20
LUCA BELLANDI
Over the next few days, I discovered that discretion in an occupied palace took more effort than I’d expected.
I kept track of schedules, hallways, and my own expression whenever Gabriela entered a room.
At night, I crossed the internal corridor between the private apartments and went to her room.
We didn’t always leave together in the morning.
Sofia knew, Paola knew, and the team overseeing the contract had been informed.
Still, whenever someone approached, I lowered my hand before I could touch her.
I learned how she liked her coffee, the exact moment her brow began to furrow before an argument, and that she fell asleep with cold feet, seeking warmth without even waking. I discovered that she sang under her breath as she drew and left books open, spine down—a habit I considered criminal.
She learned that I woke before dawn, disliked sugar, and checked the doors twice before bed. On nights when the insomnia returned, she switched on the bedside lamp. Sometimes she read; sometimes she fell asleep before I did, the book open on her chest. I’d ease it away without waking her.
Discretion didn’t always feel like a choice we’d made together. One night, a housekeeper came to collect our dinner tray while we were in my room. Gabriela instinctively hid behind the bathroom door. After the woman left, she stayed there a few seconds longer.
“We agreed you wouldn’t deny me,” she reminded me.
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t have to. I ran to hide before she saw me.”
I closed the suite door.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. But you wait for the hall to empty before coming to see me too.”
I looked at the empty space on the table. The housekeeper had taken two cups and two plates. My caution concealed less than I’d imagined.
“I don’t want to start hearing your footsteps and running for a door,” Gabriela said.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Come to my room tomorrow. I cross enough hallways for you as it is.”
I’d been there several times, taking the internal corridor almost no one used at night. Now she was asking me to stop waiting until it was empty.
“Through the front door?”
“Through the door, Luca. That’s what it’s for.”
The next morning, I passed an employee as I left her room. I greeted him and kept walking. Gabriela was still in the doorway with my tie in her hand. I went back for it and kissed her forehead before leaving.
She called me back a second time. I’d forgotten my watch too. Later, I gave her a key to the door between my office and the internal corridor. She wouldn’t have to wait for me to let her in; I would still knock at her door.
“You’re watching me again,” she said one morning without looking up from the plan.
I was in the little office adjoining her bedroom, answering messages while she worked on the bed.
“You’re drawing on the sheets.”
“I have a board under it.”
“There’s graphite on the pillow.”
“It’s your palace. Send me the bill.”
I closed my laptop.
“Get dressed.”
She looked up.
“I haven’t even had coffee.”
“I want to show you something.”
“Now?”
“Before the team gets here.”
It was a week after the ball. Gabriela pulled on pants and tied back her hair.
Two days earlier, she’d complained that she had nowhere to leave the passage surveys spread out without taking over the meeting table.
I led her through the east wing to an unused room that had been cleaned and cleared for use but was still locked. I opened the door.
Morning light streamed through three tall windows. An adjustable drafting table stood in the center. There were cabinets for samples and corkboards brought up from storage. The bookcase held conservation books in Portuguese, Italian, and English. Gabriela stopped on the threshold.
“What is this?”
“A studio.”
“I can see that.”
“The project room is shared. You need somewhere for sensitive drawings and smaller meetings.”
She walked to the table and ran her fingers over the wood.
“You had this made?”
“I had an existing one adapted.”
“In two days.”
“The room was ready. The team brought in the furniture; the carpenters adjusted the table yesterday.”
She looked at the materials, then at me.
“I can’t accept gifts on this scale.”
“It’s not a gift. It belongs to the project.”
“With books in Portuguese?”
“Some came from the technical library. I ordered the others.”
“And a chair exactly like the one I use in Lisbon?”
I said nothing. She came closer.
“You even investigated my chair?”
“I asked Paola for a reference. She got photographs from Cris.”
Gabriela took out her phone and video-called her friend. I made to leave, but she pointed to a chair.
“You’re staying. If you decide to come into my life through the side door, you get to hear the reaction.”
Cris answered on the second ring.
“Gabi. Do you like the room?”
“You sent Paola pictures of my office?”
A pause.
“She said she needed to adapt the space without making your back pain worse.”
“Did she tell you Luca had asked?”
“No.”
“I did,” I said, loudly enough for him to hear.
“He’s there?” Cris asked.
“He is.”
“Bellandi, I sent pictures of the desk and chair, not her entire filing cabinet. If you needed to know something, you could have asked her.”
“I could have.”
“Gabi, I thought you knew. Paola mentioned your back, and I didn’t check.”
“Next time, check with me,” Gabriela said.
She said goodbye and ended the call. She still held the phone as she turned to me.
“You promised to talk to me before making decisions for me.”
“I thought the room was a work matter.”
“The room is. Looking into my things without asking is something else.”
I looked at the chair I’d had chosen. I’d imagined watching her sit down and try the table, not having to explain how I’d known what to buy.
“You’re right. I’ll speak to Paola. I won’t ask anyone else for information about you again.”
“And I want to see what’s been charged to the project.”
I showed her the list Paola had sent. Gabriela checked each item, set aside the new books, and asked for them to be cataloged in the shared library. The room itself would also be assigned to the restoration, available to the technical staff as needed.
“I don’t want to have to explain later why I was given a room,” she said.
“I’ll have its use recorded with project coordination.”
She put away her phone, pulled out the chair, and sat down. She adjusted the height twice before resting her arms on the table.
“That’s good,” she said, almost to herself. Then she looked up at me. “You should have brought me here before having it all done.”
“We can still make changes.”
“We can. That cabinet needs to be farther from the window.”
I looked at it. She bit her lip, and I recognized the effort to hide a smile.
“Will you help me?”
“I’ll get someone who knows how to move it without ruining the floor.”
She laughed. I noted the change and asked Paola to review the equipment list with us. Only then did Gabriela begin opening the folder she’d brought.
“Do you like the studio?”
She looked around.
“Very much. But it’ll still belong to the project when I leave.”
The thought of her leaving brought an immediate response.
“That’s months away.”
“Months pass.”
I pointed to the crank beneath the drawing board.
“For now, see if the angle works.”
She tried tilting the table and spread out her first drawing.
Over the following days, the studio became the center of her work.
I brought coffee, documents I could have emailed, and questions I already knew the answers to.
One afternoon, without even looking up, she pointed to the empty chair and told me I could stay if I stopped interrupting.
I spent half an hour reading beside her, happy not to be sent away.
Lorenzo was watching. One afternoon, I left the studio to find my brother leaning against the opposite wall.
“Long visit,” he remarked.
“We reviewed the east-wing suites.”
“Does the rest of the team know where to find the person in charge?”
I kept walking.
“What do you want?”
“The board has calmed down. It hasn’t gone blind. Neither has Beatrice.”
“Beatrice has no authority over my private life.”
“Your private life is running the group’s biggest project.”
I stopped.
“Choose your next words carefully.”
Lorenzo raised his hands.
“I’m not judging. Gabriela is beautiful, intelligent, and apparently the only person who can say no to you without disappearing the next day. I understand the attraction.”
“We have nothing to discuss.”
“Then consider what will happen when the press hears that she works in a room you’ve equipped for her and has access to the family’s private quarters.”
“The room’s use is on record with project coordination. Her access to my bedroom is none of your business.”
“Of course.”
His smile held no amusement.
“Be careful. You’ve spent years making sure no one could question your decisions. One woman is enough to make everyone start looking for reasons.”
“Is that a threat?”
“A brotherly warning.”
“We’ve never been those kinds of brothers.”
For an instant, something cold crossed his face.
“Perhaps because you’ve never allowed it.”
He walked away.
That night, I traveled to Milan with Gabriela for a meeting with designers. It was our first overnight trip since Venice. Paola joined the business dinner and stayed at the same hotel. Gabriela and I had rooms booked on different floors; at one in the morning, she knocked on my suite door.
“I thought I’d save you the walk,” she said before I could speak.
I pulled her inside.
“I was on my way.”
“Didn’t look like it.”
“Can I make up for the delay?”
“You can.”
She kissed me.
Hours later, I woke before she did. There were calls from London on my phone. I checked with my assistant that the matter could wait and asked her to reschedule my morning meeting.
When Gabriela woke, we had breakfast. I told her I’d be staying in Milan a few hours longer and invited her to see a small house near the Naviglio that the group planned to restore.
She accepted. She spent nearly an hour examining traces of pigment on the facade; I stayed beside her, following what she pointed out.
As we left, a woman from the group asked permission to photograph us in front of the building. I felt Gabriela stiffen.
“It’s for our internal records,” the woman explained. “We can identify Ms. Duarte as a project consultant.”
“I’m not a consultant on this project,” Gabriela said. “And I don’t want a private visit to look like an appointment.”
The woman looked at me. I shook my head.
“We’re just visiting today,” I confirmed.
She put away her phone and walked us to the exit. On the way to the car, Gabriela noticed me looking back at the facade.
“I did want a photograph,” I admitted.
“You can ask for one that belongs to us, not the group.”
She propped her phone on a wall and set the timer. In the picture, I looked far too serious, and Gabriela was laughing because a bicycle had nearly cut across the frame. She sent it only to me.
I made it her contact photo. The first time she called, I took so long to answer that she complained. Back at the Palazzo, I found Lorenzo in the finance office.
“I want you to stop watching Gabriela.”
My brother looked up from his computer.
“I’m not watching her.”
“Then stop asking questions about her.”
“Someone has to assess the risks.”
“She’s been assessed.”
“Professionally.”
I approached the desk.
“Her life is none of the group’s business.”
“It is now,” Lorenzo said. “Not because I want it to be, sir. Because you’ve made her a factor in every meeting.”
The formal address was a provocation.
“Then leave my relationship out of your analyses and assess her work through the independent controls.”
“Markets don’t find it so easy to separate the bedroom from the boardroom.”
“My relationship doesn’t give you the right to investigate anyone.”
Lorenzo smiled.
“It won’t be that simple if you decide to make her part of the family.”
Hearing the possibility spoken aloud hit me in a way I hadn’t expected.
“I don’t intend to discuss that.”
“Because you don’t intend to, or because you haven’t told her yet?”
I left without answering. Before the door closed, I saw him minimize a window on his computer. A photograph of Gabriela with her arms around Cris stayed on the screen long enough for me to recognize the face I’d seen during the call about the studio. I took a step back.
“What were you looking at?”
“A risk report,” he replied, closing the laptop. “Exactly what you asked me to drop.”
“Delete it.”
“When Legal authorizes it.”
“Now, Lorenzo.”
My brother held my gaze.
“You can’t protect the group by refusing to know who’s around her.”
“And you won’t protect anything by invading her life.”
I asked Legal to suspend any personal inquiries unrelated to the contract and review the material already collected.
I told Gabriela that afternoon. She wanted to know where the photograph had come from; I forwarded her question instead of promising an answer I didn’t have.
Lorenzo confirmed the suspension and apologized for his excessive caution.
The source of the images remained to be explained.
I closed my brother’s email and opened the photograph from Milan. Gabriela was laughing. With me. That was what I wanted to remember.