I glanced at my phone. The travel confirmation was still on the screen.
I'd be back in the old neighborhood soon.
I couldn't be bothered to argue with him.
"You're right. I was being unreasonable."
"It won't happen again."
When he saw my reaction, his expression went blank for a split second.
I figured he'd been bracing for me to do what I always did:
demand to know when he'd finally make it official between us,
demand to know why he and Gemma Russo were still so tangled up,
but the one thing he hadn't expected was me conceding.
After a few seconds of silence, he tossed out a "Suit yourself" and walked out.
He didn't come back to our rooms that night.
The next morning I went down to the operation as usual.
I could let go of Lorenzo, but the business he and I had built carried every ounce of my blood and sweat. We'd sworn it into existence together, partners in trust, and my forty-nine points were no small thing.
Even if I was leaving, I needed to make sure everything was in order first.
Besides, I'd still be drawing my cut of the earnings, year after year.
I was in the middle of working out who I'd raise up to run the floor in my place, so I could keep my hand in from the old quarter, when Renata Conti appeared at the end of the corridor, her face drained of color.
She was a seasoned associate who'd been in the trenches with me through more arrangements and sit-downs than I could count.
I had never seen her look this rattled.
"Adriana, last night we were sending the tribute figures up to Lorenzo. Gemma said he was asleep, that she'd handle the handoff herself."
"But she let our bottom-line numbers go straight to the connect along with everything else."
"Now they're demanding we shave twenty percent off the tribute, and our margin barely clears thirty."
Her voice cracked.
"We've been working this arrangement for six months. If we hold the line, we eat the loss. If we walk, we lose the connect for good."
I nodded as she spoke and pushed open the door to Lorenzo's office.
Gemma was lying on her side on the sofa while Lorenzo spooned sweet wine into her mouth, one careful sip at a time.
That sofa was the same one Lorenzo had brought in for me back when we first put the operation together,
back when he'd had to force me to rest.
He'd said: "This room is yours. You close your eyes here, no one disturbs you."
So even when we moved the operation, bought our own building, gutted it and rebuilt it from the studs,
I'd had that sofa moved here with everything else.
Now another woman was stretched out on it, and he was at her side, tending to her like something precious.
Just the way he'd once tended to me.
Something caught in my chest, but strangely, it didn't hurt anymore.
The moment Gemma saw me, she sat up.
"Adriana, please don't misunderstand. I felt so guilty I fainted, and that's the only reason Lorenzo was giving me the wine."
I still remembered that the first time she met Lorenzo, she'd called him "the boss's husband." Somewhere along the way it had become just "Lorenzo."
I didn't acknowledge her. I walked straight to Lorenzo's desk and laid the report down in front of him, slow and deliberate, so the sound of it would sit in the room.
"At the price they're asking now, if we want to keep this connect, we bleed a hundred and seventy thousand."
I swept my gaze over both of them.
"Which one of you is covering that?"
Gemma's fingers drifted to her lower lip, and her eyes reddened on cue.
"It's all my fault. I just didn't want to wake Lorenzo. He was so exhausted, I felt sick over it."
"I'll go to Mr. Lee myself, right now. I'll beg him if I have to."
Lorenzo stared at the file with a deep frown but made no move to stop her.
Renata and I stood right where we were, and neither of us lifted a finger either.
Gemma froze, stuck. She'd backed herself into a corner with nowhere left to go.
I folded my arms and watched her.
"Gemma, crying and begging don't close arrangements."
She tossed aside the cashmere blanket and took two steps before crumpling to the floor.
The performance was so clumsy that engaging with it would've insulted my own intelligence.
But Lorenzo, the man they called a brilliant earner, bought every second of it.
He helped Gemma up and settled her gently back onto the sofa.
"Adriana, you always have to be so aggressive."
