Second Time, Mrs. Ricciardi のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 121 - チャプター 130

Rafael’s SUV finally pulled into my beach house driveway late in the afternoon, when the San Francisco sky had turned a muted gold-gray and a thin layer of fog was starting to roll in from the ocean, like the city had a dramatic habit of ending every day with a melancholy filter.My house stood in front of us, white, quiet, far too pretty to know that inside the car were two half-conscious four-year-olds, one Gen Z nanny who had lost all faith in labor laws, one Italian billionaire who had just found out he had kids, and me, a woman who wanted nothing more than to shower, drink something cold, and maybe stare at a wall for eight uninterrupted minutes without anyone asking whether a whale shark could have a custody agreement.“Are we home?” From the back seat, Gabby lifted her head from the car seat. Her pink glitter crown had slipped down until it was almost touching her eyebrows, one cheek was red from sleep, and she squinted at the world like it had personally offended her by contin

Night fell without much drama from the sky, I’d showered and changed into a plain black tank top and gray sweatpants that sat loose around my waist, my hair clipped haphazardly on top of my head.Still, when I came out of the pantry carrying garlic and found Rafael still standing at the island, I started to suspect the man had failed to grasp a very basic concept known as going home.“You know what,” I said, setting the garlic on the cutting board, “usually after someone drives somone home, there’s this revolutionary little thing called goodbye.”He picked up a bell pepper from the bowl. He took the knife anyway and started cutting out the seeds. “I’m helping.”I looked at his hands. “Don’t cut it like that.”He stopped. “Like what?”“You’re taking off too much of the white part.”“You said not too much.”“Yeah, that doesn’t mean you need to perform reconstructive surgery.”Rafael looked at the pepper in his hand, then at me. “Want to do it yourself?”I held out my hand. “Absolutely.

By eight forty-seven, I’d already canceled one centerpiece, rescued a seating chart from a woman who wanted to put two ex-husbands at the same table, and explained to a florist that ivory and cream were, in fact, two different colors even if God Himself probably regretted creating both of them.So professionally, the morning was going pretty well.I sat in my oversized chair on the second floor of GALA, one leg crossed beneath the walnut desk, my hair twisted into a low bun with a few strands deliberately left loose around my face because I’d figured out years ago that people accepted brutal decisions more easily when the person delivering them looked pretty.My champagne satin blouse was neatly tucked into high-waisted black trousers, I’d already kicked off one heel because my right pinky toe had decided capitalism wasn’t worth fighting for today, and my laptop had sixteen tabs open, all of them apparently more important than my mental health.Outside my office, GALA was fully awake.

For the next two hours, I worked.Not the aesthetic version of working where a woman wears a nice blazer, moves two sticky notes around, and drinks a latte in front of a window. I actually worked.There was a call about a corporate anniversary in Napa whose tent layout had changed because of a permit issue. There was a bride from Pacific Heights who suddenly decided, six weeks before her wedding, that the color blue made her feel “emotionally cold,” a medical condition my company was apparently expected to cure.There was a lighting vendor who had miscalculated the rigging points, a New York client who wanted to move the rehearsal dinner from a hotel to a yacht, and one internal meeting where I made the entire room go back through the budget until someone found a catering error worth twenty-seven thousand dollars.By ten-thirty, I’d almost forgotten my family was holding an international summit in Bogotá.Then my phone buzzed.Xavier: They’re here.I read the message while signing off

After lunch, which legally should probably have been classified as a circus performance with a side salad, we went back to my house because I owned GALA, and one of the privileges of owning your own company was being able to leave the office right after your kids called your newly-old husband Daddy seventy-two times in a public restaurant.I texted Dianna from the car.Me: I’m going home.Her reply came fast.Dianna: Because of lunch or because of Daddy Lemon?I locked my screen.Not every employee deserved communication privileges.The drive home took twenty minutes, which was enough time for Gabby to empty the entire contents of her preschool bag looking for one glitter sticker she claimed was “legally missing,” while Al decided an old bread bag could become a dinosaur habitat if he poked enough holes in it with a pencil.Kendra tried to contain the chaos from the back seat, but eventually she just sat between the two car seats with the expression of someone reconsidering her colleg