I tell him. Not all of it—I keep the parts with velvet boxes and bad nights to myself—but enough. Harrison’s calls, his threats, the way he poked his finger into the trust’s eye and dared it to water. There’s a long silence at the other end that all regret being measured.
“I handed him the reins,” he says at last, voice low, not embarrassed to be old and wrong. “Thought I was teaching a boy to be a man. Should’ve taken the wheel back the first time I saw he liked the speed more than the road.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, because there are no genius words for a man who outlived his mistakes.
He clears his throat. “Don’t take on my sorry. You carry enough, Naomi. Go do what you do. Set a table. Win a room. Be better than all of us. And when you’re back in Manhattan, you’ll take an old fool to lunch and let him tell you stories you’ve pretended not to hear before.”
I laugh, wet and grateful. “It’s a date.”
“Tell that boy of yours—” He stops, changes course. “Tellyour husbandthe island deserves him. And so do you.”
“Grandpa,” I whisper, and the word is a bandage I’ll press to my ribs later. “I will. I love you.”
We disconnect.
I press my forehead to the window and watch Italy assemble underneath us like a lavish promise I want to believe. The city names roll through my head—Florence, Milan, Rome—as if they’re saints I can light candles to.
I don’t pray. I plan.
By the time the wheels kiss the runway, my voice is hoarse, my inbox is stacked withreceivedandconsideringandsend the draftresponses, and my hands have stopped shaking.
The car Vasso sent is waiting on the tarmac with a driver I discover five minutes later, is unoffended by speed limits and trained in the art of not listening. I check the mirror once, fix the war paint at my mouth, and tell himVia Monte Napoleone.
The couture house sits behind an elaborate courtyard and the inevitable handful of photographers linger like pigeons who’ve learned the difference between stale bread and foie gras. Today I keep my face painfully neutral and hide behind oversized sunglasses.
Inside the air smells of tissue paper, heavy silk, and money. I’m greeted by an assistant with a tape measure around her neck who beams like she’s been told to love me.
I discover why a second later.
It’s not yet 3 p.m. But he’s already here.
Vasso, more handsome than the devil, stands at the far end of the salon under a chandelier that looks like a galaxy, sleeves rolled, tie disappeared, jaw clean-shaven for the kill.
He turns at the sound of my heels, and the look that hits his face is not for the public or for PR. It’s hunger more dangerous than any dinner.
I stop three paces away because there’s still a knife somewhere between us and I don’t know which of us is holding it. I open my mouth to say,I’m sorry,I fixed what I could,tell me what burned and where I should carry water—and get none of it out.
He dismisses all that fraught silence and takes me in his arms and kisses me like we just survived a shipwreck and the shore is a rumor. It’s deep, unarguable, branded with fury and relief and the kind of claim that doesn’t bother sending a calendar invite first. I make a sound into his mouth that admits everything I spent ninety minutes pretending I could compartmentalize, and he swallows it like a vow.
When he lets me breathe, his forehead stays on mine. “We have a wedding to plan,” he says, voice low enough to be a promise, “and a war to fight.”
I nod because synonyms aren’t necessary and because my throat is full. Around us, a seamstress coughs delicately; another one drops a pin on purpose to cover the cough.
“We’ll ace both,” I say, and the calm in my voice surprises us.
For the first time since Amalfi, his mouth curves like he believes me. His hand settles at my waist, warm, steady, exactly where it belongs. The assistant trips over an apology and ushers us toward mirrored doors where breathtaking dresses hang in hushed waiting.
Somewhere in Florence, maybe a vote tips our way by one nervous hand.
Somewhere on Dillinger Island, Pia texts me a single anchor emoji and nothing else.
Somewhere inside me, a clock keeps time with my heart and, for once, the beat sounds like purpose instead of panic.
War in one hand, wedding in the other.
I square my shoulders, step onto the dais, and let Milan measure me for both.
23
