“Is there a problem?” I asked.
Emily answered before he could. “There is no problem. Daniel and I were discussing teaching material. He’s also a teaching assistant.”
“Ah.” I let my gaze drift back to him. “That explains it. A working session over coffee. In public. Very wholesome.”
Emily’s eyes widened a fraction at that, and Daniel let out a short laugh that held more resignation than humor.
“Well,” he said, glancing at Emily with something almost amused beneath the disappointment, “I suppose that explains why Mark never stood a chance.”
Emily stared at him. “Mark was never standing anywhere.”
I turned my head toward her. “Who is Mark?”
The question came out more evenly than I felt.
Daniel actually laughed.
Emily closed her eyes briefly, as if appealing to a God who had long since grown tired of her. “No one.”
No one,I repeated inwardly, filing the name away with immediate and profound dislike. I needed to know who Mark was. Not because I cared, obviously. Certainly not because some primitive part of my brain was already assessing whether he was huntable. That would have been insane.
I was not insane.
Probably.
Perhaps I should have called Matteo for advice.
The thought alone was enough to irritate me. At Christmas, I stood in a room with my father, Luca Montanari, Matteo Genovese, and my uncle Hoka, four men who controlled enough of the American underworld to reshape it at will, and listened while they spoke with unnerving seriousness about falling in love at first sight. They had called it the mafia curse, the one true chance at redemption, and I had mocked them as aging sentimental fools.
And yet.
I looked back at Emily, at her hand still trapped beneath mine, at the faint color in her cheeks and the sharp awareness in her eyes, and felt something in me with quiet, dangerous certainty.
Jesus Christ.
Was this what they had meant?
Daniel looked between us one last time, then let out a breath that sounded halfway between resignation and reluctant amusement.
“Right,” he said, pushing his chair back. “I think this is probably my cue to stop pretending I’m part of this conversation.”
“Daniel,” Emily said, her tone sharpening with mortification.
He offered her a small, apologetic smile. “It’s fine. Really. I’m not in the habit of competing with men who look like they have opinions on dueling.”
That, at least, almost made me like him.
He picked up his coffee and glanced at me. “Nice meeting you, Pietro.”
“It was educational,” I said.
His mouth twitched. “I’m sure.”
Then he nodded once to Emily and left, taking his jacket with him and whatever remained of this absurd little triangle along with it.
The silence he left behind was brief but loaded.
Emily looked down at our hands, then very deliberately at me. “You can let go now.”
