Before the Council Named Me Donna Chapter 09

Before the Council Named Me Donna Chapter 09

Two days later, the Florence studio sent the countersigned contract.

Not only had they kept the position open, they had upgraded it. The Medici reliquary project was now mine to lead, with relocation covered, a private apartment near the Arno, and enough discretion written into the contract that no De Luca lawyer could turn my pregnancy into a family negotiation.

For the first time in weeks, I smiled before I remembered to stop.

Nico appeared behind me in the Rossi townhouse garden as if summoned by bad timing and worse manners.

“What happened?” he asked. “You look almost happy. Should I be concerned?”

I closed the email and looked at him. “Florence confirmed everything.”

His mouth curved. “Then I suppose you owe me dinner.”

“I owe you?”

“I provided medical escort, legal interference, emotional restraint, and exceptional company. That is at least dinner.”

I should have refused on principle, but the scan had gone well, my flight clearance was signed, and for once, I wanted to sit somewhere that did not smell like lawyers, hospitals, or old grief.

So I let him take me to a small Italian restaurant behind a private gallery in SoHo, the kind of place with no sign outside and men at three tables pretending not to carry weapons under tailored jackets.

Nico ordered without asking, then glanced at me. “You still hate mushrooms unless they’re shaved over pasta.’

I stared at him.

He shrugged. “I pay attention.”

That should not have moved me, but it did. Matteo had known how I took coffee. Nico remembered what I hated, what I avoided, what I loved before I learned to make myself convenient for someone else.

Halfway through dinner, I saw Matteo through the window.

He stood outside in a black coat, thinner from sleeplessness, his eyes fixed on Nico’s hand resting near mine on the table. Nico followed my gaze and, instead of moving away, lifted his glass in a lazy toast.

Matteo came in.

“Elena,” he said, voice rough. “Are you with him now?”

I set down my fork. “No. Don’t make everyone as faithless as you.’”

The words struck cleanly. Matteo’s face tightened, but he did not look away.

“Give me one chance to fix this.”

“There is nothing to fix.”

“We have a child.”

“I have a child,” I said. “You have a chance to become someone decent enough to be near that child, if I allow it.”

His throat moved. “I know what I did was wrong.’

“I’m glad Vanessa came back,” I said.

He flinched.

“If she hadn’t, I might have spent years mistaking your hesitation for depth.”

Matteo looked as though I had cut him somewhere no one else could see. Then his gaze shifted to Nico, and shame turned into something easier.

“I trusted you,” he said.

Nico leaned back. “No, you tolerated me because I was useful and not stupid enough to call us friends.”

Matteo’s jaw hardened. “You waited for my marriage to fall apart.”

“I watched you drop it piece by piece,” Nico said. “There’s a difference.”

The silence between them sharpened.

Then Matteo looked back at me, desperate enough to reach for the one thing he thought would still bind us.

“You’re carrying a De Luca heir.”

For a second, the old wound opened. The title, the family, the child inside me-he still knew exactly where power lived.

Before I could answer, Nico’s hand covered mine, warm but not trapping.

“She is carrying her child,” he said calmly. “If you need a bloodline to make a woman matter, that explains why you lost her.”

Matteo went pale.

I looked at him and felt the last of my anger loosen into something colder, cleaner, almost peaceful.

“Goodbye, Matteo.”

He stood there as if waiting for me to take it back, but I had spent too long taking back my own pain to spare his. At last, he turned and left, the door closing behind him without drama.

For a while, neither Nico nor I spoke,

Then he looked down at our untouched plates and sighed.

“That was terrible for the pasta.”

I stared at him, then laughed despite myself.

The sound surprised me. It was small, but it was real.

Nico released my hand at once, as if he knew the difference between comfort and claim.

“I meant what I said before,” he told me. “Take your time.”

“I’m leaving for Florence.”

“I know.”
“I’m not promising you anything.”

“I know that too.”

I looked at him, waiting for the joke, the pressure, the clever line that would make it easier to dismiss him.

He only smiled.

“I’ll settle for being first on the list when you decide you’re ready to be annoyed internationally.”

This time, I did not hide my smile.

“Order dessert, Nico.”

His eyes warmed. “Two?”

I rested one hand over my stomach and looked toward the dark window, where Matteo’s reflection was gone and only my own remained.

“Three,” I said. “One of us is eating for a future.”

Nico laughed and called the waiter back.

For the first time, the life ahead of me did not feel like an escape.

It felt like mine.