Chapter 4
That one word carried too much.
Lucia stood.
Before leaving, she rested a hand on my shoulder.
“I don't know what my son has told you. And I won't interfere.”
I almost laughed at that.
She smiled as though she knew exactly why.
“But I'm glad you're here.”
Then she walked away.
I sat alone for ten full minutes.
When Marco entered the kitchen, I was still holding the same cup.
He wore gray sweatpants and a dark T-shirt, his hair messy from sleep.
I had seen him in tuxedos that probably cost more than my first car.
None of them had been as dangerous as that T-shirt.
He opened the refrigerator.
“Coffee?”
“Your mother told me something.”
The refrigerator door stayed open.
That got his attention.
“What?”
“That you've been talking about me for two years.”
Slowly, Marco closed the door.
“Ma talks too much.”
“So it's true.”
“I mention everyone.”
“She says you started with complaints.”
“That sounds right.”
“And then?”
Marco leaned against the counter.
“And then what?”
“You stopped complaining.”
“Maybe you became less annoying.”
“I didn't.”
“No.”
The smallest smile touched his face.
“You really didn't.”
I crossed my arms.
“Why did you talk about me?”
He looked directly at me.
I expected another joke.
Instead, he said, “Because you were part of my day.”
Simple.
Almost disappointingly simple.
But something about the way he said it stayed with me.
That afternoon, the family went to the beach.
Marco and I walked behind the others.
Children ran ahead with kites while Lucia supervised from beneath an enormous straw hat.
Nothing dramatic happened.
That was what made the day dangerous.
Marco helped his nephew build a crooked sandcastle.
I sat beside Elena while she described wedding plans.
Sofia brought sandwiches.
Antonio, somehow, appeared with an umbrella nobody remembered packing.
At one point, Marco sat beside me on the blanket.
Our shoulders touched.
Neither of us moved.
“You're quiet,” he said.
“I'm watching.”
“What?”
“You.”
He turned his head.
I realized how that sounded.
“With your family,” I added.
“And?”
“You're different.”
“Better or worse?”
“More yourself.”
His expression changed.
“You think the office isn't me?”
“I think it's one version.”
He looked toward the water.
“And this?”
“This might be the version you forgot people are allowed to see.”
Marco said nothing.
But his hand settled in the sand between us, palm down.
Mine rested inches away.
For a long time, neither hand moved.
On Sunday night, we played cards.
Uncle Carlo cheated exactly as Marco had predicted.
On Monday, Elena took me into town.
On Tuesday, Sofia recruited me to help decorate for Lucia's birthday dinner.
And through every ordinary hour, the lie became harder to locate.
Marco brought me coffee without asking.
He touched my back lightly when walking behind my chair.
He asked whether I was cold before opening windows.
At dinner, he remembered which olives I disliked and moved the dish away before I said anything.
Anyone watching would have believed us.
Sometimes I almost did.
Then Wednesday afternoon, I found the photograph.
I hadn't been snooping.
That mattered to me.
Lucia had asked me to retrieve ribbons from a cabinet in the small upstairs study.
The room held family photographs, old books, handwritten recipes, framed newspaper clippings, and decades of lives stacked casually together.
I found the ribbons.
Then a silver frame on the shelf caught my eye.
It was a photograph from Marco's company Christmas party.
Two years earlier.
I stood near a Christmas tree holding a glass of champagne, laughing at something Rachel had said.
Marco was in the background.
Looking at me.
Not casually.
Not accidentally.
Looking at me with an expression I recognized only because I had spent two years trying to hide the same one.
I picked up the frame.
On the back was a handwritten date.
December 23.
And beneath it, in Lucia's handwriting:
The first time I realized he was in trouble.
My heart stopped.
“You found it.”
I spun around.
Lucia stood in the doorway.
She wasn't smiling.
I held up the frame.
“What does this mean?”
She walked slowly into the room.
“I shouldn't have written that.”
“But you did.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lucia sat on the small sofa.
For once, she looked uncertain.
“I took that photograph.”
I looked again.
Marco's attention was completely fixed on me.
“He didn't know?”
“No.”
“Did you ask him?”
“Eventually.”
“And?”
Lucia folded her hands.
“He told me I was imagining things.”
A laugh escaped me, but there was no humor in it.
“That sounds like him.”
“Yes.”
“Then why keep the picture?”
Her eyes softened.
“Because he asked me for a copy.”
I looked up sharply.
“When?”
“The next morning.”
My pulse sounded loud in my ears.
“What did he say?”
“That he liked the photograph.”
“Because of the family?”
Lucia gave me a compassionate look that made my stomach turn over.
“Emily.”
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Lucia glanced toward the door.
Marco appeared.
He stopped when he saw the frame in my hands.
For the first time since I'd known him, Marco Ricci looked genuinely caught off guard.
His gaze moved from the photograph to his mother.
“Ma.”
Lucia stood.
“I was looking for ribbon,” I said.
Marco rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
“This isn't how I wanted—”
He stopped.
My heart pounded.
“How you wanted what?”
Silence.
Lucia quietly left the room.
Marco and I were alone.
I held the photograph between us.
“You asked her for this?”
“Yes.”
“Two years ago?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He stared at the picture.
Then at me.
His face no longer looked guarded.
It looked tired.
Almost vulnerable.
“There were actually two reasons I asked you to come here.”
The room seemed to contract around us.
“One was my mother.”
“And the other?”
Marco hesitated.
Not because he didn't know.
Because he did.
Finally he said, “I needed to know whether spending one week pretending you loved me would make it easier to let you go.”
Every thought vanished.
“Let me go?”
His jaw tightened.
“There's something else you don't know.”
A cold little uncertainty opened inside me.
“What?”
Marco looked toward the photograph in my hands.
Then back at me.
“I signed an agreement three weeks ago to sell the Manhattan division.”
I stared at him.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“It will.”
“You never told me.”
“I know.”
“I'm your executive assistant.”
“I know.”
“What happens to my position?”
His silence answered before he did.
I tightened my grip on the frame.
“Marco.”
“The buyer wants their own executive team.”
The words landed quietly.
No shouting.
No dramatic crash.
Just one fact settling beside another.
The week was ending.
The job I had built my life around was ending too.
And suddenly Marco's strange request looked completely different.
I stared at him.
“You knew before you called me Friday night.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I might not be working for you much longer.”
“Yes.”
“And instead of telling me, you asked me to pretend to be your girlfriend.”
His voice lowered.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Marco took one slow step toward me.
Then stopped.
“Because once I told you the truth, I couldn't ask.”
“Ask me what?”
He looked at me with that same expression from the photograph.
May you like
Except this time, I was standing close enough to understand it.
“That,” he said, “is the part I've been trying to figure out all week.”
