All Chapters of Second Time, Mrs. Ricciardi: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Seven p.m., and Lake Como looked like an expensive postcard that had been photographed to death. Deep blue, almost black. Villa lights scattered messily across the water. A thin veil of fog hovering low, like a cheap filter no one bothered to turn off. From the study window facing the lake, everything reduced itself to silhouettes. Water. Distant lights. And my own reflection in the glass. My hair was tied back neatly now. The Columbia T-shirt was gone, replaced by an oversized black hoodie. My laptop sat open, the screen crowded with lines of code and Raj’s sharp commentary from Boston. Raj: Can you PLEASE stop writing like you’re trying to flirt with the compiler, Ara? Raj: The function either works or it doesn’t. It doesn’t need to be sexy. I snorted softly, fingers still flying across the keyboard. “My compiler might not need sexy,” I muttered, eyes glued to the screen. “But my life does.” On the desk: two empty coffee mugs, yellow sticky notes scattered like casualties, a ta

I woke up because the sun slapped me in the face. White-gold light speared through the thin curtains, landing directly on my eyelids that had never volunteered to become solar panels. I blinked slowly, trying to gather the pieces of my soul scattered across the sheets.The clock on the nightstand read 10:03.I stared at it for a long moment. My brain needed a few seconds to connect the facts.I.Woke up.At ten. A.m.Usually by six I was already up, sitting in the kitchen with coffee, staring at Lake Como or a bug on my screen. Now my whole body felt weighed down with concrete.I rolled slowly to the other side of the bed.The sheets were still warm. But the space beside me was empty. Rafael’s pillow was cold, no trace of the shape of his head. All that was left were creases in the sheets and the faint ghost of his cologne, tangled with something I did not want to define too clearly unless I wanted to throw up my feelings.His chest had been under my head last night. His hands… his mou

I came downstairs twenty minutes later with my hair tied back, white linen pants, an oversized black T-shirt, and one simple goal: coffee before anyone demanded anything from me.In the kitchen, Xavier stood in front of the stove with a spatula in his hand.Gabby sat on the marble island, watching the pancakes with a serious face.Al was arranging three dinosaurs beside his plate.“Mami,” Gabby said the second she saw me. “Tío said I can have whipped cream.”Xavier looked over with an innocent face. “I said maybe.”“You said yes with your eyes.”“I don’t have eyes that issue legal approval.”“Everyone knows Tío loves me more,” she said, brushing her doll’s hair with a fork.Al looked at her. “Tío likes me more because I’m boy.”Gabby glared at him. “Girls are better.”“Boys are stronger.”“Girls are prettier.”“Boys have dinosaurs.”Gabby stopped.I picked up my coffee mug from the counter and took a long sip without saying anything.Xavier watched my face. “Do you have plans today?”

I stared at her.“Media strategy,” I said quietly.“Yes.”“They haven’t announced it yet?”“No. I don’t think it’s public yet. But they’re preparing.”I stood.Papá’s chair rolled back, its legs scraping roughly against the wooden floor. Dianna followed me with her eyes from the screen.I walked to the window.The rain was still the same. The backyard was still gray. The world out there could not have cared less that I was standing in a small room with my hair tied up badly, an oversized black T-shirt, white linen pants, and a past that had suddenly walked in through email with an appendix.“Can tiny shark eat pancake?” Al’s voice came faintly from the kitchen.“No, tiny shark has standards,” Xavier answered.Gabby laughed.I closed my eyes for a second.My children were downstairs. Two small creatures who were half my life, half natural disaster, and one hundred percent unaware that the Ricciardi name had just slithered into Papá’s house like an expensive snake.Rafael didn’t know.A

Night came, and the house finally went quiet a little after nine forty.Gabby slept in her room with the plastic crown from the aquarium on her side table, her stuffed shark under the blanket, and the pink pajamas she had chosen to wear.Al slept in the room next to Gabby’s after a long negotiation over whether his dinosaur was allowed to sleep on the bookshelf or had to “patrol” under his pillow. In the end, I allowed one dinosaur to stand guard on the nightstand and made the other two go into the toy box.In the hallway, the wall sconces glowed warm. My San Francisco beach house breathed in low sounds: old wood, AC, distant waves crashing into the dark. Xavier had already retreated to the guest room.I went downstairs to the kitchen and poured white wine into a glass.Then I carried the glass to the small study on the side of the house.My laptop was waiting on the desk.I opened it.My inbox lit up immediately.There were thirty-eight emails I hadn’t read since Washington. Two from