THE TWINS ACROSS THE ROOM

I had imagined seeing Luca Moretti again at least a thousand times. In some versions, I was wearing something devastatingly beautiful and he looked ruined by regret. In others, I passed him on a Chicago sidewalk without recognizing him until he called my name, and I kept walking because I had finally become the kind of woman who didn’t turn around. Never once did I imagine it happening at Bellini House with my six-year-old son coloring a superhero on the back of a children’s menu while his twin sister argued that chocolate cake counted as dinner. “It has eggs,” Lily informed me with the solemn confidence only a first grader could manage. “Eggs are breakfast. Breakfast is food. Therefore cake is food.” Theo immediately nodded. “She has a point.” “Both of you have inherited a dangerous relationship with logic,” I said. Theo grinned, and that crooked little smile hit me the way it always did. Luca’s smile. I had spent six years learning not to flinch when I saw pieces of my former husband living inside my children. Theo had Luca’s dark eyes, Luca’s thick eyebrows, Luca’s impossible confidence. Lily had my mouth and my curls, but when she was concentrating she developed the exact vertical line between her brows that Luca used to get when reading financial reports in bed. I had made peace with those similarities because I believed I would never again have to see them reflected back at the man himself. Then the restaurant hostess said, “Mr. Moretti, Mrs. Moretti, welcome back,” and my entire body forgot how to breathe.

I looked toward the entrance before I could stop myself. Luca stood beneath the amber chandelier in a cream-colored suit, taller than I remembered, broader through the shoulders, his dark hair swept carelessly away from his forehead. Six years had sharpened him. The twenty-nine-year-old man I married had still possessed a softness around the edges despite the Moretti name. The thirty-eight-year-old standing across Bellini House looked like the photographs business magazines loved: controlled, expensive, untouchable. Evelyn Shaw Moretti stood beside him in a silver-green satin dress, one elegant hand resting lightly around his arm. She was beautiful in the polished way women married to men like Luca were expected to be beautiful—blonde hair twisted into an effortless-looking knot, delicate diamonds at her throat, posture so perfect she could have been posing for a watch advertisement. I had seen her in magazines before. Everyone had. MORETTI GLOBAL CEO WEDS SHAW CAPITAL HEIRESS IN LAKE COMO CEREMONY. I remembered staring at that headline at two in the morning while nursing two six-week-old babies, wondering whether Luca had looked happier marrying her than he had marrying me. I closed the article before finding out. Now Evelyn was ten yards away. And Luca was staring directly at me.

For one suspended second, the restaurant disappeared. I saw our old penthouse. Luca barefoot in the kitchen. Luca laughing when I burned garlic bread. Luca lying beside me after another negative pregnancy test, his hand resting over mine without saying anything because neither of us had words left. Then I remembered the last winter. His distance. His silences. The night he stood across from me with snow falling beyond the glass and said, “I don’t think I love you the way I used to.” I had asked whether that was really what he wanted. He had said yes. So I had left before he could watch me fall apart. Now his eyes moved from my face to Theo. I watched the exact moment recognition became confusion. Theo glanced up, irritated by being observed, and frowned. That tiny line appeared between his brows. Luca went completely still. Then his attention shifted to Lily. She had stopped arguing about cake. She stared openly at the stranger across the room and whispered, “Mom, why is that man looking at us?” My heart slammed against my ribs. “Finish your drawing,” I said. My voice sounded almost normal. Theo turned around anyway. Luca took one slow step forward.

Evelyn said something to him. He didn’t answer. He moved toward us as if pulled by something he no longer controlled. People noticed. Luca Moretti was the kind of man restaurant managers greeted personally and strangers recognized from financial television. A few nearby diners followed his gaze toward my table. I wanted to grab the twins and run, but running would answer the question before he asked it. So I stayed seated. Luca stopped beside our table. Up close, he looked less untouchable. His face had lost color. His eyes moved between the children with an intensity that made Lily slide closer to me. “Nia.” Six years disappeared inside the way he said my name. I lifted my chin. “Luca.” He looked at Theo again. “How old are they?” No hello. No how have you been. Straight to the wound. “That’s an inappropriate question to ask children you haven’t met.” His jaw tightened. “Nia.” Evelyn reached us then. She looked from me to the twins and then to Luca. Whatever she saw in his face made her own expression change. “Luca, perhaps we should—” “How old?” he repeated. Theo frowned. “I’m six.” My stomach dropped. Lily corrected him automatically. “Six and a half.” “Lily.” “What? We are.” Luca’s fingers flexed at his sides.

Six and a half. He could do arithmetic. Luca could look at a ten-company acquisition and calculate risk before half the room opened a spreadsheet. Six and a half years put conception directly inside our marriage. His eyes locked on mine. “Nia.” I stood. “Children, gather your things.” Theo protested. “We haven’t had dessert.” “We’ll get dessert somewhere else.” Lily looked at Luca again. “Do you know our mom?” Luca’s throat moved. “I used to.” “Were you friends?” Theo asked. “Something like that.” The answer almost broke me. I collected the crayons with shaking hands. Luca stepped closer. “You’re not leaving until you tell me.” I looked at him. “You lost the right to tell me when I can leave a long time ago.” His expression tightened with pain. Evelyn watched us in silence. She was not angry. That surprised me. She looked frightened. Theo had picked up one of his drawings—a family picture he had made at school. Me in the center. Lily beside me. Theo on the other side. And, in one corner, a man drawn from the only photograph of Luca I had never managed to throw away. I saw Luca notice it. Theo noticed him noticing. “Hey,” my son said. “That looks like you.” I closed my eyes for half a second.

Luca reached for the paper but stopped himself. “Why did you draw me?” Theo shrugged. “Mom has an old picture.” “Theo, coat.” “She says you were someone important.” The room became unbearably quiet. Luca looked at me. “Nia, what did you tell them?” “Not enough.” Lily tugged my sleeve. “Mom, is he the man from the picture?” Luca inhaled sharply. I could not answer. Theo looked from me to Luca and suddenly something clicked behind his eyes in a way that terrified me. “Wait.” He studied Luca’s face. Then he touched his own eyebrow. “We look alike.” “Theo.” “Mom.” His voice dropped. “Is he our dad?” I heard Evelyn gasp softly. Luca did not move. I had spent six years preparing for that question from my children. I had rehearsed gentle answers about timing, complicated adults, and choices I would explain when they were older. I had never imagined answering with Luca standing three feet away. “We are leaving,” I said. I put my coat around Lily and took Theo’s hand.

Luca stepped into my path. “Tell me they aren’t mine.” His voice had become dangerously quiet. “Move.” “Tell me.” “Not here.” “Then where?” “Luca.” Evelyn touched his arm. He pulled away without looking at her. His eyes never left mine. “Six years, Nia.” “I know exactly how many years it has been.” “If those children are mine—” “Don’t finish that sentence in front of them.” Theo’s fingers tightened around mine. Luca saw it. Whatever rage had been rising in him collapsed into something more controlled. He stepped aside. I led the twins toward the exit. Behind me, Luca called my name once. I did not turn.

Outside, Chicago wind cut between the buildings. A black sedan was waiting at the curb for us. I had just opened the door when footsteps came behind me. Luca. Evelyn remained beneath the restaurant awning several yards away. “Nia, please.” That word almost stopped me more effectively than anger. “Not tonight.” “I spent years believing you couldn’t—” He stopped. His face twisted. “I spent years believing…” I turned. “Believing I was broken?” He looked struck. “I never said that.” “You didn’t have to.” “Are they mine?” My eyes burned. “Yes.” The word left me before fear could stop it. Luca stumbled backward one step. For the first time in all the years I had known him, Luca Moretti looked completely defenseless. “Both?” he whispered. “They’re twins, Luca.” “Jesus.” He pressed a hand over his mouth. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I stared at him. Six years of loneliness, rage and guilt rose inside my chest. “I did.”

His head snapped up.

“You what?”

“I told you.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I never knew.”

“That isn’t what your mother told me.”

Everything in Luca’s face changed.

Behind him, Evelyn whispered, “Celeste?”