In Love With My Ex's Cousin

CHAPTER THREE

The apartment was larger than the floor plan had suggested.

I walked the perimeter first, notebook open, pen moving in short, precise strokes. North-facing windows. High ceilings. Original wide-plank floors that had been sanded but not refinished. The light was good in the afternoon, cooler than I expected, with a slight blue cast from the river.

Luca stayed near the windows while I worked.

He didn’t follow me from room to room. He didn’t offer opinions. He simply watched, hands in his pockets, the same stillness he had carried three years ago.

I measured the main living space twice.

Then the adjoining dining area.

Then the long hallway that led toward the bedrooms.

When I returned to the living room, he was still standing in the same place.

“How long have you owned it?” I asked.

“Six weeks.”

“And you’re only starting the redesign now?”

“I was waiting.”

I looked up from my notes. “For what?”

His eyes met mine. “For the right person to do the work.”

I held his gaze for a second longer than was strictly professional, then looked back down at the page.

“I’ll need to know how you use the space,” I said. “Whether you work from home. How often you entertain. If you prefer open storage or closed. What you actually care about when you walk through the door at the end of the day.”

“I work late.” His voice was even. “I don’t entertain often. I prefer things put away. And when I walk through the door, I want quiet.”

I wrote it down.

Quiet.

It suited him.

I moved toward the kitchen. The cabinets were empty. The countertops were bare. A single set of keys lay on the island beside an unopened bottle of water.

“You haven’t stayed here at all,” I said.

“No.”

“Where are you living now?”

“The penthouse I’ve had for years.”

I nodded and kept writing. The fact that he was redesigning an entire residence while still living somewhere else told me more than the sparse answers he was giving.

He was creating distance. Or a new beginning. Or both.

I spent another twenty minutes moving through the three bedrooms and the two bathrooms. The largest bedroom faced the river. The light there was softer. I stood in the empty space for a moment longer than necessary, noting the proportions, the way the afternoon sun fell across the floorboards.

When I returned to the living room, Luca had moved. He was standing near the long black table now, looking at the notebook I had left open.

He wasn’t reading it. Just looking at the open page.

I closed it as I approached.

“I’ll have preliminary concepts ready in ten days,” I said. “Mood boards, material options, a rough layout. After that we can decide whether to proceed.”

“We’ll proceed.”

The certainty in his voice made me glance at him.

“You haven’t seen anything yet.”

“I requested you for a reason.”

I slipped the notebook into my bag. “And what reason is that, exactly?”

Luca’s expression didn’t change, but something behind his eyes shifted — a brief, unreadable flicker.

“You’re thorough,” he said. “You notice things other people miss. And you don’t fill silence just to make it comfortable.”

It was the most he had said about me since I arrived.

I adjusted the strap of my bag on my shoulder. “I’ll send the concepts through your assistant.”

“Send them to me directly.”

He reached into his jacket, took out a card, and placed it on the table between us. No company logo. Just his name and a private email address.

I picked it up.

“All right.”

We stood there for a moment in the empty room, the river moving slowly beyond the glass.

Then I turned toward the door.

“Elena.”

I looked back.

Luca’s voice was quieter than before. “The last time we spoke, you asked if I had known about Matteo.”

I didn’t answer.

“I should have told you that night,” he said. “Even if I didn’t know you. I should have said something.”

The words settled between us, heavier than the empty space around them.

I held his gaze.

“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” I said.

“No,” he agreed. “But it would have been the truth.”

I nodded once.

Then I left.

The elevator doors closed with a soft metallic sound. I watched the floor numbers descend and felt the quiet weight of the conversation settle into my chest.

Outside, the air had finally decided to rain.

I stepped onto the sidewalk, opened my umbrella, and began walking toward the corner to find a cab.

My phone vibrated once in my bag.

A message from Sofia.

How did it go?

I typed back while I waited under the edge of the building.

It’s him.

Her reply came almost immediately.

Which him?

I looked back up at the fifth-floor windows. From the street they were just dark rectangles against the pale stone.

Luca.

I put the phone away before she could answer.

A cab pulled up. I got in, gave the driver the address of the office, and sat back against the seat as the city blurred past the rain-streaked window.

Ten days.

I had ten days to put together concepts for a man who had stood in silence three years ago and was now asking me to design the place he intended to call home.

And for the first time since the email had arrived, I wasn’t sure whether the work would be the complicated part —

or the fact that I had already agreed to do it.