Page 185 of Diego

“You’d better get used to it.” She starts carrying things to the counter and unpacking them. “Food is basically the Conti love language.”

I look at the growing collection and shake my head. “That explains a lot.”

“It really does.” She glances at me with a smile. “If they like you, they feed you. If they’re worried about you, they feed you more. If they’re trying not to hover, they send food instead.”

I think about how much food was in the fridge from the last round. “So this is restraint?”

“More or less.”

“That is terrifying.”

Victoria laughs again and hands me one of the containers. “Welcome to the family.”

By late afternoon, the temperature has dropped enough that Victoria and I give up on the terrace and move inside. The lake is still visible through the windows, but the wind has picked up, pushing against the glass in soft bursts that make the warmth of the living room considerably more appealing.

Leonardo lasts another twenty minutes before surrendering completely.

He is asleep now on a thick blanket Victoria spread across the floor, one arm flung over his head and one socked foot sticking out from beneath the light throw she draped over him.

I have spent enough of the afternoon watching him stagger between furniture, pull himself onto things he should not be climbing, and attempt to carry objects nearly as large as he is, that seeing him now motionless feels almost suspicious.

“He really just stops like that?” I ask.

Victoria looks down at him from the other end of the sofa. “Eventually. It takes a lot of energy to cause that much trouble.”

I smile and pull my legs a little closer beneath me. We have been talking for most of the afternoon, nothing particularly heavy, which has been unexpectedly nice. She has told me a little about her work, I have told her more about Meridian than I intended, and somewhere between lunch and Leonardo passing out, the fact that she is married to Mario Conti stopped feeling like the most relevant thing about her.

The front door opens while Victoria is telling me about a case she once worked that involved three executives, two shell companies, and a man stupid enough to leave an incriminating voicemail.

I hear Diego before I see him.

His footsteps cross the entryway, followed by the quiet scrape of the door closing, and I feel the tension leave my body.

That reaction annoys me a little.

I have spent the entire afternoon perfectly fine. Better than fine, actually. Victoria is good company, Leonardo is entertaining, and at no point have I needed Diego for anything. Yet the second I realize he is home, something inside me settles.

I am going to have to examine that eventually.

Preferably much later.

Diego appears at the entrance to the living room a moment later, jacket folded over one arm and his phone in his hand. His gaze finds me first, then Victoria, then drops to the sleeping child on the floor.

“You exhausted him.” His tone is almost accusatory at finding his nephew asleep.

Victoria looks toward Leonardo. “He exhausted himself.”

Diego walks farther into the room and drapes his jacket over the back of a chair. “How long has he been out?”

“Almost an hour now.”

He nods, then looks at me again. His attention moves over me quickly, subtle enough that Victoria might not notice but obvious to me after living with him for two weeks.

“How was the meeting?” Victoria asks.

“Productive.” He drops his phone onto the table. “Mario was right. The client needed me there. Don't tell him I said that,” he warns.

Victoria smiles. “I would never. He’d be insufferable.”