13
GAbrIELA DUARTE
I woke alone in the bed and found Luca asleep on the floor.
At some point, he’d given up on the sofa. He’d spread the blanket over the rug between the sitting room and the balcony, with his folded jacket for a pillow. One leg was still bent, an arm across his eyes. He looked uncomfortable.
He also looked less out of reach than he had at any time since I arrived at the palazzo.
I sat up slowly. He didn’t stir. It wasn’t fair that even asleep, he looked like a man who knew exactly what he was doing.
The neck of his dark T-shirt had slipped sideways, revealing a short scar near his shoulder.
His hair was mussed. Without his usual control, he seemed younger and more tired at once. I remembered the balcony.
You deserve someone who’s free to love you.
He hadn’t turned me down because he didn’t want me.
That would have been simpler. He did want me.
For some reason he wouldn’t explain, he believed he had nothing else to give.
I should have accepted the boundary. Instead, I wanted to know who had built it.
I got up, covered him with the blanket left on the sofa, and went to shower.
When I came out, he was awake, his neutral expression back in place. He’d put on yesterday’s shirt and was on the phone by the window.
“I want the full report before noon. No. Don’t fire anyone until we find out where those messages stopped.”
The supplier, then. He hung up and looked at the blanket on the floor.
“You covered me.”
“It was cold.”
“Thank you.”
“An observation or a compliment?”
The corner of his mouth moved.
“Don’t ruin it.”
We ate breakfast in silence. Luca chose to go back by car instead of waiting for the pilot. A boat took us to the mainland, where the driver waited. I worked for part of the journey to Como. He took calls. Neither of us mentioned the near-kiss.
Near Verona, he got another call. I heard Enrico’s name and the word hospital. When it ended, he checked a folder in his bag and gave the driver an address.
“We need to make a stop.”
“Trouble at the palazzo?”
“No.”
The car left the highway and pulled into a hospital parking lot. I looked at Luca, but he was already getting out.
“You can stay in the car. I won’t be long.”
“Is everything all right?”
“An employee’s daughter is here. I had these documents to give her father. He just confirmed he can see me.”
I asked if I could come. Luca hesitated, checked with Enrico by phone, and nodded. At reception, we waited for permission before going up to the pediatric ward.
Outside a room, we found Enrico, one of the Palazzo’s carpentry supervisors. He looked ten years older than the last time I’d seen him. When he recognized Luca, he got up quickly.
“Signor Bellandi.”
“How is she?”
“The doctors want to start the new treatment next week.”
Enrico looked at me.
“My daughter, Bianca. Leukemia.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“She’s fighting.”
Luca handed him a folder.
“The center in Zurich has accepted her. We’ll arrange transport as soon as the medical team clears her to go.”
Enrico opened it and went pale.
“I can’t afford this.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Mr. Bellandi—”
“The assistance fund will cover the treatment, accommodations, and your family’s expenses. You’ll stay on full pay while you’re away.”
Enrico’s eyes filled.
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
Luca looked away, plainly uncomfortable with the tears.
“Be with your daughter. Work can wait.”
The door opened. A girl of perhaps seven came out in yellow pajamas, a scarf covering her head.
“Papà?”
Enrico wiped his eyes.
“Bianca, this is Mr. Bellandi.”
She considered Luca gravely.
“The hotel man?”
“Sometimes.”
“Daddy says you’re grumpy.”
I bit my lip. Enrico turned red.
“She means important.”
“No, I don’t,” Bianca said.
Luca crouched to her level.
“Your father also thinks I’m bossy.”
“Are you?”
“Very.”
“Then can you tell the doctors to let me go home?”
His expression changed.
“I can’t give the doctors orders. But I’ll help your father take care of everything you need.”
She thought it over, then held out her little finger.
“Promise?”
He hooked his around hers.
“I promise we’ll do everything we can.”
She didn’t let go right away. He stayed crouched until she did. As we left, Enrico tried to thank him again. Luca squeezed his shoulder and walked down the corridor.
“How long have you been paying for her treatment?” I asked in the elevator.
“A few months.”
“No one on site knows.”
“They don’t need to.”
“People criticize you for all kinds of things. Why don’t you ever talk about the fund?”
“Bianca isn’t a public relations opportunity.”
I thought of how he’d protected Elisabetta’s memory.
“She liked you.”
“She liked what she thinks I can do. I wish I could tell the doctors to send her home.”
In the parking lot, Luca looked up. Enrico stood at the window. Bianca appeared beside him and waved. Luca raised a hand. She kept waving until we were in the car.
“I’ll ask Enrico to let me know when they reach Zurich.”
He wrote the message before the driver pulled away.
He opened a bottle of water and offered it to me before taking another. I waited until the hospital was behind us.
“I still want to ask about Beatrice.”
He capped the bottle without drinking.
“What do you want to know?”
“You cut the conversation short in the helicopter.”
“There’s nothing to hide.”
“You said there used to be something between you.”
“There was.”
“For how long?”
He put the water in the holder between the seats.
“Long enough to know it’s over.”
“Does she know?”
“She should.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
He sighed.
“We were involved for a few years. Not exclusively at first. It ended eighteen months ago. She accepted that when it suited her and ignored it when it didn’t.”
“Why did she stay on the board?”
“She’s good at her job. And she owns enough shares that removing her without cause would mean war.”
“Even while she keeps acting as though you’re still together?”
“Her shares don’t disappear because we broke up.”
I appreciated the honesty. It didn’t put me at ease. Beatrice knew Luca intimately. She knew the group, knew how to turn an emotional boundary into a corporate issue. A dangerous combination.
“Don’t underestimate what she wants.”
“Don’t underestimate how clear I’ve been.”
I looked at him. His certainty didn’t reassure me.
“Why does this matter to you?”
I held his gaze.
“Because if you’re going to keep almost kissing me and then running away, I’d like to know whether there’s a woman watching who thinks she’s being cheated on.”
He turned in his seat to face me.
“I never cheated on Beatrice.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“And there’s nothing intimate between us now.”
The relief was immediate. Irritating.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“An observation.”
He almost smiled again.
We reached the Palazzo in the early evening.
Luca went straight into a meeting. I checked the west wing and went over the delayed deliveries.
At nine, Paola told me the Venice amendment had been registered.
The internal spreadsheet allocating the discount across the shipments still needed my sign-off. Luca had left it in his private office.
“In his rooms?”
“Next to his bedroom. He said you can go in. It’s on the desk. He’s finishing a call with New York in the other room.”
I could have waited. But I was tired of postponing work because it meant being near him. The east corridor was quiet. I knocked at the office door. No answer. Paola had said it would be unlocked.
I went in.
The room was dark, wood-paneled, with a desk facing the windows. The internal door to the bedroom stood ajar. Voices came through. One was Beatrice’s.
“You can’t keep avoiding me, Luca.”
I stopped.
“I’m not avoiding you. I’m asking you to leave my bedroom.”
“After Venice? You really expect me not to ask questions?”
“I don’t owe you an explanation.”
“Maybe not as a board member. But after everything we were—”
I should have made myself known. I should have left. Before I could do either, Beatrice appeared in the doorway wearing nothing but a black silk nightgown. Our eyes met.
She didn’t look surprised. Only calmly triumphant, as if she’d arranged every detail of the picture. A white blouse lay on the armchair beside her bag. There was a glass on the nightstand.
I’d just heard him tell her to leave. I knew that. Still, I couldn’t stop looking at the nightgown, the half-open door, the ease with which she moved around his bedroom.
Luca appeared behind her, still in his travel clothes, furious.
“Gabriela.”
I laid my folder on the desk.
“Paola said the spreadsheet needed my sign-off.”
“It does. And I told Beatrice to leave.”
I’d heard him. It didn’t make finding her there any less uncomfortable.
“It doesn’t seem like any of my business.”
I turned and left before he could reach me.
He called my name in the corridor. I kept walking.
He’d said there was nothing between them.
I’d just heard him ordering her out. Yet she could walk around his rooms in a nightgown while I had to fight for the right to choose my own dance partner.
I was tired of trying to work out which of Luca’s boundaries he actually observed.