Chapter 2

After hearing what I said, Lucia’s smile faltered.

Alessandro slowly crushed his cigar into the ashtray and turned to me.

“Have you learned nothing, Eva?”

There it was again.

Alessandro used those words whenever I dared to stand my ground. If I refused to yield, he would make the decision even more absolute.

It was never enough for me to tolerate what he did. I had to accept that I had no right to question his decisions, let alone stop him.

Our worst fight happened the year before.

I had been hospitalized for three days after a severe reaction to gluten. Alessandro secured the best specialist in Manhattan, put two armed guards outside my private room, and ordered the hospital director to call him with every update.

But he never came.

Before I was admitted, I had asked him not to escort Lucia to a three-night benefit at Carnegie Hall.

So he attended all three nights.

When I confronted him afterward, Alessandro seemed genuinely unable to understand why I was upset.

“You were protected,” he said. “I knew every number on your chart before your doctor did.”

“I didn’t need your men. I needed you.”

“And I needed you to understand that fear does not give you authority over me.”

I asked whether I was his future wife or merely another person under his protection.

He told me Lucia was family. He had known her since childhood, and whatever existed between them had never been romantic.

Then he shut me out for two weeks.

He still came home every night, but he treated me like a ghost. He slept beside me without touching me and drank the coffee I made without looking at me.

One night, I broke.

“Why does it always have to be like this?” I cried, sitting on our bedroom floor. “Why do you have to punish me every time I ask for one thing?”

Alessandro watched me in silence until I had no tears left.

He believed answering me while I was emotional would reward my defiance.

For fourteen nights, I cried into my pillow and remembered only the man I was terrified of losing.

The man who had every Moretti kitchen stripped of gluten so I could eat safely. Who knew my favorite tapas bar in the West Village and could order my entire meal without asking.

Who held me through thunderstorms, even when family business kept his phone ringing until dawn.

I loved that man too much to let him go.

In the end, I sent Alessandro a message apologizing for questioning him.

Our fights always ended this way. I gave in again and again until he decided I had apologized enough and let me back into his arms.

He came home that night carrying a gluten-free cheesecake from my favorite bakery.

“Do you understand now?” he asked.

I nodded.

He kissed my forehead. “Good. Your birthday was two days ago, tesoro. Come eat.”

I ate the cake through my tears, unable to tell whether I was hurt, relieved, or simply grateful that he loved me again.

The next evening, he canceled dinner with my parents that had been planned weeks ago.

Lucia’s car had broken down in Brooklyn and she wanted him to pick her up himself.

Alessandro could have sent a driver. He could have sent twenty men.

I had asked him to stay. So he went himself.

The memory faded as I reached for a glass of water.

For once, I didn’t defend myself or promise Alessandro that I had learned my lesson.

His eyes narrowed at my silence.

Before he could speak, Lucia curled both hands around his arm.

“Please don’t fight with her because of me.”

She lifted her cocktail toward his mouth.

“Here. Try this. They made it with that Sicilian blood orange gin you like.”

Alessandro gave her an indulgent look, then took a sip from her glass.

The tension left his shoulders.

I stared at them.

It wasn’t that Lucia understood him better than I did.

She simply never challenged him.

She asked sweetly, praised every decision, and let him believe that giving her whatever she wanted had always been his idea.

“I still feel terrible about last month,” Lucia said. “If I’d known Eva would be so upset, I never would’ve asked you to escort me to my uncle’s dinner.”

Lucia’s father had planned to introduce her to the heir of a Philadelphia family. She had asked Alessandro to attend as her escort so the man would understand she was unavailable.

I had begged Alessandro not to go.

That alone had guaranteed he would.

Alessandro didn’t look at me.

“You asked for help. She’ll learn not to turn every favor into a betrayal.”

Lucia turned to me, pressing her palms together.

“My cousin’s engagement party is this Saturday, and that Philadelphia man will be there again. May I borrow Alessandro one more time?”

Alessandro placed a hand on top of her head and turned her face back toward him.

“You want me, you ask me. Why are you asking her?”

“Because I know you’ll say yes.” Lucia laughed. “I’m trying not to get your fiancée in trouble again.”

I lowered my eyes.

“I don’t mind.”

Alessandro studied me, visibly surprised.

“That’s new.”

I said nothing.

After a moment, I held out my hand.

“My apartment key.”

His brows drew together. “Why?”

“My purse was stolen, remember?”

He dropped the keys into my palm.

“I’m tired,” I said. “I’m going home.”

No one stopped me as I left the private room.

Behind me, I heard Lucia ask softly, “Does Eva hate me?”

“No.”

Alessandro sounded almost amused.

“She loves me too much. That’s the problem.”

The men laughed.

One of them asked, “You sure you haven’t pushed her too far this time?”

“I’m sure.”

His confidence followed me down the hallway.

“Three years ago, she turned down the Zurich program because I told her my wife belonged in New York. She walked away from everything she had worked for without a second thought.”

He paused.

“A woman who loves me enough to give up that kind of future isn’t going anywhere.”

Approval murmured around the table.

My steps slowed. Alessandro was right about one thing.

Three years ago, I had rejected Zurich for him.

What he didn’t know was that during our week of silence, the institute had offered me the position again.

This time, I had accepted.