At the restaurant, the maître d’ sells us a smile and a corner banquette at an overpriced rate my husband barely bats an eyelid at.
Vasso orders the good Barolo and I let him wine me.
Under the table our knees touch and our hands find one another’s.
Above it, we talk logistics and lilies and the angle of the lighthouse steps for an old man’s knees. Between courses our eyes keep making promises our mouths haven’t caught up to.
When the second plate clears, he leans in, voice a secret. “Tomorrow, final fittings at ten. Then wheels up at two. Does that suit you, baby?”
“Yes. I love Europe, but I can’t wait to get back home,” I say, as if naming the time will slow it.
He smiles and I realise what I said.
The bill arrives as my heart ducks and dives. The city keeps glittering because that’s what it does. We step back onto the street with dinner behind us and war ahead and wedding wrapped around both like silk that can be beautiful and strangling in the same breath.
He offers his arm. I take it.
And we head toward the hotel, heat coiled, peace borrowed, the charged air between us bright enough to see the path and sharp enough to warn that there are thorns on either side.
24
NAOMI
Five days back in Manhattan and the city hums like an exposed wire.
Harrison’s sleaze machine is shifting gears.
There’s no subtlety, just noise and volume.
A blog that lives off celebrity divorces runs a blind item about a “one-year island marriage”; a finance podcaster implies Vasso’s “domestic instability” makes him a risky steward for a public listing; a gossip column publishes an old photo of me hugging a college friend and captions it like an affair; three donors on the preservation board receive “concerned citizen” emails copy-pasted from a burner warning that our lighthouse vows program is “smoke and mirrors for a vanity project.”
There are paid trolls swarming our socials, bots parading as moralists, and a set of fake texts—easily debunked if anyone bothered—that suggest I’m counting down the days to freedom.
My father is hell-bent on wanting people to think we’re a sham, the island is a vanity, and Vasso is playing dress-up with other people’s money.
The preservation trust calls an emergency session for tomorrow. We’re flying to Dillinger Island at dawn to swat the locusts away before they strip bark.
Right now, though, it’s lunch with Grandpa at our old Midtown haunt. I allow myself a moment of steady peace and hope among the white tablecloths, brass rails, and waiters who remember how you took your lemonade when you were seven.
Grandpa’s already there when I arrive, propped like a king in exile in tweed jacket, pocket square, eyes too sharp to be fooled by the gentle tremor in his hands.
“Little star,” he says, and the sound is home. Then his gaze lingers. “You look like a woman who’s been walking uphill in the wrong shoes.”
I try to smile. It frays. “Then I chose the right outfit.”
He nods toward the chair. “Sit. Feed me news that won’t curdle the soup.”
I give him the edited version because I still want him to enjoy his French onion—the headlines, the calls, the whispers about our so-called temporary marriage. I tell him the trust meeting is tomorrow. That Vasso and I will be on the island by breakfast with a plan and a press statement and enough evidence to staple down the truth.
“And right now?” he asks gently.
“Right now he’s in the office putting out another fire.” I rip open a sugar packet I don’t need just for something to do with my hands besides wringing like a damn damsel in distress. “A supplier got spooked by the noise and tried to walk their contract. Vasso’s law team is… persuasive. He’ll steady it.”
“And you’re worried he can’t steady all of it at once,” Grandpa says, not unkindly.
“I’m worried about what my father will do,” I admit, low and a little broken. “Vasso says he’ll handle it—and he will—but Iknow the way Harrison moves. He goes for soft places and he keeps pushing until something tears.”
We order. The motions soothe, but the hunger doesn’t arrive.
