Matteo opened the black folder on the lobby table, and Brittany Vale took one involuntary step backward.
Grace noticed.
She noticed everything.
Inside the folder was not a marriage proposal, a check, or some dramatic document promising to turn her into a different person overnight.
There was an executive itinerary, a Virexon visitor credential, a printed schedule for the following morning’s leadership meetings, and beneath them, protected inside a clear sleeve, a small piece of paper Grace recognized immediately.
It was the handwritten note she had taped beside the conference-room monitor fourteen months earlier.
PLEASE DISCONNECT MILAN BEFORE LEAVING.
Underneath, she had added a tiny smiley face because she had been tired and because someone in Atlanta kept forgetting.
Matteo had kept it.
Grace looked up at him.
“You saved that?”
“It was evidence,” he said.
“Of what?”
His smile deepened.
“That someone in this building had a sense of humor.”
Grace laughed before she could stop herself.
For Brittany, that laugh seemed more unsettling than the town car, the roses, or the security guard calling him Mr.
Ricci.
Jessica whispered, “That’s really him.”
One of the analysts beside her nodded.
Everyone who had attended the international training knew Matteo’s name.
He was one of Virexon’s Milan directors, a shareholder whose company equity had made him a millionaire before most people in the Atlanta office ever saw him outside a video screen.
Grace had learned those details months after they began talking.
Matteo had never introduced himself that way.
He had introduced himself as the man accidentally abandoned on a conference-room monitor.
Now he lifted the roses and held them toward her.
“These are for you.”
The lobby became so quiet Grace could hear the soft mechanical hum of the elevators.
She accepted the bouquet.
“You actually came.”
Matteo’s expression changed at the word actually.
“Grace, I sent you the flight number.”
“I know.”
“I sent you a photograph from the airport.”
“I know.”
“I complained to you for twenty minutes about the man kicking my seat over the Atlantic.”
Grace laughed again.
“I know.”
Matteo lowered his voice.
“Then why do you look surprised?”
Grace did not answer immediately.
Because somewhere inside her, Brittany’s voice had joined Evan’s.
No millionaire flies from Italy for a woman who empties trash cans.
Some women are just practice girlfriends.
Men don’t marry women they have to bend down to see.
Cruel things repeated often enough could begin to sound like facts.
Matteo studied her face, then glanced toward Brittany and Jessica.
He did not know the entire story, but he knew enough to recognize the sudden silence.
Brittany recovered first.
She stepped closer, smoothing the front of her blouse.
“Mr.
Ricci, I’m Brittany Vale.
Senior analyst.
We were part of the North American group on your training call.”
Matteo turned politely.
“Yes.
