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* * *

At six, I opened my door to find Alexander waiting exactly as he said he would be.

I had changed into an ivory sweater dress and taken a few extra minutes to straighten my hair. It felt strangely indulgent to tend to myself and enjoy an evening out after a day spent surrounded by damage assessments and inventory reports. A beautiful night barely thirty hours after the worst day I’d had here. Part of me wanted to call it off. It felt too soon. The other part reminded me that perhaps it was time to stop postponing my life.

His eyes met mine.

“You look beautiful, Emilia.”

Warmth rose immediately to my face. “Thank you.”

“Ready?”

I nodded. He held his arm out and I took it.

A car was waiting for us outside our building. We drove off without Alexander giving the driver an address. We crossed the city as the evening lights were brightening. Somewhere in the West Village, the car slowed and stopped on a street I didn’t know.

He led me down a narrow passage between two buildings, to a door I would have never found on my own. He offered me his hand as I stepped over the uneven stone threshold. His hand was warm and certain as it closed around mine. He didn’t release it once we were through the doorway. Neither did I.

The courtyard beyond the doorway was small. Climbing ivy softened the old stone walls and strings of lights sparkled overhead. A low fireplace burned steadily along the back wall, its flames illuminating the floor near it. A discreet standing heater glowed beside a table already set for two, keeping the evening chill at a respectful distance.

Beneath an ancient olive tree, a guitarist coaxed Spanish melodies, the performance made only for Alexander and me. I stopped and looked around. It was lovelier than anything I could have expected. When I finally turned toward Alexander, he wasn’t looking toward the courtyard at all. He was watching me take it in, as though my wonder was what he had come for.

It was perfect.

Alexander pulled out my chair before taking his own. I sat down, my eyes wandering once more around the courtyard. The fire burned softly, the string lights twinkled, and the music danced through the evening air.

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.

“It is.”

Our wine arrived. Alexander waited until the server had stepped away before looking at me.

“Tell me,” he said. “How are you doing?”

Even though I knew the question would come, it still caught me off guard. I hadn’t given myself much time to feel anything at all. “It’s been harder than I expected,” I admitted. “Not because we’ll rebuild. We will.” I turned the wineglass slowly between my fingers. “For a few hours I thought we might have lost Aurora before we ever understood what it could become.”

He held my gaze and then reached for his wine. “To Aurora.”

I smiled. Even here, after everything, that was the first thing he chose to celebrate. I lifted my own glass.

“To Aurora.”

Crystal met crystal. We drank. The melody changed again, and for a little while we listened to it play. Alexander swirled the wine in his glass before looking at me.

“What’s the first place you remember loving?”

“My grandmother’s kitchen,” I said. “It was in Palermo, in a narrow stone house with green shutters that never quite closed properly. The floor was covered in old, patterned tiles. There was always something simmering on the stove. I don’t think I ever saw my grandmother sitting down. She was always kneading dough or stirring sauce or telling someone they weren’t eating enough.”

The corner of Alexander’s mouth lifted. I continued. “The windows were always open. You could hear people talking in the street below, church bells somewhere in the distance, and my grandfather pretending he wasn’t stealing pieces of bread before dinner.”

I looked down at my wine for a moment. “I used to think the whole world smelled like tomatoes, basil, and fresh bread. For a long time, I thought home would always smell like that.”

Alexander was quiet. “I can almost see it,” he said.

“It still feels real when I think about it.” I watched Alexander over the rim of my glass. “And you? The first place you remember loving.”

His expression softened. “The library. It wasn’t especially remarkable to anyone else. Shelves from floor to ceiling. A ladder that never felt entirely safe. One window facing east. The light was different there in the mornings.”