Chapter 3
I threw a pillow at Adrian while he fastened his watch.
"Your former fiancée is coming over the morning after our wedding? You know how to make a woman feel welcome."
He caught the pillow and put it back on the bed.
"It's a business meeting."
"Should I make toast and write awkward on it in jam?"
"She'll be here soon."
At breakfast, Salvatore sat near the head of the table with a stack of papers. My coffee went cold before I finished it. Adrian noticed and asked for another cup. I wanted to thank him. I also wanted him to understand that warm coffee would not make this less strange.
A guard's voice crackled from the radio on Salvatore's table. A gray sedan had followed Elena's car from the docks and was parked across the street. Salvatore saw the plate on Adrian's phone.
"Moretti," he said.
Adrian told the guard to bring Elena in and keep the sedan outside. At the gate, one of his men rested a hand on the gun at his hip. The gray car drove off. I set down my fresh coffee without tasting it.
A car stopped outside. Salvatore stood when Elena Voss entered.
Elena was thirty-two, the heir to the Voss shipping business and the woman taking charge of its charity foundation. She was taller than me, with chestnut hair pinned behind her head and a neat navy suit. Her eyes looked tired. Her perfume smelled faintly of iris. She carried her own files. Salvatore, who had barely risen for me, crossed the room to greet her.
"Nora," she said after greeting him.
"Congratulations."
She offered her hand. Her eyes dropped to my bare ring finger, then lifted again. She knew.
Adrian pulled out a chair for her. I spread too much jam on my toast and ate it anyway.
Elena covered half the table with files. Moretti's people had stopped one of her family's shipments. Several donors now doubted her foundation could keep paying for its hospital programs. St. Anne's children's ward was on the list.
Salvatore suggested a loan. Elena shook her head.
"That pays next month's bills. What happens after that?"
She knew every number and what it meant for nurses, supplies, and visits. I had wanted to dislike her. She was making that difficult.
"Saturday's charity gala is my chance to keep the main donor," she said.
"I need him to see the work can go on."
Adrian asked about the shipment. Elena found the right page at once. They argued over figures like people who had done this together for years. She would begin a thought, and he already knew where she was going.
I picked up my coffee, then remembered it was cold.
"Is that the gala at the hotel?" I asked Elena.
"The one that starts at eight?"
"Are you going?"
"My painting was chosen for the opening display."
I had sent it in before the wedding under my own name. Mom made me save three copies of the acceptance email because she was sure I would delete it by accident.
"The sunflower?" Elena asked.
"I saw it in the program."
"That's mine. I painted the one in my mother's room. She keeps it alive with two sticks and a lot of arguing."
Elena smiled and asked to see the painting. I told her she could when it was finished. It felt good to make one decision without looking at Adrian first.
After the meeting, Elena and Salvatore left to make calls. Adrian stayed behind.
"You didn't tell me your work was chosen," he said.
"You never asked what I do when I'm not signing your agreement."
He stopped stacking the papers.
"I'll be there Saturday."
"As a guest. Don't go onstage and explain my painting."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Good. You scare children. They'll think I painted a man-eating flower."
He smiled for a moment. I wanted him to keep looking at me that way.
Elena called from the doorway. Adrian took his jacket and went to her. She pointed to a number on a page and spoke too quietly for me to hear. He folded the corner down. Then he looked back at the gala program beside my cold coffee.