In Love With My Ex's Cousin

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Luca

Thursday morning began with Matteo in his doorway.

Not a call. Not a message passed through Adrian. Matteo himself, coat still on, smiling as if he had dropped in on the way to somewhere more interesting.

“Don’t look like that,” Matteo said. “I brought coffee.”

He set a cup on the desk Luca had not asked him to touch. Luca looked at it, then at him.

“I have a meeting in twelve minutes.”

“Then talk fast.” Matteo sat without being invited, which was his usual method of being invited. “The apartment. Which firm?”

Luca signed the page in front of him before he answered. “Why?”

“Because I might want someone. The office needs a refresh and I don’t trust the people who decorated it the first time. They thought plants were a personality.”

It was a clean reason. It was also not the only reason. Luca could hear the second one underneath: Matteo did not like being outside a piece of family information.

“I’ll send you two names,” Luca said. “Not the one I used.”

Matteo’s smile thinned. “So there is a one you used.”

“Yes. They’re booked.”

“With you.”

“With a project that has already started.”

Matteo turned the coffee cup in his hands. “You’re being particular.”

“I’m being brief. You asked for a firm. I’ll send you options that are available.”

For a moment Matteo looked as if he might push. Then he laughed and stood, the sound easy again.

“Fine. Send the names. And come to the club on Friday. You never come.”

“I have work.”

“You always have work.” Matteo paused at the door. “You look like a man with a secret, Luca. It’s unbecoming. You’re supposed to be the dull one.”

He left before Luca could answer. The coffee stayed where it was. Luca moved it to the side table and went to his meeting on time.

Adrian found him after lunch.

“He came to you,” Adrian said.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I told him I would send other names.”

Adrian nodded once. “That’s better than silence. Silence makes him hunt.”

“I’m aware.”

“Good.” Adrian picked up a file from the chair and did not sit. “I’m not asking again this week. You know where it stands.”

He left. That, Luca thought, was the useful version of his brother: a warning delivered, then the day returned to work.

The afternoon was logistics and a contract that needed a paragraph removed before anyone pretended not to see it. At four he sent Matteo two residential firms with short notes. Competent. Available. Not Elena’s.

Matteo replied at four-twenty.

Boring. But thank you.

Luca put the phone down.

Friday he stayed in the office until seven. The installer for Riverside confirmed Monday morning. Luca approved the access note to the building desk and did not add that he would be there. He did not need to be there. The work did not require him.

He went home, showered, and stood in the penthouse kitchen with a plate he finished out of habit. The rooms were still exact. Still temporary. The apartment on the river was beginning to have fabric and a schedule. That was all it was supposed to acquire.

His mother did not call. Matteo’s mother did, at eight-ten, to ask whether he had eaten and whether the new place had curtains yet.

“The treatments were ordered,” he said.

“Good. Empty windows make a house look like no one has chosen it.” She paused. “Bring yourself to lunch in two weeks. Not Matteo’s table. Mine is too far. Come here.”

He said he would try. She told him trying was not an answer and hung up in a way that still counted as affection.

Luca set the phone on the counter.

Two weeks of lunch invitations. A cousin who wanted names. A brother who had decided not to ask again this week. An installer on Monday.

None of that required a decision tonight.

He turned off the lights in the living room and left the bedroom door open, which he almost never did. The penthouse did not feel different for it. It only looked less sealed.

On Saturday he would work from home. On Sunday Elena would be at her mother’s, if her week allowed it. He knew that only because she had mentioned Sunday lunch in passing to her own life, not to him. He had no claim on the information and did not use it.

Monday was the windows.

He slept on that.

In the morning he would send the access confirmation again if the desk asked for it. Then he would go to the office and let the installer do the job without him standing in the room as if the cloth needed witnessing.

That was still the correct order.