In Love With My Ex's Cousin

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Luca

The five o'clock appointment sat on his calendar between a logistics call and nothing.

That was deliberate. Luca did not stack the end of a Tuesday with people if he could end it with a decision instead. Window treatments were a decision. Ivory or not. Charcoal or not. Then the day could close.

Singapore ran long.

By four-forty he was still on the line, listening to a delay explained three times in language designed to make the delay sound like caution. He ended the call at four-fifty-two, took the stairs down to the car, and told the driver Riverside.

He would be late. He had already told her to leave the samples if he was.

The building lobby was quiet when he arrived at five-nineteen. The man at the desk started to speak. Luca nodded once and went up.

The apartment door was unlocked.

Elena was still there.

She stood at the far window with two lengths of fabric in her hands, holding the ivory up to the glass first, then the charcoal, then the ivory again. She did not startle when she heard him. She only looked over her shoulder.

“You’re late.”

“I know.”

“I was going to leave them on the table.”

“You didn’t.”

“The light changes every ten minutes at this hour. Leaving them would have been pointless.” She turned back to the window. “Come and see.”

He crossed the empty room and stopped beside her, not close. The ivory against the glass warmed the river instead of bleaching it. The charcoal cut the glare down to a dull sheet of water and city.

“The ivory in the day,” she said. “This after six. If you use only the dark layer, the room dies. If you use only the sheer, you get the view and no rest.”

Luca looked at the water, then at the fabric, then at the water again. “Both.”

“Yes.”

“Order them.”

She lowered the samples and folded them with the same care she used on drawings. “I’ll send the quote tonight. Installation can start next week if the headings come in on time.”

“That’s fine.”

She set the fabric on the long black table and picked up her bag. The work was finished. There was no reason to stay.

“If the installer needs access, I’ll coordinate with the desk,” she said. “You don’t have to be here.”

“I know.”

“Goodnight, Luca.”

“Goodnight."

She left without stretching it. The door clicked. The elevator sounded a moment later. Luca stayed where he was, the samples on the table, the river going dark beyond the glass.

He had been late and the work had still been done properly. That was why he had asked for her. She had waited for the light instead of leaving cloth on the table and calling it complete.

He locked the apartment and went home.

The penthouse was unchanged. He ate standing up, answered two emails that had arrived during the drive, and opened the quote when it came through at 7:41. The numbers were clean. He approved them from the counter and put the phone face down.

Adrian called at eight.

“Matteo asked me this afternoon which firm you used,” Adrian said.

Luca stood still. “What did you say?”

“That I didn’t know. Which is only half a lie. I know the designer. I don’t know the paperwork.”

“Don’t help him find it.”

“I’m not going to.” Adrian paused. “I’m also not going to keep standing in the way indefinitely. If he keeps asking, someone will notice that the answer is being avoided.”

“Let him ask.”

“That’s easy to say from where you are.”

Luca looked at his own reflection in the dark window. “The apartment is a renovation. That is all he needs.”

“For now,” Adrian said. “I’m going. Eat something that is not taken standing up.”

The line went dead.

Luca did not call Matteo. He did not message Elena. He washed the plate, laid out clothes for the morning, and went through the next day’s meetings until the order of them was fixed.

Wednesday would be the office.

The treatments would be ordered.

Matteo could ask about a firm. A firm was not a name.

That distinction was getting thinner. Luca knew it. He did not intend to widen it on a Tuesday night.

He turned off the lights and let the penthouse go dark. The fabric was right. The work would continue. The rest could wait until someone made waiting impossible.