Bianca obliges, easing Stephano into her arms. He settles, blinks up at her, then fixes on the glint of her necklace like it’s a starhe can grab.
“You’re shameless,” she tells him, swaying. “And devastating.”
Gio watches, proud and a little dazed. “He gets it from his mother.”
Bianca snorts. “He gets punctuality from me. The devastation’s all Conti.”
I tear a piece of bread from the rack and drag it through the olive oil. “If we’re assigning traits, he gets the appetite from me.”
Caterina kisses Stephano’s cheek and breathes him in like a lifeline. “Five minutes,” she promises Bianca. “Then I’m gone.”
“Take your time,” Bianca says, eyes soft.
Caterina looks over the baby’s head at me. “Walk me out after?”
“Of course,” I say.
“Good,” she says, then returns all her attention to the small king in her arms. “Okay, sir. Tell me everything.”
Caterina and I fall into step the way we always do. Caterina doesn’t rush. She gets there when she gets there, and if she’s late, no, she’s not. Everyone else is just early.
I let the kitchen noise fade behind us and take the corridor that feeds back toward the main hotel. The air changes from the warmth of the kitchen to cooler hallways.
I don’t bother to prompt her. She’ll get to it. We walk for a bit before Caterina speaks.
“How are you?” she asks easily.
She doesn’t start with the thing she wants. She never does.
“Functional,” I say. “Hungry, which Bianca’s leftovers will fix later. Caught up now that these papers are signed.”
She purses her lips. “Okay, now give me the real answer.”
“That is the real answer.”
We take the right that runs you past the framed prints of the old pier. The photos are black and white and full of people taking in the shore.
Caterina hmms. “And your practice?” she asks. “Keeping your head above water?”
I lift a brow. She’s never cared about my practice before. Not any more than family would, anyway.
“I am,” I say. “I signed a stack this morning that would bore you to tears.”
“Try me,” she says.
“Vendor contracts, release language, a landlord who doesn’t know the definition of commonarea.”
“Ah,” she says. “The classics.”
We pass a pair of electricians kneeling by a junction box. They nod. I nod back. Caterina doesn’t break stride. She lowers her voice a shade, not secret, just softer. “And here? Ownership. The call sheets. The questions. Me.”
“You?” I say, mild.
“I am a full-time job,” she says dryly.
“True,” I say, and she snorts once.
Then she lifts a hand and lets it drop again. “I’m asking how that balance is actually feeling in your body, your head.”
