Chapter 3: Two Years, Three Months
The woman in the silver dress was still watching me.
Her eyes hadn't moved.
Her expression hadn't changed.
She was waiting, and she was very good at it.
Giovanni's hand stayed firm at my back.
A quiet signal.
A reminder.
I looked at his mother and said, "Two years.
Three months."
Something shifted in her face.
Not much.
Just enough.
"You speak quickly," she said.
Her accent was precise.
Clipped at the edges.
"I'm a nurse.
We learn to think on our feet."
She looked at Giovanni.
"A nurse."
"Her name is Jessica," he said.
"And yes."
"You never mentioned a wife."
"You never asked."
That landed between them like something heavy dropped on marble.
The older man from the nearby table had drifted closer.
He was pretending to look toward the bar, but his body was angled toward us.
Giovanni's mother extended one hand toward me.
Not warm.
Not hostile.
Formal, the way a border crossing is formal.
"Renata Fierro," she said.
I shook it.
"Jessica."
"Jessica Fierro," she corrected.
I didn't flinch.
"Yes."
Renata studied me for another long moment.
Then she turned back to her son and spoke in Italian again, longer this time, her voice dropping.
Giovanni answered in English.
Deliberately.
"This is not the place."
"Then we will find a place," Renata said.
She looked at me one final time, and there was something in it that wasn't quite a threat — but wasn't far from one either.
"Enjoy the rest of the evening."
She walked away without waiting for a response.
The older man at the nearby table followed her.
I exhaled slowly.
"How did I do?" I asked.
"Well enough," Giovanni said.
"She'll want to meet again.
Privately."
"That wasn't part of the arrangement."
"No," he agreed.
"It wasn't."
The orchestra was still playing.
We were still moving.
But the ease had gone out of it.
I was aware of every hand on my back, every person in the room who might be watching.
"Who is she?" I asked.
"Not your mother.
I mean — who is she?"
"The person who controls the family trust," Giovanni said.
"And the board vote next Thursday.
And the opinion of every person in this room who matters financially."
"And the arranged marriage?"
"Her idea.
The associate's daughter is twenty-two.
Renata has been managing the situation for eight months."
"Does the daughter know it's arranged?"
"She knows she's been introduced to me four times at dinners her father organized." He paused.
"She brought her own boyfriend to the last one."
I almost laughed again.
"So she's trying to get out of it too."
"She is."
"Then why not just tell your mother no?"
Giovanni was quiet for a moment.
The kind of quiet that has weight behind it.
"Because the trust transfers to my brother if I'm not married by the end of the fiscal year," he said.
"My brother is not a careful man."
I processed that.
"So this isn't just about one dance."
"No."
"Or one evening."
"No."
I looked up at him.
He met my eyes without apology.
There was something almost admirable about that — the complete absence of pretense, now that the pretense was no longer needed.
"How long?" I asked.
"Six weeks.
Possibly eight.
Long enough to satisfy the terms of the trust review."
"And then?"
"And then you go back to your life," he said.
"With compensation that would make your current situation considerably more comfortable."
Across the room, Tyler was still watching.
Vanessa had her hand on his arm now, saying something.
He wasn't listening to her.
I thought about Lily.
About the one-bedroom apartment.
About the bill I'd moved to the back of the pile three weeks ago because I couldn't face it yet.
"I haven't agreed to anything," I said.
"I know."
"I don't know you."
"Also true."
"This is still insane."
"Still probably," he said.
"But your ex-husband has been watching you for the last four minutes, and you haven't looked at him once.
Whatever you decide — you've already won something tonight."
The song ended.
The applause was polite.
Scattered.
Giovanni stepped back and offered a small, formal bow.
The kind that belonged to a different century.
Then his phone lit up in his breast pocket.
He glanced at it.
Something crossed his face — there and gone.
"I need to make a call," he said.
"Will you wait?"
"I don't know yet."
He nodded.
Like that was a reasonable answer.
Like he'd expected nothing else.
He walked toward the far corridor.
I stood alone on the edge of the dance floor.
And then Vanessa appeared at my shoulder.
"So," she said softly.
"Giovanni Fierro." She said his name like she was tasting it.
May you like
"That's interesting, Jess.
That's very interesting."
