"Yes."
"Livia."
"I know."
"Livia."
"I know."
"The—" Her voice drops to a whisper so sharp it could cut glass. "The masked man? FromVenice?"
I say nothing, but my silence is a full confession.
"The man from that Chester Street Society thing five years ago? The one you said unlocked levels of pleasure so powerfulyou still picture him when with other men so you can get an orga—”
I start to cough, cheeks flaming. “Yes, yes. Him.”
She gasps. “Oh my God. And he's yourboss?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. "Apparently."
“Damn,” she breathes, the statement sliding into silence.
When Piper speaks again, her voice has shifted into the tone I privately think of as her crisis-planner register: still dramatic, but with a new layer of focused intensity underneath it, like someone who has assessed the disaster and is now deciding where to start.
"He recognized you."
"No."
"What?"
"He didn't recognize me." The words taste strange. "We were wearing masks, Pipe. The whole night. It was part of the…you know. We weren't supposed to know each other."
"So, he doesn't—" She stops. I can hear her recalibrating. "He has no idea."
"None."
"And Nico…"
"He looks like him,” I confirm, voice cracking. “Those eyes. His mouth…” I trail off.
"Liv," Piper says, and her voice is soft now. The loudness is entirely gone. "You okay, my love?"
"I don't know yet," I admit. "Ask me again when my hands stop shaking."
Piper exhales heavily. "You had a baby with a billionaire security god, and now he's your boss. And he has no idea."
"Please don't."
"I'm just—" She makes a sound. Half laugh, half disbelief. "This is either a lawsuit or a bestseller, and I genuinely cannot tell which yet."
Despite everything, despite the trembling hands and the dried coffee on my silk blouse and the persistent feeling that my life has just gone off some kind of map, I laugh along.
I sober up quickly, worry creeping in. "We’re not telling anyone," I mutter.
"Obviously. Obviously, we're not telling anyone. Come get your kid, he's been explaining door hinges to my ottoman for twenty minutes and I don't know how much longer I can hold out."
Piper's apartment is twelve blocks from the Ferretti building and on a different planet.
