We go through the motions of approving the wine, and I wait as the waiter pours us each a glass. “We’ll do the caviar service and the lobster gnocchi appetizer,” I tell the waiter, glancing at Elio. Elio shrugs.
“Sounds good to me.”
As the waiter leaves with our order, Elio raises his glass in a toast. “To business partnerships," he says with a smile, and I search his face, looking to see if there’s anything else there. Any of the longing that I remember so clearly.
I think I see a flicker of that heat in his eyes. But whatever he’s feeling, he’s keeping it carefully under wraps. And I know I shouldn’t try to uncover it, whatever it might be.
“To old friends.” I manage a smile, clinking my glass against his.
The wine is incredible—rich and complex with layers of flavor that unfold on my tongue as I take a sip. Everything aboutthis evening feels sophisticated, adult in a way that our teenage romance never was. We're not kids anymore, stealing kisses in hidden corners and whispering secrets in empty rooms. We're grown-ups with real responsibilities and real consequences to our actions.
That last is what I need to remember. Whatever fantasies I might have buried, whatever feelings might have resurfaced, the consequences to acting on any of it would be real—for Elio more so than me.
And he walked away from me, I remind myself as I take out the files. This was over long ago. Whatever dregs of it are left, we can’t stir them up.
“How did you like Chicago?” I ask as I set the files on the edge of the table. “Do you think you’ll miss it?”
“Somewhat,” Elio says honestly. “It’s a beautiful city. Raw and honest. Rougher edges than Boston, and I think I liked that. I’ll miss the men I worked with, too—they were good men, and we had a good rapport. And everything here is more… personal.”
I feel a jolt in my chest, wondering what he means by that. "But you came back."
Elio nods, taking a sip of his wine. "I came back."
"Why?" The question slips out before I can stop it, and I see something flicker across his face.
He pauses for a moment, as if considering how to answer. “This is my home,” he says finally. “My father worked for Giuseppe De Luca. He had influence and power, but he was always beneath him. Giuseppe made sure he knew that. And the De Luca family turned out to be rotten. Ronan is giving me a chance to change all of that. To remake it in my image. To make this empire, that he’s handed me, what I want it to be. It’s a… huge opportunity.”
There’s something in his voice—a commitment, a passion, that makes my heart speed up in my chest. Before I can respond,the waiter arrives with our appetizers, giving me a moment to compose myself.
The food is delicious, of course. “I’ve never had caviar before,” Elio confesses as we spoon it onto thin chips with crème fraîche. “This feels a little over-the-top.”
He laughs as he says it, and I can’t help but smile. The comment feels almost conspiratorial, like the way we used to whisper and laugh and joke with each other. The pull of the past is so strong that I can almost feel it tugging from the center of my chest, drawing us together as uncontrollably as if we haven’t spent the last eleven years apart.
I pull back, setting down the caviar spoon as I reach for the files. We need safer territory, something neutral and decidedly unromantic. “Here,” I say, pushing one of the files over to him. “These are the projections for the new restaurants Ronan wants to open. With the shipments that we could move through them, if you joined in on the venture, this would be highly beneficial for us both.”
There’s a certain thrill in talking about all of this in public, discussing drug shipments and laundered money in carefully couched terms that no one else will pick up on. Elio’s mouth twitches as he takes the file, and I wonder if he finds the humor in it, too. We’re sitting around all of these people, and none of them are any the wiser as to the business we’re conducting.
We go over file after file as we work our way through the caviar service and the tender, pillowy lobster gnocchi, keeping the conversation to safe, professional topics. But underneath it, there’s a constant undercurrent that feels as if it builds with every passing minute. Every time our fingers brush when we reach for our wine glasses, every time he leans forward to make a point, every time I catch him looking at my mouth when I'm speaking—it all adds up to a tension that's becoming harder and harder to ignore.
The waiter comes back to get our orders—the sea scallops with polenta for me and fig chicken for Elio—and I put the files back into my tote, pouring myself a fresh glass of wine.
"You've done incredible work with the financial side of things," Elio says, taking the wine bottle from me as I’m finished with it. "Ronan's lucky to have you."
"I'm good at what I do," I say simply. I’ve never seen the point in false modesty. "Numbers don't lie, and they don't have hidden agendas. I like that."
Elio’s mouth twitches. "Unlike people."
"Unlike people," I agree. "Although some people are more transparent than others."
“Oh.” Elio raises an eyebrow, that humor building in his expression. “And what about me? How transparent am I?”
I nearly choke on my sip of wine. “Not at all,” I tell him once I manage to swallow. His gaze drops to my throat, and I go very still for a moment, trying to analyze what I see there. To figure out what he’s picturing as he looks at the slim line of my neck. But I can’t make it out, can’t unpack what’s going on in his mind. He’s a closed book to me now, and that makes my chest ache in a way that I don’t want to examine too closely.
I don’t feel like I know you any longer,I want to say.I don’t recognize you at all. You’re a different person, and that makes me want to cry. It makes me wish that everything had been different before, instead of now.
But I don’t say any of that. Instead, I take another sip of wine with a forced smile on my face. “You have a good poker face now,” I tell him. “That’s important for a mafia boss. It’ll serve you well.”
Elio nods, the humor leaching from his expression as he drums his fingers against the table. “I’m finding more than ever that it’s necessary to keep what I’m thinking to myself. To make sure that others don’t see it.” He takes a breath. “It’s not howI like to be. Closed off and inaccessible. But survival is what’s important, right?”
