Page 70 of Ruthless Sin
Cassia’s hand stills on the table, just for a second. Then Renzo sees me. Then the quiet comes down the table one face at a time like a hand smoothing a cloth.
Dante is the last one.
He turns his head. He sees me.
“You’re late,” he says. He doesn’t look at Nico when he says it. He looks at me.
I walk to my chair. I sit.
My shoulders drop a quarter inch. I didn’t know they were up.
His hand moves to Cassia’s belly without him thinking about it, just lands there, sure.
Renzo lifts his glass at me. Small. Sideways. No words.
Then Dante looks down the table at the man in the dark suit.
“Mila. Luca Valentino.” A beat. “A family friend.”
Luca lifts his glass to me. One degree of his chin. No words. His eyes are dark and still and he gives me exactly as much as I give him.
I nod once.
Nico’s arm is beside mine at the table. I knew it would be. Maria set the chair. Knowing it and feeling it are not the same thing. The warmth of him reaches me before I’ve decided to let it. His sleeve brushes mine when he reaches for the water. I put my hands in my lap.
The warmth of his thigh is close to mine under the table. I don’t move toward it. I don’t move away.
Nonna comes around with the first course.
I eat.
Small portions. Bread first, then the vegetables, then half the meat. I watched Nonna cook this morning: pots on the stove I have been let close enough to see, steam and garlic and the Sicilian tomato she makes for Dante’s birthday. I can eat what came out of pots I’ve seen.
Giada is across from me not watching. Her eyes are on her plate, on her wine, on the far wall, but she misses nothing. She has been doing this since I arrived. She does not pretend she isn’t a doctor.
I watch Luca.
Not directly.
His glass sits between courses exactly where he set it. He picks it up only when he means to drink. He doesn’t reach for his glass unless he means to drink from it. He doesn’t fill silences. When Marco makes a joke and the table laughs, Luca’s mouthmoves, not quite a smile, something more private, and he looks at his plate.
Then Marco says something to Giada and she answers and Luca turns his head one degree in her direction and then turns it back. Away from her. Like a man who has decided not to look, and who made that decision a long time ago, and who is still paying for it. I know that posture. I have worn it.
I look at my bread.
I don’t look back up for a full minute.
Marco stands halfway through the first course.
“Dante taught me that you toast the man on his birthday. You toast the woman beside him longer.”
He turns to Cassia.
“Donna. To the next Santoro. May he have his uncle’s mouth and his mother’s discipline.”
Cassia laughs into the wine she isn’t drinking. Dante’s hand stays on her belly. The whole table laughs in a wave.
I don’t laugh. It is a good thing, what he said. It is a good table. That is what’s making my throat tight. The goodness of it, which I have no practice receiving.
