Page 144 of Ricardo

Julia, with her careful heart.

Julia, who worries about Dante before she worries about herself.

Julia, who has already had too many people make decisions around her and call it care.

My hand tightens around the arm of my chair.

Mario is right about one thing.

If I am not careful, protection can become its own kind of damage.

And I refuse to make Julia pay for what Liliana broke all those years ago.

Chapter Nineteen

Julia

“—and the second tier should include the civic partnerships,” Owen says, tapping the end of his pen against the printed list in front of him. “Police foundation, children’s hospital, port redevelopment board, arts council, scholarship fund, the mayor’s literacy initiative—”

“The mayor’s literacy initiative has three boards attached to it,” Patrice says from the other side of the conference table. “If we invite everyone connected to it, we are giving them half a table.”

Mario sits at the head of the table, one hand resting near his coffee, his expression calm. “Who matters?”

Owen flips through his notes. “The program director is well-liked. The donors are visible. The chair has the best connections.”

“The chair,” I say.

Four heads turn toward me.

My fingers still on the edge of my folder.

Mario looks at me, unreadable. “Why?”

Because the program director does the work, the donors do the preening, and the chair decides which wealthy people are going to hear about it at dinner.

I do not say it exactly like that.

“Nora Whitcomb Farley has the strongest overlap with the hospital board and the education committee,” I say. “If the goal is civic legitimacy instead of publicity, she is the better invitation.”

Owen glances down at his list. “I will send her an invitation then.”

“No hyphen,” I say.

He looks up again.

“It’s Nora Whitcomb Farley, no hyphen. She's a stickler about it. She once returned an entire sponsor packet because the foundation hyphenated it.”

Patrice makes a note. “Good to know.”

“Sounds like a terrifying woman,” Lorenzo says from near the window, where he has been reviewing the donor spreadsheet for the last twenty minutes.

“You are not wrong about that,” I say.

That earns me a small, amused sound from Lorenzo, and some of the tension in my shoulders eases.

I am doing fine.

That has become my quiet refrain since I walked into this conference room forty minutes ago. I am sitting at the long table with the gala binder open in front of me, a pen in my hand, and a copy of the proposed guest list marked with tabs.