Between Loyalty and You

Chapter 9 (Elena's POV)

By the time I reached the fourth floor, I had decided that half a working day was a misleading expression.

It hadn’t included the journey home. Or the groceries I had insisted I could carry. Or the neighbor on the second landing who wanted a detailed account of my hospital stay.

I put my key in the lock and leaned against the door while it turned.

The apartment was warm.

I set my bag on the kitchen table.

My phone rang.

For a moment, I simply stared at it.

Then I saw his name.

Seven already.

I had spent the morning imagining this call, the afternoon avoiding thoughts of it, and the journey home convinced I still had time to prepare.

I answered before I could change my mind.

“Hello.”

“Elena.”

I closed my eyes.

One word, and I had to remind myself why I had left.

“Hello, Luca.”

“Is this still a good time?”

“I’ve just got home.”

“From work?”

“Yes.”

A small pause.

“How did it go?”

I slipped off my shoes.

“Everyone watched me as though I might fall apart over a painting.”

“Did you?”

“Only when I saw what they’d done with my brushes.”

He laughed softly.

I gripped the back of the chair.

I had missed that sound.

We spent the first few minutes discussing my day.

Marta had made me take breaks. My supervisor had given me paperwork. The altarpiece looked better than I wanted to admit after being forced to leave it in someone else’s hands.

Luca listened.

He didn’t interrupt when I described the varnish tests or the argument over a replacement pigment. He asked a question that told me he remembered what I had explained on the terrace.

It would have been easy to keep talking about work.

Easy to pretend he was simply calling because we missed each other.

I sat down.

“How’s Rosa?”

“She asked whether you were eating properly.”

“Of course she did.”

“I told her she’d have to ask you.”

“That must have been difficult for you.”

“A considerable exercise in restraint.”

I smiled.

Then the conversation fell quiet.

Through his phone, I heard the faint click of a door closing.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“My study.”

I looked at the scratch on my kitchen table where I had once cut a mounting board without anything underneath it.

“I don’t want another apology if nothing changes afterward.”

“I know.”

“I need more than that.”

“You do.”

He drew a breath.

“I’m going to speak to your father.”

My fingers tightened around the phone.

“When?”

“When he comes back from Switzerland. He’s due on Friday.”

Two days.

For a week, Luca had been unable to come down a corridor to speak to me.

Now he was offering to tell the one person we had both been afraid of.

“What are you going to say?”

“The truth. That there’s something between us. That I want to find out whether we can make it work.”

“And if he says no?”

“He probably will.”

I looked toward the window.

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“I won’t ask him to decide for us.”

The answer was steady.

I wanted to trust it.

“You sound certain now.”

“I’m certain I handled this badly. I’m certain I don’t want to repeat it.”

“Those are easier things to be certain about.”

“Yes,” he said. “They are.”

I got up to fill the kettle.

My hand needed something to do.

“Don’t tell him on Friday.”

There was a pause.

“All right.”

I set the kettle down without switching it on.

“You agree?”

“You just asked me not to.”

“I thought you’d argue.”

“I’m trying to stop doing that whenever you make a decision I wouldn’t make.”

I leaned against the counter.

“It’s too soon. I left your house yesterday. We haven’t even worked out what happens between you and me.”

“You’re right.”

“And he’s my father. I want to be there when we tell him.”

“All right.”

I could hear how carefully he was listening now. It made me wish I didn’t have to wonder how long it would last.

“I’m not asking you to hide this forever,” I said.

“I understand.”

“I’m asking you not to turn a conversation with Papa into proof that you’ve fixed everything.”

His answer came quietly.

“I haven’t fixed anything yet.”

I closed my eyes.

“No.”

For a while, we said nothing.

Outside, a scooter rattled down the street. Someone in the apartment above mine dragged a chair across the floor.

“Can I ask you something?” Luca said.

“Yes.”

“In your letter. You said you’d thought about us before the shooting.”

Heat crept into my face.

“I remember what I wrote.”

“I keep wondering how I missed it.”

“You weren’t meant to notice.”

“I noticed you.”

I went still.

“When?”

“The Christmas before last. You argued with your father about going back to Florence early.”

“That could have been any Christmas.”

“You had an exhibition to prepare.”

I remembered.

A small show organised by the workshop. I had been responsible for two restored panels and so anxious about transporting them that I had barely enjoyed the holiday.

“You asked me about it after dinner,” I said.

“You talked for twenty minutes.”

“I bored you for twenty minutes.”

“No. I wanted you to keep talking.”

I sat down again.

He continued.

“After that, I found myself asking your father whether you’d be visiting. I always had some other reason for asking.”

“Why didn’t you—”

I stopped.

I knew why.

“Yes,” Luca said, as though I had finished. “That.”

I rubbed my thumb along the table’s edge.

“It would have helped to know.”

“I should have told you.”

I let myself breathe.

The feelings I had carried back to Florence after those visits hadn’t all been mine.

That mattered.

It didn’t undo the past week, but it changed the years before it.

“Have you eaten?” he asked eventually.

“Be careful.”

“I’m asking.”

“Not yet. Have you?”

“No.”

“Then neither of us gets to lecture.”

“Agreed.”

I switched on the kettle and opened the refrigerator.

Marta had left a container on the middle shelf with EAT THIS written across the lid.

I told him.

“An approach Rosa would admire,” he said.

“I appear to attract people who label my dinner.”

“You do make them work hard.”

I carried the container to the counter.

There was something almost painfully ordinary about speaking to him while I found a bowl.

I had wanted this, too.

Not just the kisses.

Someone asking about my work. His voice in my kitchen. A conversation that didn’t have to end because footsteps sounded nearby.

“Luca?”

“Yes?”

“If we try again, you can’t disappear when it gets difficult.”

“I won’t.”

“You might want to.”

“I probably will,” he admitted. “But I can tell you that I’m struggling without shutting you out.”

“And I might still be angry.”

“I expect so.”

I smiled despite myself.

“Good.”

He asked if he could come to Florence.

I stood with a spoon in my hand.

“When?”

“Sunday. If you’d like to see me.”

The answer was yes.

It arrived so quickly that I distrusted it.

“I’m not coming back with you.”

“I’m asking to visit.”

“I have work on Monday.”

“I know.”

“And a life here.”

“I’d like to see it.”

I looked around the little kitchen.

The uneven shelf. The drying rack crowded with chipped crockery. A cardigan hung over a chair because I still hadn’t found anywhere sensible to keep it.

“You won’t like my apartment.”

“I haven’t asked to see the apartment.”

“The walls are orange.”

“You warned me.”

“They’re worse in person.”

“Elena.”

I stopped.

“I want to see you.”

I put down the spoon.

“Lunch,” I said. “Somewhere near the workshop.”

“All right.”

“One o’clock.”

“I’ll be there.”

We said goodnight after I had eaten half my dinner.

This time, the silence that followed felt different.

I hadn’t forgiven him simply because he had called when he said he would.

But I had asked difficult questions, and he had stayed on the phone to answer them.

A message arrived while I was washing my bowl.

Send me the name of the restaurant you’ve chosen.

I typed the name of a small place two streets from the workshop.

Then I added:

Wear something that doesn’t frighten the waiter.

His reply came almost immediately.

I’ll leave the tie at home.

I laughed alone in my kitchen.

Then I saved Sunday in my calendar before I could pretend it was only lunch.