Chapter 2 - “But I kept waiting.”
“For what?”
“For him to see me.”
My voice became quieter.
“Not as the daughter of a man who owed his family money. Not as a contract. Me.”
Tessa reached across the counter.
Her fingers closed around mine.
“I think he sees you.”
I looked up sharply.
“Tonight suggests otherwise.”
“I didn’t say he understands what he sees.”
“That sounds like a distinction invented by divorce lawyers.”
“It sounds like Dominic Russo.”
I pulled my hand back.
“Don’t defend him.”
“I’m not.”
Tessa hesitated.
“There’s something you should know.”
A strange tone entered her voice.
“What?”
“At your wedding, Elena got drunk.”
“Elena barely drinks.”
“That’s why it was memorable.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
Tessa continued.
“She said something about Dominic making a terrible mistake.”
“Marrying me?”
“No.”
Tessa’s expression grew serious.
“She said, ‘He thinks distance will keep her safe from the family. He doesn’t understand distance can hurt people too.’”
I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
“She wouldn’t explain. The next morning she claimed she didn’t remember saying it.”
“And you waited eight months to tell me?”
“I didn’t know whether it meant anything. And I wasn’t going to plant some romantic theory in your head when he was behaving like a refrigerator.”
I leaned back.
Distance will keep her safe.
The words made no sense.
Safe from what?
Dominic’s family was complicated, powerful, and intensely private, but no one had treated me badly.
His mother, Sofia, sent me recipes.
His brother Matteo occasionally came for Sunday coffee and complained about the Bears.
Elena texted me pictures of shoes.
If anything, the Russos had been kinder to me than my own father had been.
“Maybe she meant emotionally safe,” Tessa suggested.
“From Dominic?”
“From whatever world he thinks he belongs to.”
I thought about the locked study.
Late calls.
Meetings conducted behind closed doors.
The old reputation attached to the Russo name.
But Dominic had spent the last several years moving family businesses into legitimate investments, real estate, shipping, and hospitality. Newspapers still enjoyed using old words, but his public life looked increasingly corporate.
And yet there were parts of him he kept sealed.
Not only from me.
From everyone.
My phone buzzed.
I expected Dominic.
It was Noah.
Are you awake?
I immediately called him.
He answered after one ring.
“Hey.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Noah.”
“I’m fine.”
At nineteen, he still sounded exactly like the ten-year-old who used to insist he was fine while standing beside a shattered lamp.
“Why are you calling at midnight?”
“I’m studying.”
“On a Thursday?”
“Some of us attend college, Claire.”
“Rude.”
He laughed.
The sound loosened something in my chest.
Then his voice changed.
“Dad called.”
I closed my eyes.
“What did he want?”
“Money.”
Of course.
“Noah—”
“I didn’t give him any.”
“Good.”
“He sounded weird.”
“Define weird.”
“Like he was nervous about something. He kept asking whether I still lived in the dorm.”
A chill went through me.
“Did he ask where you were?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I was at school.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
I heard voices behind him, then someone shouting about pizza.
Normal.
Safe.
I exhaled.
“Lock your door.”
“My door automatically locks.”
“Then appreciate modern engineering.”
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Are you okay?”
I looked down at the red skirt visible beneath Tessa’s old Northwestern sweatshirt.
“I’m figuring that out.”
He was quiet.
“You don’t have to stay married because of me.”
My throat tightened.
“Noah—”
“I mean it.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know Dad owed money.”
My fingers stiffened around the phone.
“What?”
“I know about the debt.”
Tessa looked at me.
I turned away.
“How?”
“Dad told me last month.”
“He had no right.”
“He said Dominic paid everything.”
“That’s not your problem.”
“You made it your problem.”
“I’m your sister.”
“You’re not my parent.”
The words should have hurt.
Instead, they sounded almost gentle.
“Claire,” Noah said, “I’m nineteen. I have a scholarship. I have a campus job. I have people here who care about me. You don’t have to keep rescuing me.”
I closed my eyes.
“I don’t know how to stop.”
“I know.”
That hurt more.
After we hung up, I sat silently for several minutes.
Then Tessa put a plate of crackers beside me.
“What?”
“You haven’t eaten dinner.”
“I made risotto.”
“That is not the same thing as eating risotto.”
I took a cracker.
My phone buzzed again.
This time Dominic’s name appeared.
I nearly ignored it.
Instead, I opened the message.
I will not come to Tessa’s. You asked for space, and I heard you.
A second message followed.
But there is something about your father’s debt you do not know. Before you decide what you want to do about us, you deserve the entire truth.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Tessa watched me.
“What did he say?”
I handed her the phone.
She read the messages.
Her eyebrows lifted.
“That sounds ominous.”
“I’m tired of ominous.”
“Then don’t answer tonight.”
For once, that was exactly what I did.
I slept badly.
At seven, I woke on Tessa’s sofa beneath a knitted blanket with one high heel on the floor and the other beneath the coffee table.
For several seconds, I did not remember where I was.
Then I saw the red dress.
8:17.
Dominic’s voice.
I don’t want you as my wife.
I never did.
Pain returned, but differently.
Less like a knife.
More like a bruise.
I sat up.
Tessa had left a note on the table.
Went to work. Bagels in kitchen. Don’t accidentally reconcile before lunch. Love you.
I laughed despite myself.
My phone held three missed calls.
None from Dominic.
Two from my father.
One from Sofia Russo.
I called Sofia first.
She answered immediately.
“Claire.”
There was such relief in her voice that I nearly started crying.
“I’m sorry if I worried you.”
“You never have to apologize for needing air.”
I looked toward the window.
Spring sunlight spilled across Tessa’s wooden floor.
“Dominic told you?”
“Elena did.”
“Of course she did.”
Sofia sighed.
“My children are incapable of keeping family matters inside the family.”
Something about the sentence made me smile.
Then she said, “May I see you?”
I hesitated.
“I don’t want anyone convincing me to stay with him.”
“I would never do that.”
Her answer came quickly.
“My son has spent too many years making decisions for everyone because he believes responsibility gives him wisdom. Sometimes it only gives him arrogance.”
That surprised a laugh out of me.
“You’re his mother.”
“That is why I am qualified to say it.”
We agreed to meet at a café near the lake.
Before leaving Tessa’s apartment, I changed into borrowed jeans and a sweater.
The red dress stayed folded on the sofa.
I did not need it this morning.
Whatever happened next, I wanted to face it as myself.
Sofia Russo was already seated when I arrived.
She looked nothing like the intimidating matriarch newspapers occasionally described.
She was sixty-two, elegant, silver beginning to thread through her dark hair, with the calm eyes of someone who had survived years of other people underestimating her.
She stood and hugged me.
Not carefully.
Not formally.
Really hugged me.
“You look tired.”
“I am.”
“Good. So does Dominic.”
I sat.
“That isn’t why I came.”
“I know.”
She poured coffee for both of us.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then Sofia opened her handbag.
She removed a thick envelope.
May you like
My name was written across it.
In Dominic’s handwriting.
