Chapter 3 - Yet Isabella had specifically mentioned his approval.
Why?
When I reached my apartment, I called my father.
He answered on the third ring.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
“Hi, Dad.”
“You sound tired.”
“Long week.”
“Your mother says you were at some fancy party.”
I smiled despite myself.
“She saw the pictures?”
“She sent them to everyone.”
“Dad.”
“Even the neighbor.”
I laughed.
Then I grew quiet.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Have you heard anything about the old bookstore?”
There was a pause.
“What kind of thing?”
“Someone told me the building might be restored.”
Another pause.
Then he said, “I heard something about that.”
I sat up.
“You did?”
“A letter came a few months ago.”
“What letter?”
“An invitation to meet with a development group.
They wanted to know about the store’s history.”
“Did you meet them?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
He sounded puzzled.
“And they were very nice.”
“Dad, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought I had.”
“You didn’t.”
“Well, your mother says I forget things.”
He chuckled.
But I wasn’t laughing.
“Did they tell you who owned the building?”
“No.
I didn’t ask.”
“What did they want?”
“Old photographs.
Stories about the neighborhood.
They asked what I thought the space should become.”
I closed my eyes.
“And what did you say?”
“That I hoped it would be somewhere people could come without feeling they needed to buy something.”
His voice softened.
“Books were always a good excuse for bringing people together, Soph.
But the people were the important part.”
I swallowed.
“Did they say anything else?”
“They asked if I might be interested in helping with the reading program when it opens.”
My eyes widened.
“Dad.”
“What?”
“That’s wonderful.”
“I thought so.”
He paused.
“Why are you asking all these questions?”
I looked at the photograph resting on my lap.
“I think someone I know is involved.”
“Someone nice?”
I thought about Luca.
His difficult silences.
His unexpected kindness.
His careful attempts to change.
“I’m still figuring that out,” I said.
Friday morning, I arrived at the office early.
Luca was already there.
Of course he was.
I knocked on his open door.
He looked up.
“Sophia.”
“Do you have a minute?”
“For you?
Yes.”
I stepped inside and closed the door.
He noticed.
“What’s wrong?”
I placed Isabella’s photograph on his desk.
He looked at it.
And went very still.
“Where did you get this?”
“Your sister.”
He leaned back slowly.
I folded my arms.
“Luca, why does Moretti Holdings own my father’s bookstore?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Then he said, “Because the building was part of a property acquisition.”
“When?”
“Last November.”
“And you approved a restoration project?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked at me.
“Because I thought it was worth preserving.”
I searched his face.
“Did you know it belonged to my father?”
“Yes.”
The answer was immediate.
Honest.
And somehow more unsettling than if he had tried to avoid it.
I sat down.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Because I didn’t know how.”
I stared.
“You negotiate billion-dollar acquisitions, Luca.”
“I know.”
“You’ve spoken in front of thousands of people.”
“I know.”
“And you couldn’t tell me you bought the building where my father spent twenty-five years?”
His expression softened.
“The company bought it.
Not me personally.”
“That’s not the point.”
“No,” he agreed.
“It isn’t.”
I looked away.
Outside his windows, Manhattan was beginning another ordinary morning.
Cars moved through the streets.
People hurried toward offices.
Somewhere, a delivery truck sounded its horn.
I felt as though I were standing at the edge of a conversation that should have happened months earlier.
“Tell me why,” I said.
Luca rested his hands on the desk.
“Last year, our development division proposed replacing several older commercial properties with a larger complex.
Your father’s bookstore was one of the buildings.”
I waited.
“The original proposal made financial sense.
But when I reviewed the site history, I recognized the address.”
“From my interview?”
“Yes.”
He glanced at the photograph.
“I remembered you talking about growing up there.
About your father keeping a chair near the window for people who wanted to read but couldn’t afford to buy books.”
My chest tightened.
“I remember telling you that.”
“I asked the development team to reconsider the property.”
“Because of me?”
“Because I realized the building had value our financial model hadn’t measured.”
He paused.
“And yes.
Because of you.”
I looked down.
“I didn’t want to make a decision on your family’s behalf,” he continued.
“So I asked our community development team to contact your father independently.
They told me he was interested in preserving the space as something useful to the neighborhood.”
“Why keep it from me?”
“Because I was afraid you’d think I was trying to buy your gratitude.”
I looked up sharply.
He held my gaze.
“And because I didn’t want your position here to become complicated by something that was supposed to benefit your family.”
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then I asked, “Does the foundation know?”
“About the restoration?”
“Yes.”
“Margaret’s team has been considering it as a possible satellite location for the Queens learning initiative.”
I blinked.
“The project Celeste and I discussed?”
“Yes.”
The pieces began fitting together.
The foundation.
The learning center.
The building.
My father’s old bookstore.
I sat back.
“Luca, you should have told me.”
“I know.”
“You could have trusted me to separate my work from my family.”
“I know.”
“And you should have given me the opportunity to decide whether I wanted to be involved.”
He nodded.
“You’re right.”
I studied him.
He wasn’t offering excuses.
He wasn’t asking me to be grateful.
He simply looked like a man who had tried to do something thoughtful and realized he had overlooked the person whose opinion mattered most.
“I need some time to think,” I said.
“Of course.”
I stood.
Then stopped at the door.
“One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Was Sunday dinner another way of telling me?”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“Then why did you invite me?”
For the first time that morning, Luca looked genuinely nervous.
“Because my mother asked me why I sounded happy when I called her after the gala.”
My breath caught.
“And?”
“And I told her I’d met someone.”
I stared at him.
“We’ve worked together for three years.”
“I know.”
“Luca—”
“I meant I’d finally started getting to know her.”
I stood frozen.
He looked down at his desk.
Then back at me.
“I didn’t invite you because of the building, Sophia.”
His voice was quiet.
“I invited you because I wanted you at my table.”
I spent the rest of Friday doing what I always did when my thoughts became complicated.
I worked.
I answered messages.
I prepared briefing documents.
I rescheduled a meeting when a client’s flight was delayed.
But every so often, my eyes moved toward Luca’s office.
He did not come out to explain himself again.
He did not send flowers.
He did not ask whether I had made a decision about Sunday.
He gave me space.
And that made everything harder.
At four thirty, Celeste called.
“I have news,” she said.
“Good news?”
“I think so.
Margaret wants to explore the bookstore restoration as a possible community reading center.”
I smiled faintly.
“That sounds wonderful.”
“There’s something else.”
I waited.
“She wants to invite you to join the advisory group.”
My heart skipped.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Celeste, I’m not a development specialist.”
“You studied community planning, didn’t you?”
“Not formally.
I took undergraduate courses.”
“And you understand the operational problems we’ve been struggling with.”
I leaned back in my chair.
“This is happening very quickly.”
“I know.”
She paused.
“Sophia, there’s no obligation.
Margaret specifically asked that we make that clear.”
I looked toward Luca’s office.
“Did Luca suggest my name?”
“No.”
The answer surprised me.
“Are you sure?”
“Completely.
Margaret asked me who had contributed the evening-access proposal.
I told her it was you.”
I was quiet.
Celeste continued gently.
“You don’t have to decide today.
But I hope you’ll consider it.”
After we hung up, I sat for several minutes without moving.
Something I had once wanted was suddenly standing within reach.
Not because I wore a beautiful dress.
Not because I had accompanied a wealthy man to a gala.
Because I had spoken honestly about something that mattered to me.
And someone had listened.
At six fifteen, I shut down my computer.
Exactly the same time Luca had appeared at my desk the previous evening and changed everything.
I picked up my handbag.
Then I walked to his office.
He was reading a document.
He looked up immediately.
“Sophia?”
“I’ve made a decision.”
He set the document aside.
I took a breath.
“I’m going to meet with Margaret about the advisory group.”
A slow smile appeared.
“That’s wonderful.”
“And I want to visit the bookstore before any final plans are made.”
“Of course.”
“With my father.”
“I think he’d like that.”
I nodded.
Then I hesitated.
“And Sunday dinner.”
Luca became very still.
“Yes?”
“I’d like to come.”
He smiled.
Not the restrained expression he wore in photographs.
A real smile.
Warm enough to make me forget what I had planned to say next.
Then I remembered.
“But there’s one condition.”
“Name it.”
“No pretending.”
His smile softened.
“No pretending.”
I turned toward the door.
“Sophia?”
I looked back.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For giving me a chance to do this properly.”
I smiled.
“Don’t make me regret it, Moretti.”
“I’ll do my best.”
That evening, I returned home to find a message from my father.
It contained an old photograph.
I was perhaps eight years old, sitting cross-legged on the floor of Bennett Books with a book open across my knees.
Beside me sat a boy of about twelve, wearing a dark sweater and holding a paper cup of hot chocolate.
I stared at the picture.
I recognized myself immediately.
But I had no memory of the boy.
Underneath, my father had written:
Found this in the old photo album.
Remember the Moretti family who used to visit the shop?
Their son was such a serious little fellow.
Your mother says he used to ask you to recommend books.
My heart began beating faster.
I enlarged the photograph.
The boy’s dark eyes.
The familiar line of his eyebrows.
The expression of intense concentration.
I knew that face.
I had seen it every working day for three years.
My phone rang.
Luca.
I answered without thinking.
“Hello?”
“Hi,” he said.
“I hope I’m not calling too late.”
“No.”
A pause.
“Everything all right?”
I looked at the photograph again.
“Luca?”
“Yes?”
“Have we met before?”
Silence.
Then his voice changed.
“What do you mean?”
I swallowed.
“I mean before my interview.
Before Moretti Holdings.
Before any of this.”
Another pause.
Then Luca asked quietly,
“Did your father find the photograph?”
I stopped breathing for a moment.
“You knew?”
His answer came softly.
“Yes, Sophia.”
I sat down on the edge of my sofa.
“How long?”
There was a long silence.
Then he said,
“I recognized you the day you walked into my office for your interview.”
I stared at the little boy in the photograph.
The boy I had forgotten.
The man who had remembered me.
May you like
And suddenly, the question was no longer whether Luca Moretti had been hiding something.
It was how much of our story had begun long before either of us understood what it meant.
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