In Love With My Ex's Cousin

CHAPTER EIGHT

Luca

The meeting lasted twenty-eight minutes.

Luca locked the apartment after she left and took the stairs down instead of the elevator. Not for any reason worth examining. The stairwell was quieter. It gave the conversation time to become what it actually was: a list of answers about storage, a second bedroom, and a kitchen he did not use.

He had told her about Adrian because Adrian already knew.

He had mentioned Matteo so she would not hear the name first from someone else.

That was management. Not confession.

His driver was waiting at the curb. Luca got in, opened the Singapore file on his phone, and spent the ride back across the river on a clause that had been written to look generous and was not. By the time the car reached Moretti Holdings, the apartment had returned to its proper place in the day: one item among others.

The evening did not stay that simple.

Adrian was in his office when Luca returned, jacket off, a bottle of water in one hand and the expression of a man who had not come upstairs for a social visit.

“You met her again,” Adrian said.

Luca set his phone on the desk. “She had questions about the layout.”

“And you had to be there for that?”

“It’s my property.”

Adrian closed the door with his foot. “Matteo called me twenty minutes ago.”

Luca looked up. “About what?”

“The summer house. He wants to use it in October and assumed I would already know. He was in a good mood. Which means he doesn’t know anything yet.”

“There is nothing to know.”

“There is a name,” Adrian said. “And you put it on a project file that three people in this building have already seen. That is not nothing.”

Luca took off his watch, set it beside the phone, and sat. “If Matteo asks, I’ll tell him I hired a designer. I don’t intend to volunteer a history he already lived through.”

“That’s a clean sentence. It won’t sound clean coming from you if he finds out some other way.”

“Then he should find out from me. When there is a reason.”

Adrian studied him for a moment. “You’re treating this as if the only risk is timing.”

“What else would it be?”

“The fact that you asked for her specifically.” Adrian set the water down. “People in this family don’t do specific without a reason. Matteo will invent one if you don’t give him one he can live with.”

Luca did not answer immediately. Outside the glass, the city had gone fully dark. The river was only a darker line through it.

“She asked if the second bedroom was for guests,” he said. “I told her it was an office. That was the meeting.”

Adrian’s mouth tightened, not quite a smile. “All right. I’ll keep it off the dinner table. For now.”

He left without asking for more. That was one of the useful things about Adrian. He pushed once, then waited to see whether the push had been necessary.

Luca worked until after eight. Finance wanted confirmation on a holding structure that should have been settled last week. Legal wanted language changed in a contract that had already been changed twice. His assistant had left a note about a charity dinner on Thursday. He declined it the same way he declined most things that required him to stand in a room and be available to people who wanted access more than conversation.

At eight-forty his phone rang.

Matteo.

Luca let it ring once before he answered.

“Tell me you’re not still in the office,” Matteo said. His voice had the easy warmth it always carried when he wanted something to feel already agreed.

“I am.”

“Tragic. Come eat. There’s a place near the bridge that doesn’t take itself seriously.”

“Not tonight.”

“You say that every night.” Matteo paused, and in the pause Luca could hear traffic, a door, the sound of a life that moved faster than it thought. “Fine. Then at least tell me you’re coming to dinner on Sunday. Mother’s decided the table is incomplete without both of you looking grim in her direction.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Good. Adrian already promised, which means you don’t get to use him as an excuse.” Another pause, lighter. “You sound tired.”

“It’s late.”

“That’s not what I said.” Matteo laughed under his breath. “All right. I won’t diagnose you over the phone. Sunday. Don’t cancel.”

“I won’t.”

After the call ended, Luca sat with the dark screen in his hand and considered how little it had taken. A dinner. A joke. A cousin who still believed that charm could rearrange a room before anyone noticed the furniture had been moved.

He had not lied.

He had also not said Elena Rossi’s name.

That distinction would matter later. He knew that much. He did not intend to build a larger meaning out of it tonight.

He left the office at nine. The penthouse was exactly as he had left it that morning: lights low, surfaces clear, the kind of order that required no witness. He took off his shirt, washed his face, and ate standing at the counter because sitting down would have turned the food into an evening.

The Riverside keys were no longer his problem. She had them. The layout would arrive on Friday. After that there would be materials, contractors, decisions that could be made by email.

A project with edges.

He poured a glass of water and stood at the window longer than necessary. Not looking toward the east bank. Looking at the part of the city he already knew how to manage.

Sunday dinner would be simple if he kept it simple. Matteo’s mother would ask whether he was eating. Adrian would watch him over the rim of a glass. Matteo would talk more than anyone else and assume that talking first meant he understood the room.

Luca had spent most of his adult life letting people assume that.

It was useful.

It was also, he suspected, becoming less reliable.

He set the glass in the sink, closed the bedroom door against the rest of the apartment, and slept the way he usually did: without unfinished conversations sitting on the other side of the bed.

Friday was two days away.

Sunday was four.

Neither required a decision tonight.

That was the version he took with him into sleep. Not because it was complete.

Because it was still true enough to use.