13. Claire
CLAIRE
The dress has nowhere to put a lens cap.
Matteo is a larger problem.
He is standing at the bottom of the Casa Ginestra steps in a dark suit that fits him with the kind of precision I usually resent in architecture. No tie. White shirt open at the throat. One hand in his pocket.
I stop on the last step.
He looks up.
For two full seconds, neither of us says anything.
Then Matteo says, “You have a problem.”
“Several.”
“Shoes?”
“Pockets.”
His gaze moves over the dress once, slowly enough that heat climbs into my face.
“Also possibly you,” I add.
“That sounds manageable.”
“Confidence is unattractive.”
“You have repeatedly demonstrated otherwise.”
Annoying man.
I adjust the thin strap of my bag. I brought one small camera because tonight’s hospitality foundation event includes an archival display, and I have been hoping the curator will be there. Matteo invited me before he knew that.
I want to meet Dr. Elena Serra, and a restored nineteenth-century villa full of old guest books, photographs, menus, and letters is almost offensively relevant to Return.
I also want to go because Matteo asked.
No committee required.
He holds out his hand.
I look at it.
“Are you escorting me?”
“I am offering help on the stairs.”
“In these shoes?”
“Yes.”
“That is less romantic.”
“It is more accurate.”
I take his hand anyway.
The event is at Villa Orsini, fifteen minutes from Bellamare along the coast, a restored property that now hosts private dinners and hospitality events. By the time we arrive, the stone courtyard is full of people who look like they have never carried a camera bag through an airport.
I recognize three names from Matteo’s explanation in the car.
I recognize no faces.
Matteo knows everyone.
That is not literally true, but the first ten minutes make a persuasive case.
A silver-haired man greets him in Italian and gets a hand on his shoulder. A woman in a red silk dress kisses both his cheeks and asks about Milan. Two men from a hotel group interrupt each other to speak to him. Someone from the foundation wants thirty seconds. Someone else wants a photograph.
Matteo gives them all exactly enough.
He is good at this.
At Bellamare, he can spend ten minutes over coffee without speaking. Here he moves through the courtyard without friction. Names arrive before introductions. He remembers a daughter’s graduation, a chef’s new restaurant, somebody’s mother recovering from surgery.
I have never seen him talk this much.
“Claire.”
I turn.
Matteo has shifted half a step so I am beside him instead of behind him.
“This is Sofia Mancini. She oversees the foundation archive.”
He introduces me by name, not as his date.
“This is Claire Bennett. She’s a photographer working on a project about places people return to.”
Sofia’s face changes with immediate interest.
“Return?”
I glance at Matteo.
He gives me the smallest possible shrug.
Then he gets out of the way.
I spend the next fifteen minutes talking to Sofia about old guest registers, family photographs, and why one room in a hotel can matter more than the hotel itself.
By the time she introduces me to Dr. Elena Serra, Matteo is across the room talking to someone else and I have forgotten to be irritated that he was right about coming.
Elena is seventy if she is a day, wears enormous green glasses, and informs me within four minutes that most contemporary travel photography is “afraid of ugly chairs.”
I adore her.
“Ugly chairs are excellent,” I say.
“Exactly.”
She takes me through the archival display herself.
There are photographs of the villa before restoration, back when the plaster was cracked and the furniture did not match. A ledger from 1938 lies open beneath glass. One family signed in every August for twenty-three years.
I lean closer to the glass.
Same surname.
Same room number.
Twenty-three summers.
The courtyard disappears.
I almost forget Matteo until Elena says, “Your Bellandi is patient.”
I straighten.
“My Bellandi?”
She points behind me.
Matteo is standing near the doorway talking to three people at once.
“He has looked over here four times and has not interrupted once.”
I blink at her.
“He is not my Bellandi.”
Elena smiles.
“That is not what I said.”
“It is exactly what you said.”
“Photographers should listen better.”
I open my mouth to argue.
She is already walking toward the next display.
I follow because she has seventy years of experience and no respect for my defense.
Twenty minutes later, I find Matteo near the terrace doors.
“Your curator is dangerous.”
“My curator?”
“Do not start.”
His mouth lifts at one side.
“She likes ugly chairs.”
“Then you have found your people.”
“I knew you invited me for a reason.”
“I invited you because I thought you would enjoy it.”
That lands uncomfortably close to the list, so I ignore it with dignity.
Mostly.
A photographer near the entrance asks Matteo for a picture with two foundation board members. He steps into position without complaint.
The photographer lifts the camera.
Matteo squares his shoulders and gives him a smile I have not seen in a kitchen, on a wet beach, or while lost on a coastal road.
It is not fake. He just has it ready when the room expects it.
The photographer takes three frames.
Matteo thanks him and steps away.
By the time he reaches me, the smile is gone.
“Hungry?”
The transition is so fast I almost laugh.
“Yes.”
“There is food on the lower terrace.”
“Are there ugly chairs?”
“Several.”
“Excellent.”
For another hour, I am good at the room.
I talk to a travel editor from Rome. I meet a hotel owner whose parents have spent every anniversary in the same room of a property in Sorrento. I take exactly seven photographs after asking permission, none of Matteo.
I know how to do rooms like this.
I can even handle the part where somebody recognizes Matteo from across the room and decides that means they recognize me too.
A man with silver cuff links asks how long I have known him before he asks what I do.
“Long enough to know he counts things,” I say.
Beside me, Matteo says, “She is a photographer.”
The man turns back to me.
Matteo takes a sip of water while I explain Return badly, because I always explain it badly the first time. When the man asks whether Bellamare is the project, I answer before Matteo even shifts beside me.
“No,” I say. “Bellamare is where I am staying near. The project is mine.”
“Of course,” the man says, and asks about the photographs.
By the time he leaves, Matteo has not corrected one word.
I bump my shoulder lightly into his.
“Excellent silence.”
“I have several kinds.”
“That one was useful.”
“I know.”
I almost take the compliment back.
I know when to ask a question, when to laugh, when somebody wants to tell me what they own, and when they want to tell me why it matters.
I just cannot do it forever.
My left earring becomes unbearable first.
Then I realize I have been holding the same glass for ten minutes because I need one hand occupied.
By the time someone starts another conversation about restoration funding, every voice has flattened into the same polite frequency.
I smile at a woman whose name I heard six minutes ago and have already misplaced.
She is telling me about Capri.
I nod in what I hope are the correct places.
Across the terrace, Matteo is talking to Luca and an older couple.
Luca came separately and has somehow acquired a plate of desserts despite dinner not being served yet.
Matteo’s attention finds me.
I look away before he catches me staring.
The woman says something about September.
I have no idea what.
“Sorry,” I say. “The acoustics in here are winning.”
She laughs and repeats herself.
I manage another five minutes.
Then I find the bathroom, stand alone inside a marble stall, and enjoy thirty seconds in which no one speaks to me.
Very glamorous.
When I come back out, Matteo is exactly where I left him.
Good.
I would have hated finding him posted outside the door.
He is speaking to someone from Milan. He catches my eye once.
Yesterday, after Luca turned lunch into a four-hour social commitment, I told Matteo that studying door hinges meant my personality had left the building.
He told me to say when I wanted out.
I told him that by then I would already be irritated with every living person.
We ended up with two fingers against the inside of his wrist.
Want out?
One nod for yes.
A tiny shake for no.
I thought it was ridiculous.
Now, from twenty feet away, Matteo touches two fingers lightly to his wrist.
No one else notices.
I glance at the terrace doors, then back at him.
He waits.
I nod once.
Matteo finishes the sentence he is in.
Five minutes later, he reaches me beside the terrace.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“That was efficient.”
“You were looking at the hinges.”
I laugh.
“I was not.”
“You looked at the same hinge twice.”
“That is deeply irritating.”
“It was a distinctive hinge.”
I head toward the courtyard before he can become more pleased with himself.
Nobody stops us.
Matteo says good night to exactly three people on the way out. I say goodbye to Elena, who tells me to email her and then kisses my cheek as if we have known each other for years.
Outside the gate, the night air feels cooler than it did when we arrived.
I take the first full breath I have had in an hour.
Matteo notices.
“Better?”
“Yes.”
We walk toward the car.
Matteo unlocks the car and waits while I lean against the passenger door instead of opening it.
I glance at him over the roof.
“You saw the hinge thing.”
“You were rubbing your earring first.”
My hand stops on the door handle.
Matteo comes around the front of the car.
“You do that when you are getting tired of a room.”
“How many times have you seen me do that?”
“Three.”
“Three.”
“Yes.”
“That is either romantic or an alarming use of pattern recognition.”
“I was standing beside you for two of them.”
“Better defense.”
He stops in front of me.
The courtyard light reaches one side of his face. Somewhere behind the villa, glasses knock together and someone laughs too loudly.
“You could have just taken me out,” I say.
His mouth loses the hint of a smile.
“You could have.”
“You said the signal was a question.”
“I know.”
“You might have wanted five more minutes.”
For once, I do not have a joke.
I reach for the front of his shirt instead.
Matteo’s hands settle at my waist.
“That look usually means trouble,” he says.
“What look?”
“The one where you have decided I am temporarily tolerable.”
“Dangerously accurate.”
I kiss him.
There is nothing polite about the kiss.
Matteo makes a low sound and pulls me closer, my back against the car door, his thumb pressing into the soft fabric at my waist.
He tastes faintly of wine.
The event is still audible behind us, which should make this less appealing.
It does not.
He kisses the corner of my mouth.
“Your earring is crooked.”
I laugh against his cheek.
“Seduction master.”
“I noticed.”
“Of course you did.”
I fix it with one hand.
A camera shutter clicks somewhere behind us.
Neither of us turns.
There have been cameras all night. I assume it belongs to the event.
Matteo kisses my forehead, then opens the passenger door.
“Come on.”
“Back to Bellamare?”
“Your cottage, unless you changed your mind.”
“My cottage.”
On the drive home, I kick off the shoes.
Matteo glances down at the floorboard.
“Those were expensive.”
“They are criminals.”
“You selected them.”
“I was manipulated by lighting.”
“Of course.”
At Casa Ginestra, I leave both shoes outside the door.
Matteo picks one up.
“Do not bring that into my home.”
“It is a shoe.”
“It knows what it did.”
He puts it back down.
Inside, I change out of the dress and into an old T-shirt and shorts while Matteo opens the refrigerator and discovers half a peach, cheese, and a bottle of water.
“This is bleak.”
“I had plans.”
“You had a formal event.”
“Same thing.”
He cuts the remaining peach in half, leaving us with two pieces so small they are insulting.
We eat them anyway.
I sit on the kitchen counter.
Matteo stands between my knees.
“Rate the escape,” I say.
“From what scale?”
“Ten.”
“No.”
I grin.
“You are learning.”
“Slowly.”
“Eight.”
“Why not ten?”
“You mentioned my hinge.”
“That was relevant.”
“It was smug.”
“Accurate.”
“See? Seven now.”
He kisses my knee.
“Eight.”
“Manipulation.”
“Effective?”
“Unfortunately.”
My phone buzzes on the table.
Then Matteo’s does.
We ignore both.
Mine buzzes again.
“Popular,” he says.
“Probably Tessa.”
A third alert appears.
Then a fourth.
I reach for the phone.
Tessa has sent three messages.
The first says:
OH MY GOD
The second is a link.
The third says:
PLEASE TELL ME YOU HAVE SEEN THIS BEFORE YOUR MOTHER DOES
“My mother does not follow Italian hospitality gossip,” I say.
Matteo’s phone buzzes again.
His thumb stops over the screen.
He reads it twice.
“What?”
He looks at me.
“Someone photographed us leaving.”
I open Tessa’s link.
The page loads too fast.
There we are outside Villa Orsini, my back against Matteo’s car, my hand in his shirt, his mouth at my temple.
From that distance, the private moment looks more intimate, not less.
The headline sits above it in large black type.
MATTEO BELLANDI LEAVES COAST GALA WITH MYSTERY WOMAN
I read the headline again.
Mystery woman.
My name is nowhere on the page.