“Alright. Where should I be, then? Alongside Melissa?”
“Did you two get along?”
“Yes.”
I think about what I should ask her to do, since I can’t just spend the rest of the morning admiring her, although the idea is tempting.
I grab my phone and, getting out of my chair, walk over to where she is and unlock the phone screen. “I need you to send some photos for printing and also arrange picture frames.”
I stretch out my arm and show her a photograph of Nina smiling with just her two bottom teeth. I watch her reaction carefully, but to my surprise, she takes the phone from my hand.
The soft brush of our fingers causes a kind of electric shock in my body, but Olívia doesn’t seem to notice.
Her face instantly softens as she looks at the photo of Nina, and a smile appears, mirroring my daughter’s toothless happiness. “Is she yours?”
“She is, yes.” If there’s one certainty in the world, it’s that my girl is a part of me.
“She’s adorable,” she says, and I think maybe, unconsciously, her eyes focus on my ring finger.
“I’m a widower.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“No, but there’s an implicit question on your face.”
“Sorry for that. I don’t know how to pretend. It’s just that I hadn’t noticed a ring.”
“It’s because there isn’t one. I’m free, Olívia.” Yes, I shouldn’t have said that. I’ll soon write a book of all the improper things I blurt out when I’m around her.
Looking suddenly shy, she hands me back the phone. “What photos do you want?”
“I’ll let you choose. I’ll send them to you by message.”
“Speaking of messages, Mr. Guillermo, thank you for calling yesterday. It was nice to hear a familiar voice.”
Feeling awkward about how to act, since nothing close to friendship was passing through my mind last night, I change the subject. “Your corporate credit card should arrive soon, but just ask Melissa and she’ll provide money for whatever you need, including printing the photos. Do you think you can handle that today?”
“Shouldn’t it be Miss Kathleen?”
“What?”
“Shouldn’t I report to Miss Kathleen if I need money?”
“No. You only report to me. Besides that, anything you need, ask Melissa. When you’re done with the photos, let me know.”
“How?”
“Send a message to my phone.”
Chapter 15
That Night
I hang up the phone after a complicated conversation with my sister. Martina is coming back home, or rather, practically fleeing from Europe after breaking off her engagement with her real-life prince.
Not to be pessimistic, but I knew from the start that it wouldn’t work out. There was no way a restless girl like my younger sister could live in a glass bubble.
When they came to visit us, shortly after Nina was born—which was also when the guy, Vicenzzo, formalized the marriage proposal—I supported her because Joaquín had already investigated him, as well as his entire family. If she thought she would be happy living in a principality in the Mediterranean Sea, despite all the advice from our mother, who was I to disagree?
