Page 117 of The Art of Ruin

It’s quick, but I see it, and it makes my stomach flip over.God, he’s handsome.

“I’m making grilled cheese,” I announce, because apparently avoiding any form of vulnerability means sprinting directly toward dairy and carbs.

He stands immediately. “You’re sitting down.”

“I’m not an invalid.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“You heavily implied it.”

“I implied you’re recovering.”

“I can make a sandwich.”

“I’m sure you can.”

“Then why are you following me?”

“To make it for you.”

I stop at the kitchen island and turn to face him. “Do you even know how to make grilled cheese?”

This time, he actually laughs.

Not loudly, but enough that it changes his whole face for a second, softening the stern mouth, deepening the lines at the corners of his eyes.

It’s deeply unfair how much this man affects me.

“I can make grilled cheese,” he says.

“You say that with so much confidence, like a man who doesn’t own several Michelin-starred restaurants and has never personally buttered bread.”

“I’ve buttered bread.”

“I’m not convinced.”

He moves past me, opening the refrigerator like he knows exactly where everything is, because of course he does. “Sit down before I change my mind and make you soup.”

“That’s not the threat you think it is. I like soup.”

“Yes, I remember.”

I sit, mostly because my body chooses that moment to remind me I’m not as recovered as my pride would like to believe, and also because there’s something secretly wonderful about watching Adriano Mancini roll up his sleeves to make me grilled cheese in a luxury ski lodge on New Year’s Eve.

He sets bread, butter, and cheese on the counter with more seriousness than the task requires.

“You’re very intense for a man making a sandwich.”

Adi grins at me, his eyes twinkling. “The sandwich deserves respect. Grilled cheese is seriously underrated.”

I bite my lip to stop smiling. “You should smile more.”

His hands pause for half a second on the butter knife. “I haven’t had much time or reason beyond Letty,” he says.

The answer is simple, but it takes some of the teasing out of me.

I watch him spread butter carefully to the edges of the bread, his movements sure, domestic in a way I wouldn’t have imagined from him a month ago. He looks too expensive for it, too composed, but somehow that makes it better. I’m nurturing a serious obsession with his forearms when he speaks again.