Chapter 1
“And you still said it.”
“Yes.”
There was something almost careful in his voice now.
I raised my eyes.
“Why would they believe that?”
Marco's expression shifted.
Not much. With anyone else, I might have missed it.
But I had spent two years learning the difference between Marco annoyed, Marco amused, Marco thinking, and Marco hiding something.
This was the fourth.
“My mother knows you,” he said.
“Your mother has met me twice.”
“She asks about you.”
That surprised me enough to make me sit straighter.
“She does?”
“Every time I see her.”
“What does she ask?”
His mouth twitched.
“If you're still working for me. If you're eating properly. If I've given you a raise. Whether you've found a man patient enough to tolerate my schedule.”
I stared at him.
“And what do you tell her?”
“That your private life is none of my business.”
Something in me sank.
Of course.
Then Marco added quietly, “Which she never believes.”
I stood and walked toward the windows, partly because I needed distance and partly because I didn't trust my face.
Below us, Manhattan glittered like something impossibly glamorous from far enough away.
Up close, I knew better.
Cities were like people. Their brightest parts were usually built around things nobody wanted to discuss.
“I need to think about this,” I said.
“You should.”
I turned.
That startled me too.
Marco was not a man known for encouraging hesitation.
“You're not going to tell me I have five minutes?”
“No.”
“Three?”
“No.”
“Threaten to replace me with someone more cooperative?”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Is that what you think I do?”
“No.”
I folded my arms.
“It's what everyone else thinks you do.”
Marco looked at me for a long moment.
Then his gaze dropped briefly to my mismatched sneakers.
“You came here in twenty-two minutes.”
I glanced down and felt my face warm.
“You said now.”
“One shoe is navy.”
“I know.”
“The other is black.”
“I know.”
“Emily.”
“Marco.”
That stopped both of us.
I had never called him Marco at work.
Not once.
For the smallest instant, his eyes changed.
Then he looked away.
“I'll have Antonio drive you home.”
“I can get a cab.”
“He'll drive you.”
It wasn't an order exactly.
But it was close enough to familiar territory that I almost smiled.
At the door, I stopped.
“If I say yes, there have to be rules.”
Marco leaned one hand on his desk.
“Name them.”
“Separate bedrooms.”
“Obviously.”
“No making me lie about things we don't need to lie about.”
“Agreed.”
“No inventing some ridiculous story about how we fell in love on a yacht in Monaco.”
His mouth curved.
“I was thinking conference room seven.”
I blinked.
He continued with perfect seriousness.
“You brought me coffee. Our hands touched. I was overwhelmed.”
I laughed despite myself.
The sound seemed strangely intimate in the quiet room.
Marco smiled then.
Not the polished smile he used at charity dinners.
A real one.
It made saying no considerably harder.
“And,” I added, recovering, “if your family asks something I don't know, you answer.”
“Fine.”
“And after the week is over, everything goes back to normal.”
The smile disappeared.
“Yes.”
He said it quickly.
Too quickly.
That should have reassured me.
Instead, I went home wondering why it didn't.
By Saturday afternoon, I had convinced myself that the sensible answer was no.
By Saturday evening, I had made a list titled REASONS THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA.
By Sunday morning, the list had twenty-three items.
Number one was obvious.
I loved him.
Number fourteen was strangely specific.
His mother might be nice to me.
That scared me more than I wanted to admit.
I had grown up in a family where affection was dependable but quiet. My father had repaired school buses in northern New Jersey until arthritis forced him to retire. My mother worked at a library and believed almost every emotional crisis could be improved with soup.
They loved me.
I knew that.
But we were not theatrical people.
The Riccis, according to Marco, were.
They argued across dinner tables, kissed everyone on arrival, demanded second helpings, remembered birthdays, interfered in relationships, and considered privacy an eccentric American invention.
I could survive pretending to love Marco.
I wasn't sure I could survive being welcomed by people who believed he loved me back.
At 10:12 Sunday morning, my phone rang.
Not Marco.
Unknown number.
I answered cautiously.
“Hello?”
“Emily?”
A warm woman's voice.
“Yes?”
“This is Lucia Ricci.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
Marco's mother.
“Oh. Mrs. Ricci. Hello.”
“You call me Lucia.”
“I—”
“No arguing. I am seventy. This is one of the privileges.”
I sat slowly on the edge of my bed.
“I didn't know Marco gave you my number.”
“He didn't.”
That sounded more plausible.
Lucia continued cheerfully, “His sister Sofia did.”
Of course she did.
“I hope I'm not disturbing you.”
“Not at all.”
“I only wanted to say that Marco told me you are coming Friday.”
My silence lasted one beat too long.
Lucia lowered her voice conspiratorially.
“He finally told you?”
“Told me what?”
There was a pause.
A real one this time.
Then Lucia said, “That we wanted you there.”
I frowned.
“I thought this was his idea.”
Another pause.
Then, very smoothly, “Marco has many ideas. Some of them even become good ones eventually.”
Before I could ask what she meant, she changed the subject.
“You have no food allergies?”
“No.”
“Excellent. Sofia thinks everyone in Manhattan is allergic to bread now.”
I laughed.
Lucia seemed pleased.
“We'll see you Friday. And Emily?”
“Yes?”
“Bring something comfortable. The house is beautiful, but nobody in this family knows how to behave elegantly for seven full days.”
When we hung up, I stared at the phone.
Then I opened my terrible-idea list.
I added number twenty-four.
His mother is hiding something too.
Monday morning, Marco arrived at the office seven minutes before me.
He was standing beside my desk when the elevator opened.
“You talked to my mother.”
It wasn't a question.
I stepped out.
“Good morning to you too.”
“What did she say?”
“That Sofia thinks people in Manhattan are allergic to bread.”
“Emily.”
“She said she was glad I was coming.”
Marco studied me.
I set my bag down.
“She also said something strange.”
His shoulders became almost imperceptibly still.
“She said you finally told me that your family wanted me there.”
Marco looked toward his office.
“That sounds like my mother.”
“That isn't an explanation.”
“I never claimed it was.”
“Did she ask you to invite me?”
“No.”
I watched his face.
“You're being technically truthful.”
May you like
“I am being completely truthful.”
Those were not the same thing.
