Page 101 of The Fall Affair

But then I looked at it—really looked at it.

This is…

I turned the cup slowly in my hands, examining the familiar, delicate brushwork. Flipping it over, there it was—the same signature as all the others. Small, slightly faded, but unmistakable. It was exactly what I’d thought it was—one of the two remaining missing pieces of the tea set my grandmother had been collecting.

The odds of that felt…too strange.

I scanned the rest of the shelf, but there weren’t any others like it. No other cups from the set and no matching photo. Just this one lonely teacup, sitting among cups for coffee.

Why?

A dozen questions swirled in my head. Was this the cup that went with the confession that didn’t have a match? Forgive me. I never meant to hurt the one I loved most. Had Matteo found it for my grandmother and never had a chance to give it to her before she died? Had my grandmother been collecting them for him all along? Or was it a bizarre coincidence? Montepulciano wasn’t exactly a sprawling city, after all. It wasn’t impossible that pieces from a collection could float from one household to another.

Still, something about it made my stomach twist with the kind of unsettling feeling that wasn’t quite dread, but wasn’t just curiosity either. But it was getting late, and I couldn’t let questions about a teacup spiral me into paranoia. Lord knows I had enough of that with my sister coming tonight. So I set the cup on the table and went to get dressed.

Once I’d pulled on the jeans and sweater I’d worn over last night and finger-brushed my hair, I picked the cup back up and made my way out to the field.

Matteo was carrying two baskets toward the collection bin. He looked up as I approached, and when he saw me, he smiled. But then his eyes fell to the teacup in my hand. His brows drew together, and his smile wilted. Yet he didn’t say anything as I made my way over.

“Hey,” I said, stopping a few feet away and holding up the cup. “Where did you get this?”

He glanced down again, and there was something in the way he looked at the teacup—like it pulled him somewhere else, somewhere a little painful. “Isabella,” he said. “I found it with her things after she died.”

“Your ex-wife?”

He nodded. “She was a painter, among other things.”

I turned the teacup over and looked at the initials—IL—Isabella Lucchese. “She made this?”

He nodded once more. “Why do you ask?”

Oh, wow. My grandmother had to have known Isabella, since she’d moved back in with Matteo before she died, and Nonna adored him. So she must’ve been collecting them for him?

Yet I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I smiled. “It’s just…beautiful. That’s all.”

Matteo looked at me a moment longer, like he was trying to figure out if there was more beneath my words. Maybe he knew there was. But if he did, he let it go. “She loved painting scenery from places she visited.”

I nodded, unsure why I didn’t tell him the truth about why I’d asked. I lingered a second longer, looking at the cup. Maybe I could find the last missing piece and surprise him with the full set, though he didn’t seem too happy to be reminded of her. “I’ll be careful when I put it back.”

As I returned to the house, my phone rang. It was a New York City number I didn’t recognize, but I swiped to answer as I opened the front door. “Hello?”

“Hello, is this Allegra Bianchi?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“This is Elizabeth Parker. I’m the director of human resources at Aronson, Kepner, and Sloane.” I stopped in my tracks. AKS was my old firm’s biggest rival. In fact, I’d almost taken a job there when I’d graduated.

“How can I help you, Elizabeth?”

“I’m calling to see if it would be possible to set up an appointment for you to speak to Robert Aronson? He’s interested in speaking with you about potentially joining AKS.”

I blinked a few times. “Umm…sure.”

“Wonderful. When works best for you?”

It wasn’t like my calendar was full these days, but I definitely didn’t want to talk to him today. I had enough on my mind with my half sister coming over later. I also didn’t want to sound like I had nothing going on. “Can I ask you to hang on for a moment? I need to check my calendar.”

“Of course.”