In Love With My Ex's Cousin

CHAPTER FIVE

Elena

I woke before the alarm.

The apartment was still dark except for the thin line of light along the edge of the curtains. I lay there for a minute, listening to the first cars move on the street below, then got up and made coffee the same way I always did. The machine clicked. The kitchen tiles were cold under my feet. I drank the first cup standing at the counter, already sorting the day into order.

Hawthorne revisions first.

Then the keys.

I dressed for site work rather than the office — dark trousers, a soft knit sweater, flat boots I could walk in. My hair went up. No jewelry except the small gold hoops I almost never took off. I packed the notebook, the laser measure, and the spare charger I always forgot until I needed it.

By eight I was crossing the river.

Eighteen Riverside Drive looked different in the morning. The stone was paler. The water behind it broke into small pieces of light. Yesterday’s black car was gone. A woman in a navy coat came out of the building as I went in, talking quietly into her phone, and the lobby smelled faintly of floor polish and cold air.

The man at the front desk found the envelope immediately.

“Miss Rossi,” he said, sliding it across the counter. “Mr. Moretti left instructions. You’re to have access whenever you need it.”

Inside were two keys and a small access card. No note. I thanked him and took the elevator up alone.

The apartment was unchanged. Empty. Quiet in a way that felt deliberate rather than abandoned. I walked through it without rushing this time, without anyone standing at the windows.

The living room held the river like a painting that hadn’t been hung yet. I measured the main wall again, then the distance between the balcony doors and the place a sofa would have to sit if the room was going to feel balanced. The floors were better than I had first thought. The windows were worse. Afternoon glare would be a problem unless we dealt with it properly.

I opened every cupboard in the kitchen. They were empty except for a forgotten roll of painter’s tape. The water pressure in both bathrooms was strong. In the largest bedroom I stood still long enough to watch the light move across the floorboards, then wrote down the time and the direction of the sun.

It was a beautiful space. That wasn’t the difficulty.

The difficulty was practical. An empty home invited invention. If I wasn’t careful, I would start designing the life that might occupy it instead of the rooms themselves. I had done that once, years ago, on a much smaller project, and I had learned the difference.

I photographed the corners the floor plan had flattened. Noted the draft near the balcony doors. Noted how sound carried down the hallway. Then I locked the apartment, went back downstairs, and walked until I found a café two streets over.

I took a table by the window, ordered another coffee, and opened the Hawthorne file first.

The clients had sent three new photographs overnight, each one tagged with a comment that contradicted the last. I answered two emails, adjusted a finish schedule, and sent Marcus a short update so he would not have to ask for one. Only after that did I open the Riverside folder.

The work helped. It always did. As long as I stayed inside materials and light and proportion, I did not have to decide what any of this meant beyond the job in front of me.

At noon I went into the office.

Sofia looked up the moment I sat down.

“You got the keys.”

I held them up once, then dropped them into my bag. “I did.”

“And?”

“The apartment is still empty. He wasn’t there.”

She studied me over her screen. “Are you disappointed or relieved?”

“I’m working,” I said.

Sofia smiled without pressing further. “Good. Because Marcus wants the Hawthorne boards by four, and if you disappear into that riverside palace all week I’m going to start charging you rent on this chair.”

I spent the afternoon doing exactly what I was paid to do. I revised the Hawthorne presentation, walked two junior designers through a lighting layout they had overcomplicated, and took a call from a supplier who wanted to warn me that one of the stone samples was running late. Ordinary problems. Useful ones.

By four the Hawthorne file was sent. By five I had two rough layouts for the Riverside living space and a short list of questions I still needed answered before I could go further. How much storage he actually used. Whether the second bedroom needed to function as a guest room or an office. If he cared about cooking or only about the kitchen looking finished.

I almost emailed them.

Then I stopped.

Some things were better asked in person. Not because I wanted another conversation. Because a house told the truth more easily when the person meant to live in it was standing inside it. Clients answered differently in empty rooms than they did from behind a desk.

I closed the laptop at six-fifteen, said goodnight to the last person still at the far table, and walked home.

The air had turned colder. I bought bread and tomatoes on the way because the fridge was almost empty and I had ignored that fact for two days. In the apartment I changed into an oversized shirt, ate at the counter, and left the project folder closed.

The keys sat at the bottom of my bag the entire evening, no heavier than metal should have been.

I told myself that twice before I went to bed.

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