Chapter 7
Lucia touched the worn case. “I can’t accept this.”
“My mother believed unused dreams became heavy. She would want someone to use them.”
Sofi climbed onto a chair and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Will you still know us?”
“Only if you let me.”
“You can come for pancakes.”
“Then I’ll come for pancakes.”
He did.
At first, Alex visited Lucia’s apartment in Queens once a week. Then twice. He sat at a chipped kitchen table while Sofi poured syrup across pancakes in quantities that alarmed him. Lucia showed him her design projects — sketches of green spaces, community gardens, rooftop sanctuaries. He showed Sofi how to build a paper bridge strong enough to hold three apples. No one photographed them. No journalist knew. No one asked him about quarterly earnings.
He began looking forward to Sunday mornings more than he looked forward to product launches.
Still, he was careful. Lucia had spent years working in his home. His money had shaped the space between them even when neither acknowledged it. He refused to use gratitude as a shortcut to intimacy. He waited until Lucia had established herself at the design firm, until she no longer depended on him financially.
Then, one evening after Sofi fell asleep, he stood in Lucia’s kitchen with two coffee mugs and asked if he could take her to dinner.
“A real dinner,” he said.
Lucia looked at him for a long moment. “You’re still technically my former employer.”
“I am.”
“You’re a billionaire whose canceled wedding became international news.”
“Unfortunately.”
“And I’m a single mother who spent four years cleaning your home.”
“I remember.”
“This isn’t simple.”
“Difficult and wrong aren’t the same thing.”
“One dinner,” she said.
Their first official date was at a tiny Italian restaurant in Brooklyn where no one recognized Alex until dessert.
Their second was postponed when Sofi developed a fever. Alex arrived with soup, children’s medicine, and a stuffed rabbit that looked suspiciously expensive. Sofi rejected it in favor of Benny.
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Their third ended early when Lucia received a call about a school project.
Their fourth lasted until two in the morning.
