2
LUCA BELLANDI
I rarely went back on a decision.
Two departments had worked on this inspection. I’d rearranged my schedule and crossed half of Europe, expecting to leave Como with the project back on track. Instead, I’d just told the woman my own team had hired that I was replacing her.
She hadn’t moved. She stood facing me in the north gallery, her face bright with anger. Sunlight through the windows picked out the gold in her brown hair. Her bun was coming loose, one strand resting against her cheek. I wanted to brush it away. Absurd.
I remembered her at seventeen. That should have been enough to stop me thinking about her this way. It wasn’t. And that was why she had to go.
Usually, by the time I asked a woman to dinner, I knew what I wanted from her. With Gabriela, I wasn’t even sure where to look. She set her folder on the table. I looked at the family name on the cover.
“You can’t fire me before I’ve even started,” she said.
“I can. It’s in the contract.”
“Legally, maybe. But it would be a stupid way to run a restoration.”
Augusto had always called me arrogant as calmly as if he were giving me the weather forecast. I saw the same look on his daughter’s face and glanced at the door. No one else needed to hear this.
“Telling the owner he’s stupid isn’t usually the best way to keep a contract.”
“I’m not trying to save the contract. I’m trying to save the palazzo.”
That stung. Ever since my grandfather died, the family had regarded the Palazzo delle Rose as an expensive inheritance: too beautiful to sell, too far gone to live in.
Buying out my aunts, uncles, and cousins had taken seven years.
Getting the permits, having the hotel approved, and convincing investors the restoration would be profitable had taken another three.
No one had the right to suggest they cared more about the palazzo than I did.
“You’ve seen reports,” I said. “I grew up here.”
“Then you should know that loving a building doesn’t qualify you to restore it.”
Augusto would have laughed. I could almost hear him, his laughter echoing up to the painted ceiling.
I saw Gabriela at eight, perched on her father’s desk, drawing arches while we talked contracts.
At twelve, demanding a book from London instead of a doll.
At seventeen, at the top of the stairs during a party, wearing a blue dress and a look I’d refused to understand.
Augusto had had too much wine that night.
He’d talked about the future as if we all had plenty of time, and declared that Gabriela would restore the Palazzo one day.
I’d laughed. She’d heard me. Her face had closed off before I could explain.
I was laughing at how certain her father was, as if he’d seen the future—not at the idea that she could do it.
I’d seen little of her after that. College, travel, work. Then Augusto’s illness, which he’d kept quiet for too long. I’d put off going to the hospital. When the news came that he was dead, I was in Dubai. I hadn’t made it home in time for the funeral.
Now she was twenty-six, and I’d never wanted to kiss a more dangerous mouth.
“I’ll ask Paola to arrange your trip back to Milan,” I said.
Gabriela didn’t move.
“No.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“Neither was my answer.”
She reopened the folder and took out a tablet. A few taps, and she had a color-coded 3D model of the palazzo on the screen.
“Hear me out. Then you can send me away. If you still think someone else can take over without costing you at least six weeks, I’ll sign the termination papers today.”
I should have ended the conversation. Instead, I looked at my watch.
“Ten minutes.”
“I need twenty.”
“You have eight now.”
I enjoyed the flash of irritation in her eyes more than I should have.
She laid the tablet on the table and began.
This wasn’t a plea for a chance. She showed me what was wrong with the upper garden’s drainage, where the climate control systems were incompatible with the eighteenth-century walls, and how condensation could threaten the frescoes.
Then she went through the decisions made to keep us on schedule—decisions that could double the hotel’s maintenance costs.
I interrupted three times. First she zoomed in on a photograph. Next she opened the cost spreadsheet. The third time, she let me finish, then pointed to the answer on the page in my hand. I stopped interrupting.
The door opened before she finished her presentation. Lorenzo walked in with Beatrice Rinaldi.
“I see I’m being left out of the important meetings,” my brother said.
Lorenzo wore a pale suit and the easy smile that made strangers think he was the Bellandi they could talk to. At thirty-seven, he knew how to use charm the way I knew how to use silence. Beside him, Beatrice was immaculate in a white dress, her black hair swept over one shoulder.
“We’re finished,” I said.
“A shame. I was hoping to meet our architect without a screen between us.”
Lorenzo approached Gabriela and offered his hand.
“It’s good to have you here after all those phone calls.”
“Thank you, Lorenzo,” she said, shaking it.
“Augusto used to talk about you all the time.”
For a moment, her face softened. I resented how little effort it had taken my brother.
“I remember you,” Beatrice said.
Gabriela turned to her.
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
“You’d come by Augusto’s office now and then. You were such a quiet little thing.”
The compliment had teeth. I knew Beatrice too well to miss them, and I knew Gabriela hadn’t missed them either.
“I grew up,” Gabriela said.
Beatrice’s gaze traveled over her.
“Yes. So I see.”
I closed the folder on the table.
“Lorenzo, why are you here?”
“The board asked for an update. I hear the new architect had barely arrived before the installation in the west wing was put on hold.”
“I stopped the installation.”
“Based on her assessment.”
“Based on evidence.”
Lorenzo studied the plans.
“And you’ve confirmed it?”
Gabriela answered before I could.
“I will once I’ve inspected the site.”
“So you haven’t.”
I knew what he was doing. Contracts with operators, suppliers, and investors all depended on the Palazzo’s schedule. If we fell far enough behind, the board could challenge more than the restoration. They could question my insistence on keeping full control of the project.
“Carlo’s getting the wing ready for inspection,” I said. “We’ll know today.”
“Perfect. Beatrice and I will join you.”
“This isn’t a tour,” Gabriela said. “We don’t yet know if some of those areas are safe.”
Lorenzo smiled.
“Worried about me, Ms. Duarte?”
“I’m worried about the report I’ll have to fill out if someone ignores the site rules.”
I turned my face away to hide my reaction.
Half an hour later, we were in the west wing with hard hats and flashlights. The corridor smelled of damp wood and old plaster. Gabriela and Carlo walked ahead, checking the measurement marks. Lorenzo and Beatrice followed a few steps behind me, keeping to the route the crew had marked out.
Gabriela didn’t hesitate at the dark stretches of corridor or make a show of being brave.
She checked the floor as she went, touched nothing without gloves, and addressed the workers by name when she asked questions.
Within minutes, two of them were speaking to her as though she’d been on site for months.
“She’s impressive,” Lorenzo murmured.
I gave him a look.
“Professionally,” he added, amused.
“Focus on the inspection.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
Beatrice came closer as Gabriela stopped at the entrance to a suite.
“Did you know it would be her?”
“No.”
“Augusto wouldn’t have approved.”
“Of her working?”
“Of her being here. With you.”
I turned to Beatrice, slowly. She knew that look. She was sensible enough to hold my gaze without smiling.
“Don’t make this into something it isn’t.”
“I don’t have to.”
Before I could answer, Gabriela called Carlo over. She was pointing to the ceiling near the entrance to a suite. A slight bulge in the plaster showed in the flashlight beam.
“Can we get to it from above?” she asked.
“Through the maintenance access,” Carlo said. “We’ll need to take the panel off.”
“Then that’s how we’ll get in. Keep everyone out from under this section.”
A worker brought a portable barrier. We moved back into the corridor while Carlo and another technician went to the access point above. Gabriela put her clipboard on the windowsill beside me and began marking where the shoring would need to go.
“Hold that for me, please.” She indicated the end of the sheet, which kept rolling back on itself.
I rested my hand on the paper. Gabriela leaned over to draw, close enough for a strand of her hair to brush my fingers.
I could have moved my hand. I left it there. My eyes followed her pencil for a while, until I realized I wasn’t watching the drawing anymore.
“Luca?”
I looked up. She glanced at my hand, then at me.
“I need to get to that end, too.”
I let go of the paper. She turned it and carried on drawing, saying nothing about my lapse in attention.
Carlo called from the maintenance access. We left Lorenzo and Beatrice in the corridor and joined him on the landing.
The panel was propped against the wall. Gabriela crouched by the opening, staying clear of the ceiling itself.
“Shine it on the bearing point, Carlo.”
The flashlight picked out dark, crumbling wood where the beam rested on the masonry. Carlo bent to look closer. Gabriela took a photograph and checked it against her survey.
“We need to clear the materials off the floor above and shore up this section,” she said. “Before it rains. Then we can see how far the damage goes.”
Carlo took a deep breath.
“She’s right.”
Back in the corridor, Lorenzo was waiting. He looked from Carlo to me as we came out.
“That throws off the schedule.”
“Then we revise it.”
“The board will want a formal review before they agree.”
“The board can live with a delay if it keeps the palazzo from falling on our guests.”
Gabriela retrieved her clipboard from the windowsill. She looked triumphant, but wary. Finding a problem didn’t mean her job was safe, and she knew it. I could still dismiss her. I should. Find someone with twenty years in restoration, gray hair, and no chance of making me forget who I was.
I looked at the access opening, then at her notes. I’d just stopped the installation because of what she’d found. If I was going to fire her, I needed a better reason than my own discomfort around her.
“Get the team into the project room,” I said. “I want a revised stabilization plan by tomorrow.”
“Who’s in charge of it?” Carlo asked.
I kept my eyes on Gabriela.
“Ms. Duarte.”
She didn’t smile.
“Does that mean I’m not being replaced?”
“It means you have thirty days.”
“To do what?”
“Show me today wasn’t luck. Then I’ll decide whether you stay at the Palazzo delle Rose.”
Gabriela took off her gloves, one at a time.
“I don’t need thirty days to prove I know what I’m doing.”
“Then you’ll have time left over to convince me.”
She came closer, lowering her voice so only I would hear.
“I’m not here to convince you of anything. I’m here to save your palazzo. When I’m done, you’ll have to find yourself another excuse to get rid of me.”
She left without waiting for permission. I watched her walk down the corridor, sure of one thing: thirty days with this woman would be far more dangerous than letting her go. It was the same unwelcome certainty that had preceded my worst mistakes.