Chapter 2 - The Bracelet He Never Meant Me to See
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Sofia still held my wrist.
Marco stood beside me looking like a man whose carefully constructed world had just developed a crack through the center.
I looked from the bracelet to him.
“Two years?”
Marco recovered first.
“My mother is confused.”
Sofia’s eyes narrowed.
“I am seventy, Marco. Not senile.”
“Your birthday isn’t until next Saturday.”
“That is what you decided to correct?”
I almost laughed.
Almost.
But my heart was beating too loudly.
Marco had supposedly given his mother the bracelet two years ago.
To keep for me.
Why?
He had met me two years and three months ago.
I had become his assistant two years ago.
And somewhere during those months, without my knowing, he had apparently chosen jewelry for me.
Marco gently removed his mother’s fingers from my wrist.
“We’ll talk later.”
Sofia smiled.
“Oh, we certainly will.”
Then she hugged me.
Not the polite embrace she had given me at business dinners.
A real hug.
A dangerous hug.
The kind mothers give women they have already mentally married to their sons.
“Welcome home, sweetheart.”
Home.
That word should not have felt so good.
Marco’s sisters arrived seconds later.
Isabella screamed when she saw us.
Lucia demanded details.
Two cousins appeared from nowhere.
Within ten minutes, the entire Ricci family knew Marco and I were supposedly together.
And within fifteen, everyone seemed convinced except me.
Marco played the role effortlessly.
His hand found mine as we crossed rooms.
He remembered to pull out my chair.
When his uncle asked how we started dating, Marco described our fictional late-night dinner with such detail that even I almost believed it.
“We were working,” he said.
“At Belladonna?” Lucia asked.
Marco nodded.
“Kitchen had closed.”
I looked at him.
“You convinced the chef to reopen it.”
His eyes met mine.
“You were hungry.”
That part wasn’t fictional.
It had actually happened fourteen months earlier.
I had been working late.
Marco had noticed I hadn’t eaten.
He had called one of his chefs back into the kitchen just to make pasta.
At the time, I had convinced myself he was simply being kind.
Now I wasn’t sure of anything.
Lunch became an interrogation disguised as Italian hospitality.
“When did you first kiss?” Isabella asked.
I choked on sparkling water.
Marco calmly answered, “She doesn’t remember.”
I kicked him beneath the table.
His mouth twitched.
“I remember perfectly,” I said.
Sofia watched us like she was collecting evidence.
“So when?”
I froze.
Marco leaned toward me.
His fingers brushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
My breath caught.
“On the terrace outside my office,” he said quietly.
His eyes never left mine.
“It was raining.”
The table erupted.
Everyone loved it.
I didn’t.
Because Marco’s office terrace was exactly where I had realized I loved him.
Two years earlier.
It had been raining.
We hadn’t kissed.
But I had stood beneath the awning with him while Manhattan disappeared behind sheets of water.
Marco had removed his jacket and placed it around my shoulders.
“You remember that night?” I whispered when the family conversation moved elsewhere.
Marco took a drink.
“Yes.”
“Why did you choose it?”
“It sounded believable.”
Another perfectly reasonable answer.
I hated perfectly reasonable answers.
That afternoon, Marco showed me our room.
Our room.
One room.
One bed.
I stopped in the doorway.
“No.”
Marco looked around.
“What?”
“One bed.”
“Yes.”
“You said we’d have separate rooms.”
“I requested connecting suites.”
“And?”
“My mother changed the arrangement.”
Of course she did.
The bedroom overlooked the ocean.
White curtains moved in the breeze.
A king-sized bed stood in the center like an accusation.
“I’ll sleep on the sofa,” Marco said.
I looked at the small sofa near the window.
“You’re six-foot-three.”
“I’ve slept in worse places.”
That sentence reminded me that there were still parts of Marco’s life I knew nothing about.
“Marco.”
“Yes?”
“The bracelet.”
His shoulders tightened.
“Emily—”
“Your mother said—”
“My mother enjoys drama.”
“She seemed pretty specific.”
He turned toward me.
“For this week to work, we need to focus on convincing my family.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“Yes.”
At least he admitted it.
“Why?”
Marco stared at me for a long moment.
Then someone knocked.
His expression closed.
“I’ll get it.”
Isabella entered carrying two glasses of champagne.
“Mom wants everyone downstairs in twenty minutes.”
Then she saw Marco’s suitcase beside the sofa.
“You are not sleeping there.”
Marco’s jaw tightened.
“I’m not discussing my sleeping arrangements with my younger sister.”
“You’re forty months older than me.”
“Leave.”
She smiled at me.
“He gets bossy when nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“You’ve reorganized your watch twice.”
Marco looked down.
He had.
Isabella disappeared laughing.
That evening, the family held dinner outdoors beneath strings of lights.
The Atlantic rolled beyond the lawn.
For several hours, I forgot the relationship was fake.
Marco’s family told stories about him.
Most were humiliating.
At nine, Sofia brought out old photographs.
There was Marco at seven years old wearing a pirate costume.
Marco at twelve holding a soccer trophy.
Marco at twenty looking painfully handsome and deeply annoyed at a university graduation.
Then Sofia produced a photograph that made Marco reach across the table.
“That’s enough.”
I grabbed it first.
The photograph showed Marco sitting on the steps of the estate two summers earlier.
He wasn’t looking at the camera.
He was looking at his phone.
And smiling.
I had never seen that expression on his face.
Not like that.
Soft.
Unprotected.
Completely unaware.
Sofia leaned toward me.
“Do you know what he was looking at?”
“Mom.”
She ignored him.
“You had just sent him a photograph.”
My heart stopped.
“What photograph?”
Marco took the picture.
“Enough.”
I remembered.
Two summers earlier, during my first months working for him, I had been stuck at his Manhattan office while he stayed in the Hamptons.
A stray kitten had somehow gotten into the building lobby.
I had sent Marco a photograph of myself holding it.
His response had been three words.
Looks like trouble.
That was it.
I had saved the message anyway.
After dinner, I escaped to the beach.
The air was cold enough to clear my head.
Footsteps approached behind me.
Marco.
“You disappeared.”
“I needed air.”
He stood beside me.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then I said, “You kept the bracelet for two years.”
“Yes.”
The admission was so quiet I almost missed it.
I turned.
“Why?”
Marco stared toward the ocean.
“Because I made a mistake.”
My chest tightened.
“What mistake?”
“Thinking I could give it to you.”
I didn’t understand.
“Why couldn’t you?”
His jaw worked.
“Because you worked for me.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“No.”
I waited.
Marco laughed once without humor.
“You should stop asking questions tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because I might answer them.”
My heart began pounding again.
“Maybe I want you to.”
He looked at me.
The wind caught my hair.
Marco lifted one hand as though he might touch my face.
He stopped inches away.
“Emily.”
My name sounded different in his voice.
Dangerous.
Tender.
Almost like a confession.
Then he stepped back.
“We should go inside.”
Coward.
I wanted to say it.
Instead I followed him.
That night, Marco insisted on sleeping on the sofa.
I lay awake watching moonlight move across the ceiling.
Around two in the morning, I heard his phone vibrate.
Marco answered quietly.
“What?”
Silence.
Then his voice changed completely.
Cold.
Controlled.
Powerful.
“When?”
Another silence.
I sat up.
Marco stood beside the window.
“No. Don’t contact anyone else.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“That didn’t sound like nothing.”
He turned.
For the first time that week, I saw the man people whispered about.
Not violent.
Not reckless.
But dangerous because he remained calm when anyone else would panic.
“Go back to sleep.”
“Marco.”
His gaze shifted to the bracelet on my wrist.
Then to me.
“Someone accessed my private office in Manhattan tonight.”
I froze.
“Was anything stolen?”
“One thing.”
“What?”
He hesitated.
“A file.”
“What file?”
Marco said nothing.
I climbed from the bed.
“What was in it?”
He looked toward the dark ocean.
Then finally answered.
“Information about you.”
Every bit of warmth left the room.
“Why do you have a private file about me?”
“Because two years ago, someone started asking questions about you.”
My pulse accelerated.
“Who?”
“I never found out.”
“What questions?”
Marco’s face hardened.
“Your family. Your childhood. Your parents.”
I swallowed.
“My parents are dead.”
“I know.”
“Then why would anyone care?”
Marco stared at me.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to understand.”
A cold sensation traveled down my spine.
“Was the file important?”
“Yes.”
“What did it contain?”
Marco looked directly at me.
“A photograph of your mother.”
I almost laughed from confusion.
“What?”
“The photograph was taken twenty-six years ago.”
“Okay.”
“At this house.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“My mother was never here.”
Marco said nothing.
“She couldn’t have been.”
Still nothing.
I stepped closer.
“Marco.”
He reached into his phone and opened an image.
Then handed it to me.
The photograph was old.
A summer party.
Young Sofia Ricci stood near the terrace.
Beside her was another woman.
Blonde.
Beautiful.
Laughing.
My knees nearly gave out.
I knew that face.
I had seen it in photographs my entire childhood.
“My mother.”
Marco nodded.
But there was someone else in the picture.
A man standing behind her.
Marco’s father.
Vittorio Ricci.
And he wasn’t simply standing near my mother.
His hand was resting possessively against her waist.
I looked at Marco.
“What does this mean?”
Before he could answer, another voice came from behind us.
Sofia.
She stood in the doorway wearing a white robe.
Her face had gone pale.
“You found the photograph.”
Marco turned sharply.
“Mom?”
Sofia looked at me.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I hoped you would never see that.”
I couldn’t move.
“Why?”
She entered slowly.
“Because your mother didn’t die in the accident you were told about.”
The room tilted.
“What?”
Sofia took my hands.
And whispered:
May you like
“Emily, your mother died protecting this family.”
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