Chapter 4
“No. You told me Daniel’s company bought a portfolio.”
“It did.”
“Did you invest in that purchase?”
Adrian said nothing.
My heart sank.
“You did.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Emily—”
“How much?”
“Forty percent.”
I stared at him.
“So you effectively helped buy the building.”
“Yes.”
“And you let me believe Daniel’s company simply happened to buy it.”
“I should have explained.”
“That sentence is becoming a habit.”
He looked toward the park.
“I knew the building was going to be sold. I knew the developer planned to remove the tenants. Daniel was already looking at the portfolio, but the numbers didn’t work.”
“So you made them work.”
“Yes.”
“Because of my mother?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
The anger inside me was quieter this time.
Not explosive.
Just painful.
“I don’t understand you.”
His eyes returned to mine.
“What don’t you understand?”
“Why you keep doing these huge things and then pretending they’re nothing.”
He opened his mouth.
I continued.
“You remember my mother’s refrigerator. You make sure I get credit in meetings. You rearrange your entire schedule when I’m sick. You somehow know when I’m pretending I’m fine.”
“You do the same for me.”
“Because it’s my job.”
“No.”
The word came immediately.
“It stopped being your job a long time ago.”
Silence stretched between us.
Inside the ballroom, someone laughed.
I lowered my voice.
“Then what is it?”
Adrian looked at me with an expression I had never seen before.
Unprotected.
“I don’t know.”
For a man who always had answers, those three words felt enormous.
“I think that’s what scares me,” he continued.
I breathed slowly.
He stepped closer but did not touch me.
“I have spent most of my life believing that if I could solve every problem before anyone saw it, then no one would have to worry.”
“That isn’t how relationships work.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
“You can’t protect people from having choices.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I’m trying.”
That mattered.
More than perfection would have.
The terrace door opened.
Lucia stepped outside.
“Everything all right?”
Adrian and I looked at each other.
“Yes,” I said.
And strangely, I meant it.
Not perfect.
Not resolved.
But honest.
The next afternoon, we left Manhattan for the Moretti family house in Hudson Valley.
It was less mansion than I expected and more sprawling old farmhouse, surrounded by maple trees and late-summer gardens.
Lucia had filled it with decades of life.
Books stacked on stairs.
Framed school drawings.
Photographs tucked into mirrors.
The family settled into rooms while Adrian disappeared to take a business call.
I helped Lucia arrange flowers in the dining room.
After several minutes, she said, “You asked about the notebook.”
I looked at her.
“He told you?”
“He called me last night to complain.”
I smiled.
“That sounds like him.”
Lucia trimmed a stem.
“He began keeping it after his father died.”
“What is it?”
“Things he doesn’t want to forget.”
That surprised me.
“Like birthdays?”
“Sometimes.”
She placed a yellow flower into a vase.
“Things people say. Things he wishes he had said. Mistakes he doesn’t want to repeat.”
My chest tightened.
“And why am I in it?”
Lucia looked at me.
“I think you should let him answer that.”
That evening, after dinner, Adrian found me sitting on the back porch.
The sky was darkening.
Fireflies moved through the garden.
He sat beside me.
For a while we said nothing.
Then he placed something between us.
A small red leather notebook.
My heartbeat quickened.
“You don’t have to show me.”
“I know.”
He rested his hand on the cover.
“My father died suddenly.”
I turned toward him.
“He had a stroke at work. I spoke to him that morning.”
“I’m sorry.”
Adrian nodded.
“We argued.”
“About what?”
“Something stupid. A warehouse purchase.”
His mouth tightened.
“The last thing I said was that he never listened to me.”
I said nothing.
“For months afterward, I kept remembering things I should have said instead. So I started writing them down.”
He opened the notebook.
Pages filled with compact handwriting.
Mom—tell her I like the Sunday calls even when I complain.
Sofia—ask about Daniel before talking business.
Daniel—thank him for staying with Mom at the hospital.
Then Adrian turned several pages.
My name appeared.
Many times.
Emily laughed during the elevator failure. Remember she hates enclosed spaces but stayed calm for everyone else.
Emily’s mother’s birthday—October 14.
Emily said she wants to see Lisbon someday.
Emily worked through lunch again. Stop scheduling over noon.
I looked up.
“You write down when I skip lunch?”
“You complain when I do.”
“That’s different.”
“It isn’t.”
I turned another page.
My breath caught.
Emily deserves a promotion. She will think she hasn’t earned it if I give it too easily. Make sure board sees her work.
Another entry.
Emily looked tired today. Ask if everything is okay instead of assuming.
Another.
Do not fix everything for her. Ask first.
I looked at him.
He gave a faint, embarrassed smile.
“That one clearly failed.”
I almost laughed.
Then I reached the page I remembered.
My name.
The word someday.
But now I could see the rest of the sentence.
Emily—someday tell her she changed what home feels like.
I stopped breathing.
Adrian stared toward the garden.
“I wrote that eight months ago.”
“Why?”
His answer came softly.
“Because I realized the best part of coming back from trips wasn’t being home.”
He turned toward me.
“It was knowing you’d be there Monday morning.”
My eyes burned unexpectedly.
“Adrian…”
“I’m not asking you for anything.”
He closed the notebook.
“I just don’t want you believing this week began because I needed a convenient employee.”
“Then why did you choose me?”
A sad smile touched his face.
“Because when my mother asked whether there was someone important, you were the only person I thought of.”
The truth settled between us.
Warm.
Terrifying.
Real.
Before I could answer, the screen door opened behind us.
Sofia stepped onto the porch holding an envelope.
Her expression was uncertain.
“Adrian?”
He stood.
“What happened?”
“I found this in Dad’s desk.”
She handed him the envelope.
The paper had yellowed slightly at the edges.
Across the front, in faded handwriting, were three words:
For Adrian someday.
Adrian stared at it.
His face lost color.
“That’s Dad’s handwriting.”
Lucia appeared in the doorway behind Sofia.
She saw the envelope and stopped.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Then Lucia whispered, “I wondered where that had gone.”
Adrian looked at his mother.
“You knew about this?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
Lucia’s eyes filled with something between sorrow and relief.
“A letter your father wrote the year before he died.”
Adrian held the unopened envelope carefully.
“Why didn’t you give it to me?”
Lucia looked at him.
“Because he told me you should read it only when you finally understood the difference between building a successful life…”
Her gaze moved briefly toward me.
“…and allowing yourself to live one.”
Adrian looked down at the letter.
Then at me.
May you like
And suddenly the unanswered question hanging over the weekend was no longer whether his family believed our relationship was real.
It was whether, somewhere along the way, Adrian and I had become the last two people who still believed it wasn’t.
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