The courtship escalated on a weekly schedule, which was how you could tell it was aimed at a camera.Week one, a gala: Matteo on a charity stage, telling a room of wealthy strangers that the greatest loss of his life was self-inflicted, and that he had learned, too late, the price of a genius in a secondhand dress. The line was hers. He had heard it, or read it, in the coverage of the atrium, and he had taken it, and polished it, and was using it as his own. Sofia flagged it with a printout and no comment.Week two, a lecture: the fabric school off the Viale, the one where a girl of eighteen had learned cloth between bar shifts, announced an annual endowed lecture in the name of a benefactor who wished to remain anonymous. The benefactor's name, when a reporter pulled the registry, was Matteo Sartori, and the lecture's title, printed in the program, was The Elena Riva Annual Lecture on Craft.He had named a lecture after her without asking.Week three, an interview, in which he wept.
Last Updated : 2026-09-21
