“I know bringing him was highly unprofessional.”
"Still, too much.”
She smiles faintly without looking up.
Sunlight catches the side of her throat through the conference room glass.
I should leave. Instead, I remain exactly where I am watching her and thinking.
That expression from earlier keeps replaying in my head.
The way she looked at me with Nico. It wasn't flirtation or some ordinary attraction. It's something heavier.
Complicated.
Like she was seeing two realities at once.
I study her profile carefully.
The shape of her mouth. The nervous habit of twisting the ring on her right hand when stressed. The exhaustion beneath her composure. And beneath all of that, something else keeps pulling at me.
Recognition.
Impossible recognition.
I think about the photograph she snatched away yesterday like her life depended on it.
A strange pressure builds slowly behind my ribs.
I move closer before I fully decide to and Livia senses it immediately, her shoulders tightening slightly.
When she finally looks up, we stand alone in the conference room with afternoon sunlight cutting gold across the floor between us.
“How old is he?” I ask softly.
But I watch the exact second panic flashes across her face before she hides it. Too fast for most people to catch, but not for me.
Her fingers tighten around the stack of papers. “Nico?” she asks carefully.
“Yes.”
She stares wide-eyed for a second.
Then: “He turned four this spring.”
Chapter Nine
LIVIA
“Is that so?” He replies, his tone curious, intrigued.
I manage to escape the question by turning sharply toward the scattered papers on the conference table and pretending to organize them with urgent focus.
My heart pounds so hard I worry he might hear it.
Four years old this spring. The words hang between us like smoke.
I feel Valentino’s gaze on the side of my face, steady and unyielding, the kind of look that peels back layers until nothing remains hidden.
