In Love With My Ex's Cousin

CHAPTER TWO

The Hawthorne site visit ran longer than it should have.

By the time I left the penthouse, the sky had turned the flat grey of late morning and my portfolio case felt heavier than it had at nine. The clients had argued for forty minutes over the difference between two nearly identical shades of greige, then asked me to “just make it feel expensive but lived-in.” I had smiled, nodded, and written the same note I always wrote when people used that phrase.

I walked back to the office instead of taking a car. The air still carried the threat of rain, and the extra twenty minutes gave me time to clear my head before I opened the email waiting in my inbox.

Sofia was on a call when I returned. She raised her eyebrows at me over the top of her monitor. I shook my head once and sat down.

I opened the laptop.

The Moretti email was still at the top of the list, unread attachment and all.

I clicked it open again and this time selected the file.

A single PDF loaded.

Client: L. Moretti

Property: 18 Riverside Drive

Request: Full interior redesign of newly acquired private residence

Preferred designer: Elena Rossi

Initial consultation: At the client’s earliest convenience

No first name.

No phone number.

Only an assistant’s email address and a note that the property was currently unoccupied.

I sat back in my chair.

Eighteen Riverside Drive was one of the older waterfront buildings on the east side of the river. The kind of address that didn’t come up often in our firm’s residential work. Most of our clients preferred glass towers and new construction. This was different.

I forwarded the email to myself, closed the laptop, and stood.

Sofia ended her call and spun her chair toward me.

“Well?”

“It’s a residential project. Full redesign. They asked for me specifically.”

“And?”

“That’s all it says.”

She studied my face for a moment. “Are you going to take it?”

“Marcus already assigned it.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I picked up my bag. “I’m going to look at the property.”

Sofia’s expression softened. “Do you want company?”

“No. It’s just a walk through.”

She didn’t argue. She only said, “Text me when you’re done.”

I left the office at half past twelve. The sky still hadn’t decided whether to rain. I took a cab across the river because the address was farther than I wanted to walk in heels, and because part of me wanted the distance to pass quickly.

Eighteen Riverside Drive sat on a quiet stretch of the embankment, five storeys of pale stone with tall windows and wrought-iron balconies. The kind of building that had been expensive for a very long time. A black car was parked near the entrance, engine off, driver waiting.

I paid the cab and walked up the short flight of steps.

The front door was unlocked.

Inside, the lobby was cool and quiet. Black-and-white marble floors. A single elevator with brass doors. No doorman in sight. I pressed the button for the top floor, as the email had indicated the property occupied the entire fifth level.

The elevator rose smoothly.

When the doors opened, I stepped into a wide, empty hallway. The air smelled faintly of new paint and something older underneath — wood, dust, the particular stillness of a place that hadn’t been lived in yet.

A set of double doors at the end of the hall stood slightly ajar.

I pushed them open.

The main living space was vast. High ceilings. Floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the river. Bare floors. Unmarked walls. A single piece of furniture — a long black table near the windows — and nothing else.

Someone was standing at the far end of the room with their back to me, looking out at the water.

Tall.

Dark suit.

Still.

I stopped just inside the doorway.

For a moment neither of us moved.

Then he turned.

Dark grey eyes.

The same controlled expression I remembered from a crowded ballroom three years earlier.

A faint scar near his left eyebrow that I hadn’t been close enough to notice then.

Luca Moretti looked at me the way he had that night — as if he already knew more than he planned to say.

“Elena,” he said.

My name sounded different in his voice than it had in my memory.

I kept my hand on the strap of my bag and stayed where I was.

“Mr. Moretti.”

One corner of his mouth moved, not quite a smile. “Luca is fine.”

I didn’t answer that.

He glanced once around the empty room, then back at me. “Thank you for coming on short notice.”

“The email said the property was unoccupied.”

“It is."

“Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to see it again before the work began.” His gaze moved over the space with the same quiet assessment I used on clients’ homes. “And I wanted to make sure you were the one who took the project.”

I felt the weight of that settle between us.

“Why me?"

He didn’t look away. “Because you’re good at what you do. And because I don’t like working with people I haven’t met.”

It was a clean answer. Professional. Almost convincing.

I stepped further into the room, letting the door close softly behind me. The sound of it echoed slightly in the empty space.

“What exactly are you looking for?” I asked.

“A home,” he said. “Not a showpiece. Somewhere that feels finished.”

I studied him for a moment. The cut of the suit. The stillness in the way he stood. The fact that he had requested me by name and then arranged to be here when I arrived.

“I’ll need full access to the property,” I said. “Measurements. Light studies. A clear brief on how you actually live, not how you think a home should look.”

“You’ll have it.”

“And I’ll need to know if there’s a timeline you’re working against.”

“There isn’t.” His eyes held mine. “Take the time you need.”

I nodded once.

Outside the windows, the river moved slowly under the grey sky. Somewhere below, a boat horn sounded, low and distant.

I set my bag down on the long black table and took out my notebook.

“Then we should start,” I said.

Luca Moretti watched me open to a clean page.

He didn’t smile.

But something in his expression shifted — so slight I almost missed it.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said.