He let out a quiet breath, a ghost of a laugh, almost, but it wasn’t amused. It was sad. Soft.
“She was,” he said. Then, after a beat, “She is. Still. To me.”
I looked at him.
He didn’t take his eyes off the portrait. “The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he said, calm. Matter-of-factly, like it wasn’t up for debate. “But her face wasn’t why I married her.”
I swallowed. “No?”
“No.” His mouth pulled, not quite a smile. “Sofia had a good heart. The kind that didn’t bend for anybody with money. Including me.”
And he said it as if it were his favourite thing about her.
I felt something twist in my throat.
He finally turned to look at me. And it was weird because for a second, with that expression, with his jaw tight and his eyes softer, I could see Joshua.
“I know,” he said quietly, “my son might have told you… a different version of me.”
Might have.That made my chest feel tight, too.
“But I did love her,” he said. Steady. Heavy. “I loved her then. I love her now.”
I nodded. Small.
“I can tell,” I said.
His eyes flickered.
It was so tiny, that reaction, but I saw it. The way something in him unclenched like I’d just… let him off a hook he’d been strangling himself with.
“Come,” he said then, clearing his throat. “Sit. Stay for dinner.”
Oh. Dinner.
“I—I don’t want to—”
“You’re not intruding,” he said immediately, as if he’d been waiting for that. “You’re doing me a favour. It’s quiet here.”
That last part was almost under his breath.
Quiet here.
Joshua’s penthouse was quiet too, before me. He once told me that.
I nodded.
He lifted a hand, and a woman, maybe late fifties, in black slacks and a neat blouse, appeared from down the hall like she’d just been waiting out of sight. “Dinner for two,” he said. “Something light. And tea.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and disappeared again.
He gestured toward a sitting room just off the foyer. It wasn’t a ‘living room’. Living room sounded too normal. This one had two long white sofas, a marble table, and floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the city.
He didn’t sit next to me.
He sat across from me, as if this were a meeting.
He rested his forearms on his knees, hands clasped and leaned forward a little.
