She draped a dish towel over one shoulder and gave me a wink. “I’m fine. Hold on, let me get myself a glass of wine and we’ll have a proper talk. Your father’s still in his office. Do we need him?”
I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “I just need you.”
My mother’s expression softened at once in recognition.
“All right,” she said gently. “Give me one minute.”
She disappeared briefly, and I heard the faint clink of glass, the muffled sound of a cupboard door, then her voice somewhere off-screen telling one of the staff that she was done for the evening unless the house caught fire. A moment later she returned with a generous pour of red wine and settled herself at the kitchen island as if preparing for a strategy meeting.
Which, in her own way, she was.
“Now,” she said, folding one arm on the counter and looking at me with dangerous patience. “Tell me what happened.”
I exhaled. “You’re very certain something did.”
“Pietro.” One red brow arched. “You are video calling me from Boston at nine o’clock on a weekday. Something happened.”
Despite myself, the corner of my mouth moved.
“That is offensive.”
“It is accurate.”
I looked down at my phone, then back at her.
“I think I made a mistake tonight.”
Her expression did not change, except for something flickering in her eyes.
“With Emily?”
I froze.
My mother’s smile deepened, smug.
“You know about Emily?”
The question sounded foolish the moment it left my mouth. I knew better than most that privacy in our world was often little more than a carefully managed illusion.
“Of course I do,” she said. “I didn’t know who she was at first, but I know my son. The moment you came home for that meeting with New York, I knew you were smitten.”
Heat crawled up my neck hearing how transparent I had been.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
She lifted one shoulder and took a small sip of wine. “I was waiting for you to come to me.”
I saw the faint sadness beneath her smile and felt, for the first time, genuinely cowardly for it.
“Who told you?”
“Aunt Violet.”
My mother smiled slightly over the rim of her glass. “You should know by now that your uncle doesn’t keep secrets from her unless it would put her in danger. That’s their rule.”
I nodded quietly. It was the unspoken rule between them. Between my parents too. Secrets had done enough damage in this family already. Even if I did not know every detail of what had once happened between Hoka and Violet, I knew enough to understand that lies had nearly destroyed them.
