All Chapters of The Wrong Bernardi: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

78 Chapters

the red car moved ahead of the past

“Why is your face doing that?” Kehlani asked.I blinked. “My face is beautiful.”“Your face is beautiful and defensive.”“Be more specific,” Sofia said from Egypt. “There’s defensive beautiful, about-to-kill-a-vendor beautiful, and just-remembered-a-bad-decision beautiful.”Darren raised his hand. “I vote number three.”I started walking faster, because if I stopped, they would dig deeper than Sofia, and she had academic credentials for it.“I’m just tired.”“Liar,” all three of them said at once.“You’re all disgusting.”Up ahead, Aiden pressed the pedal again, and his little car rolled slowly along the path beside the sand. Saba walked backward in front of him, still filming.“Aiden, say to the camera, ‘I will not hit the botanical sculpture.’”“I will not hit the botanical sculp...ture!” Aiden shouted.I raised an eyebrow.“If it stays out of the road!” he added.Elma sighed so deeply her shoulders dropped.Kehlani laughed hard enough to shake her screen. “I miss that kid.”“Come h

three green pieces and a whole small life

Dinner was not a big production. I was too tired to put together anything Mama would consider photo-worthy. On the table, there was arroz con pollo I had made quickly with leftover roast chicken, sliced avocado with lime and salt, yesterday’s maduros reheated, a little tomato salad, and a bowl of steamed broccoli sitting plainly in the center of the table like a defendant who already knew life was about to get difficult.Aiden climbed into his chair. He looked at his plate.Looked at the broccoli.Then his whole face changed.His lower lip pushed out a little. His black fringe fell into his eyes. His shoulders dropped, and he stared at the green vegetable like it was the villain from his nightmares.“Mami.” That tone.“What?” I was pouring water into a glass.“There’s a tree on my plate.”“That’s broccoli,” I said.“It’s a little tree.”“Good, then. Now eat your forest.”Aiden looked at me with those huge blue eyes that could usually bend the laws of physics, vendor contracts, and the

minor dependents, major threat

It took forty minutes, two stories, one glass of water, one absurd negotiation over whether the red car was allowed to “breathe” outside his bedroom door, and one very quiet threat from me before Aiden finally fell asleep.The red car stayed in the garage.The little toy car was allowed to sleep on the nightstand.It was a compromise that, according to Aiden, still violated several basic rights of professional drivers, but his eyes had grown too heavy for him to continue the lawsuit. He slept on his side, one cheek pressed into the pillow, his black fringe falling over part of his forehead, his lips slightly parted, and one chubby hand still gripping the little car as if it might escape if left unsupervised.I stood in the doorway longer than necessary.The room was dim, lit by a small moon-shaped nightlight Saba had once declared too aesthetic for a four-year-old. Aiden’s sheets were tangled because he slept like someone at war with his mattress. On the floor, there was one sock, one

i took a sip and burned quietly

By 11:12 P.M, I had returned to being a woman who looked like she could not possibly be touched by any problem that wasn’t wearing expensive shoes.That was, of course, a lie.But thin black eyeliner, hair pulled neatly back, an ivory blazer falling perfectly over my shoulders, high-waisted black trousers, and small gold earrings were convincing enough to fool most of the world. The world was very easy to deceive with good tailoring. I knew that because I had built an entire career out of making rich people’s chaos look like an artistic decision.Cruz Atelier that afternoon smelled like coffee, fresh flowers, expensive printer ink, and panic that had been professionally labeled.In the main conference room, the Casa Valdierra moodboards covered the long table. Photos of old olive trees. Champagne linen swatches. Tile-protection samples. Service court floor plans. Screenshots of the carriage house. Citrus routes. Notes about the beach stairs that I had written in capital letters becaus

i had lemon ricotta and nowhere to hide

The meeting went on for another forty minutes. I talked. Nina closed the gaps I did not get to. Leo asked about load-in windows. Marisol debated the shade of olive that would not make the lemons look like decorations from a cheap Tuscan restaurant. Gracie took notes on a few things, asked genuine questions, laughed when Tess mentioned a “swan contingency plan” as a joke, and continued being the kind of person who made guilt feel like a damp cloth against the back of my neck.When the team dispersed, Gracie stayed in her chair, sliding the moodboard into her bag. “Do you have lunch?”“With what? Caffeine and resentment.”“I mean actual food.” She pointed toward the window. “That restaurant next to your building looks like it has a good menu. I’m hungry, and if I go home now, my mother is going to call again about napkin rings.”I glanced at my phone.There was a message from Saba.Saba: Aiden is having lunch at an expensive restaurant with me and Elma. He says fries have a better futur

i had good taste in escape routes

I lowered my fork to the plate. “A lot of women have son,” I answered. “It’s not the Discovery Channel.”“Four years old?”I picked up my glass of sparkling water.The glass was cold. Condensation clung to my fingers. A thin slice of lemon floated inside it peacefully, completely unaware that it had somehow joined an emergency family-secrets meeting.I drank.One sip.Two.Not rushing.I set the glass back on the table, right inside the small ring of water it had already made. “Children usually have ages, Rhysand. It’s one of their main features.”“Four.”“Good hearing. Would you like applause too?”He leaned in a little farther, just enough to make the space between us feel like something deliberately pulled taut by someone with too much patience and too little shame.“What happened after you ran from my suite?”The fork on my plate shifted on its own when my fingertip brushed it.A small sound.Soft.Kind of annoying.I looked toward the restroom, toward the short hallway with yello

the past had your hands

I reached for my water again. “Miss a proper breakfast.”“Breakfast.”“Important meal.”“You weren’t thinking about breakfast.”“Stop reading my mind.”“I don’t need to read.” He leaned back slightly, but his eyes stayed exactly where they were. “You stopped right before mentioning that night.”I smiled sweetly. “You’re very confident for a man who was only an additional mistake in an already busy week.”His smile did not disappear. If anything, it grew lazier. “Mistake?” he said.“Expensive mistake,” I corrected. “No offense. You have good finishing.”“Do you always review your mistakes like that?”“Only the ones with egos large enough to require a rating.”He laughed under his breath.The sound got under my skin before I could shut the door.Damn him.Five years, one child, one company, and several thousand invoices later, and my body was still too quick to remember things that had no business going into a spreadsheet.“Funny,” he said. “I don’t remember that night as a mistake.”I

no blood on the table

I let one second pass.Then two.In my lap, the nail of my thumb pressed into the side of my index finger, neat and hidden beneath the white napkin.“Yeah,” I said. “One night. You’re supposed to have a good memory. Keep it there.”“That’s not an answer.”“Correct. It’s a closed door.”“I can wait outside it.”“You hear a building’s for sale and just buy the whole thing, don’t you?”“If I want it badly enough.”“You don’t get to buy your way into my life, Rhysand.”His smile faded slowly. “I’m not trying to buy your life.”“But you’re asking for my home address, household composition, minor dependents if applicable, my son’s birthday, and a complete timeline of what happened after I left your bed.” I counted each one on my fingers. “Very normal. Very relaxed. Practically a customer satisfaction survey.”“I didn’t send the household composition email.”“Your security team used the Bernadi name. That’s enough.”“They’ll stop.”“The request is already in my inbox, and my inbox has a long

someone knows what he likes

I got back to the office at 1:40 with barely any lemon ricotta pasta in my stomach and one of Rhysand’s questions stuck in the back of my mind like a price tag someone had forgotten to peel off.I walked into Cruz Atelier and took off my sunglasses.The office didn’t give me time to think about Rhysand any further, which was one of the many reasons I loved my job.At two, I joined a video call with a Malibu client who had suddenly decided she wanted to move her welcome dinner from the terrace to the private beach because one of her friends had gotten married on a terrace the week before, and now terraces felt “emotionally used.”I stared at the screen.She stared back at me from her house in Bel Air, her blowout perfect, a tiny white dog sitting in her lap.“The beach is in the evening high-tide zone,” I said. “If we move dinner down there, dessert could turn into a marine rescue operation.”“But the pictures would be beautiful.”“Pictures of your guests running from the waves while c

a small car, a familiar smile

He’d already had a bath.His hair was still a little damp, his thick fringe falling messily across his forehead. He wore a navy pajama set covered in tiny cars even though the sun hadn’t fully gone down yet, and one of his clogs was on properly while the other barely clung to his feet. Rhysand’s face, if he still believed dinosaur-shaped soap had feelings.He ran down two steps.“Walk.”He slowed down dramatically for exactly two steps, then started running again and crashed into my legs in a full-body hug.“Mami, look at my car!”“I see there’s a new vehicle on this property without zoning approval.”“It’s a sports car.” He grabbed my hand with both of his. “Come. Come. Hurry. But not too fast because Elmo said I’m not allowed to run.”Elma appeared in the doorway wearing loose shorts, an oversized green T-shirt, and her hair in a high ponytail.“Maya,” she said with a long sigh, “I just want to say upfront that this was not my idea.”Aiden looked back at her. “Elmo’s boring.”“I’m b

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