”
“Nothing we need to deal with here,” Julian replies.
She holds his gaze briefly, then nods and turns back to the reports.
I wait until Alessandra is called away by one of her team members before looking at Julian.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yes.”
The answer comes immediately.
I watch him. His expression is composed again, but there is tension around his mouth that wasn’t there before the message arrived.
“That looked like a very serious yes.”
Julian slips his phone into his pocket. “Vivian found something she wants reviewed.”
“What kind of something?”
His eyes meet mine.
“Something that can wait until I have more information.”
The boundary in his voice is quiet but unmistakable.
I nod. “All right.”
He studies me as though expecting another question. I don’t give him one.