He was there the next morning.
She came downstairs to put out her trash and found him leaning against his car two doors down, holding a coffee, studying his phone with the studied casualness of a man who had rehearsed this scene in advance and was currently overperforming it.
Lorenzo Monto was a lot of things. A subtle actor was not one of them.
She stood on the stoop for a moment. He looked up—perfectly timed, as if he hadn't been tracking her door from behind his sunglasses for the last twenty minutes.
"Mia."
"Lorenzo." She crossed her arms. "What are you doing here?"
"Passing through." A small, unconvincing shrug.
"You live on the East Side."
A pause. Then: "I wanted to see you."
At least that was honest.
She looked at him properly—really looked, which she'd been careful not t
