Chapter 5: Staff Table

I gave Dominic three rules in my father's study, with Aurelio holding the door.

"One. You don't touch me."

"Ila."

"Two. Gemma never sits at my table."

His mouth tightened, but he nodded once.

"Three. Every day you're in my house, you tell me one true thing."

"About what?"

"About anything. You pick. If I catch you lying, you're on the next plane."

He looked at me for a long time.

"That's all?"

"That's more than you ever gave me."

Something moved across his face, quick and ugly, and he let it go.

"Fine."

"Dinner is at eight," Aurelio said. "Signor Ferraro will want to wash."

He did.

When he came down at eight in a borrowed black shirt of Nico's that stretched across his shoulders, the dining room was already full.

Nico sat at the foot of the long table with a napkin tucked into his collar.

Aurelio sat at my right.

The empty chair on my left was for Dominic.

My father's chair at the head was empty, and I had put a single white rose on the plate.

Dominic stopped in the doorway when he saw it.

He looked at the rose a long time before he sat.

"The pasta is my mother's recipe," I said, as the housekeeper brought out the dish. "She taught me when I was nine."

"You made her gnocchi at our house."

"Your mother thought I found the recipe at a market."

"You said you did."

"That was my first lie to her. I'm sorry for it."

He picked up his fork and set it down again.

"That's more than I expected," he said. "Thank you."

Nico leaned across the table.

"Signor Ferraro, I want to apologize for the gardener comment at the gate."

"I never said you were a gardener."

"No, but you thought it." Nico beamed. "It's all right. I do a little hedge work. On weekends."

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