I wonder if he is thinking about me, then I tell myself immediately not to be foolish. It has been two weeks. He is not thinking about me. I was a circumstance and circumstances end. He has a woman he is searching for, but I was a detour that he ended by putting something in my drink and calling a cab.
Then despite myself I think about her, the woman he loved and he was searching for. Whether he had found her. Was she in his house now, in his bed?
Was he looking at her the way he had looked at me in certain unguarded moments? Was he letting her please him?
I press my forehead and I wipe my eyes quickly, before the feeling has fully formed. I look back at the street, and the woman with the dog is gone. The men with the van are still there.
* * *
My dress for the dreaded dinner is pink. It's not a pink I would have chosen. I wouldn't have looked at it on a rack and thought yes, that one. But a designer named Antoine, whom my father had hired to curate my wardrobe for my public appearances with James, had picked for me after spending forty minutes in my bedroom with a tape measure and her assistant taking notes.
It fits perfectly and it is beautiful but I feel nothing wearing it. James has his car in front of my house by 8pm sharp to pick me and Alana, who hadn't left my house after lunch earlier and I hadn't noticed until I came down to see her dressed and waiting.
The car is a Bentley with a cream interior. I sit in the back beside James who smells like expensive cologne applied with confidence and Alana sits across from us looking out the window. She is attending an event she resents being required to attend, after all.
Nobody speaks for most of the drive. The hotel is one of the older, more expensive ones. It has a doorman and a canopy and unique lighting at the entrance. James gets out first and opens my door.
He gets beside me as we walk toward the entrance and he leans down slightly and says quietly, "Don't look so distant."
I look at the door ahead of us, he holds his hand out and I stare at it.
"Don't make this so hard," he says, and there is a thread of irritation underneath his low voice. "Your father will be unhappy if you make me look like I have no manners."
I put my hand in his and he grins as we walk through the door.
The VIP section is up a short flight of stairs and we are halfway up them, a host ahead of us and Alana behind us, when I see—him, Luca.
He appeared seemingly out of nowhere taking my breath away. He is coming out of the VIP area as we are going in, and there are two men beside him and Renzo at his left shoulder. The world narrows to a single point before my brain has caught up with what my eyes are doing.
It is him.
I forget James's hand in mine and Alana behind me. He is in a black suit, a good one, and his hair is pushed back the way it always is and his jaw is exactly as I remember it, and I think he has lost weight. The form has changed in the line of his face, there was gauntness around his cheeks and his jaw that wasn't there before.
Why are my eyes doing this inventory so quickly and so thoroughly?
He stops too as he sees me, Renzo stops beside him and looks at me with a bit of surprise on his face.
I grip James's hand without meaning to and his hand tightens slightly around mine.
"Why did you stop?" he asks, looking between Luca and me. "Do you know him?"
I pull my eyes from Luca's face.
"No," I say. "I don't know him."
We walk past Luca and go up the remaining stairs. I do not look back as we go into the VIP room.
The table is set for three. A waiter appears with wine before we have finished settling and I watch the glass being filled and I pick it up immediately.
"You look beautiful tonight," James says, from across the table.
I swirl the wine and say nothing. Alana sits to my left and opens her menu and says nothing either. I am fighting not to show my shaky hands.
My mind wanders to Luca. Is he here for business or something else? His face on the stairs had not changed. His expression had given nothing away, which was the thing about him that hadalways been true and had never stopped being maddening. My stomach had lurched and I drank her wine.
James reaches across the table and puts his hand over mine.
I pull my hand back.
