Chapter 6

A wave of absurdity washed over me.

In this very room, he and I had drawn the floor plans for Il Nido together, calculated the first year's revenue, discussed which artists were worth signing. Back then, the desk did not have so many empty bottles on it, and the air did not smell like cigarette smoke. Now there were overturned glasses on the rug, and the ashtray was full.

I turned and walked out, bent over the sink in the bathroom down the hall, and vomited until the tears and acid came up together.

Over the next few days, I packed up everything for the baby. The small clothes, the hand-stitched blankets, the little leather shoes I had asked a friend to bring back from Florence. I wrapped them in paper, put them in boxes, and sent them to the house I owned in Europe. The house sat on a hillside, its windows facing olive groves, far from any Rossetti presence.

Dante did not notice. He started sending things to the house instead. Expensive couture dresses, jewelry, boxes of designer children's clothes, stacked in the dressing room like shelves. I did not open any of them. He sent them in, I sent them out.

Meanwhile, Serena's performances grew more frequent. She had secured a regular stage at a theater in the north, and tickets sold well. Sometimes Dante appeared in the audience. Sometimes a photograph caught his shoulder and the hand resting on the back of a chair. Sometimes she smiled from the stage toward a certain direction, and the camera followed. Those photographs always seemed to find their way out.

Someone said at a dinner table, "Dante really does care about her." Another voice, lower, replied, "Do you think he knows what it looks like from the outside?" Even people on the edges could see it. Dante himself seemed to notice nothing.

Hearing those words, I thought of something from years ago.

I had handled several asset restructuring cases for allied families back then. Every proposal I wrote myself, and the clients signed on the last page without reading the rest. They trusted me. I used to think that if you did good work, people would see it and respect it.

But in Dante's world, he had never needed to be seen for his ability. The Rossetti name carried him through every door, doors that opened before he even knocked. He had never learned to sit in an empty room and wait for someone to call back. He spoke, and people answered. He asked, and people gave.

If not for Elena, I never would have crossed paths with him. That year, she looked at me with eyes that had seen too much and said, "Everyone around Dante lets him have his way. You are different. You can show him there is another way."

I took it on. I brought him to see the proposals I had written, brought him to meet clients who needed real conversations. He had not done much coursework, but he could see what others were doing. He started pulling away from the circles where nothing was required of him and began taking on the parts of the family business that actually needed thought.

And then he fell in love with me, standing beside me wherever he appeared, as if it had already been decided.

Everyone said I had tamed Dante. I believed it too. Now I think maybe I had just arrived earlier than the others.

There were only three days left before the dissolution. Tonight was the Rossetti family's annual gathering with their allies, held at Il Nido.

I stood near the back wall, where the light was dimmer and the shadows longer. I had positioned myself there deliberately, so I could see the whole room without being seen first. Il Nido had never looked better. The chandeliers were newly polished, the flowers fresh and low on the tables so guests could talk across them. I had chosen those flowers myself, months ago, back when I still believed I would be standing at the center of this room as the Donna.

It was the face of the Rossetti family, the place where allies, partners, and political connections converged.

The rehearsal two weeks ago had gone smoothly. Dante's speech had been good. The lighting had been right. I thought tonight would be the same.

But as I stood at the edge of the room, I watched Dante with a glass in his hand and Serena beside him. When he spoke to an important partner, she stood there next to him, like she belonged there. Across the room, I heard someone ask who she was, and another voice answered quietly, "Dante's girl."