Page 18 of Promised to the Don of Naples
"Ask him, Valentina."
My father stood and wiped his hands on the napkin. Then he kissed my forehead quickly, without affection, with the institutional coldness of a father going through the motions.
"I leave at eleven," he said before he went out. "Take care of yourself. And don't trust the man before the contract's signed."
He left, and I sat there holding the cold cup.
Summer of 2015. Matteo was twenty-eight. He was alive. He was alive and he'd gone to Capri every year until that one, and never again.
And I'd never thought about it.
I found Bianca in the rose garden at ten.
She hadn't left. She had a cream cashmere coat thrown over her shoulders, a glass of sparkling wine in her hand at ten in the morning, walking among the roses as if the house were hers. When she saw me, she came over smiling.
"Valentina! Good morning."
"Bianca."
"How did you sleep?"
"Like a bride."
"Ah." She laughed and took a sip of the sparkling wine. "I've been a bride in this house several times too, but I never got married."
"What a shame."
"Isn't it?" She took my arm with the familiarity of someone who'd grown up in a rich house and never learned that an arm is offered, not taken. "Walk with me. The roses smell different at this hour."
I walked. There was no way not to.
"I wanted to give you some advice," she said quietly, like someone offering a cigarette.
"I didn't ask for any."
"That's why it's advice." She smiled openly. "Advice you ask for is instruction. Real advice comes uninvited."
I didn't answer.
"Luca," she began, "has a very specific habit, Valentina. He takes the women he wants to keep close to a room in the house he doesn't use for anything else. An office, upstairs, with a mahogany desk facing the bay. You know it?"
My heart almost stopped for two seconds.
"No."
"You don't?"
"I already said no."
"How strange." She took another sip. "I thought he'd taken you there last night."
"He didn't."
"Hm." She smiled again. "Allora. Forget what I said."
We walked two more steps and she stopped. Then she looked at the sea down below.
"I'll tell you one thing, Valentina. Woman to woman. When he takes you there, takes off his jacket, rolls his sleeves to the elbow, and opens a leather folder on the desk—that's the signal, you know? He does that exact same gesture. With me, he did it in June 2018. Exactly the same. Same room, same gesture, same folder."
