The estate's dining room was too formal for pasta.
That was the first thing I noticed when Lucian led me through the double doors, the long mahogany table that seated twenty, the crystal decanters, the ambient lighting that Aunt Emilia had clearly designed for state dinners rather than Tuesday evenings with two small children and a man who had spent the day dismantling a media empire. Trisha had already climbed onto one of the high-backed chairs and was eyeing the crystal decanters with the focused interest of a six-year-old who had decided they were a challenge.
Ava sat beside her, small and watchful as always, her dark eyes tracking the room with the quiet attentiveness that she had carried since birth and that sometimes made me feel she understood considerably more than three-year-old
