Page 10 of My Unexpected Surprise
With dizzying accuracy, I remember how I traced every inch of that very tattoo with my fingers on that balcony.
And everything that came after that.
I look at him, and as his gray eyes meet mine, I wait with dread for the spark of recognition.
I wait for him to sayit's you.
It doesn't come. Instead, his brows are furrowed in curiosity.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Ms. De Luca.”
You have no idea,I almost say aloud.
The ghost is currently four years old, obsessed with toy cars, and has his eyes.
Chapter Two
VALENTINO
She's something.
I don't know what yet. That's the problem.
I stand at the head of the table with her résumé in my hand and run my eyes over it once more.
Her credentials are clean. Calloway & Voss for five years, where she rose so fast, you'd think she got them for free.
Her crisis response record is better than clean. It's exceptional.
The HarborTech breach alone would have made lesser professionals disappear into legal cover. She stayed visible. She stayed useful.
I look up.
She watches me with an expression I can’t quite pin down. Whatever it is, it isn’t nerves, I saw how she performed from the door. Nor is it arrogance. I know what that looks like.
"Small issues like what, Ms. De Luca?" I ask once more, not enthusiastic about repeating myself again.
Her chin lifts slightly. Whatever was happening behind her eyes gets locked down fast, and she clears her throat.
"You're scaling fast, Mr. Ferretti. But fast growth means you're going to make decisions that can affect transparency. In times like that, bad communication would be suicide.”
A beat of silence follows.
Marchetti, my head of operations, shifts almost imperceptibly in his seat.
"You identified this from publicly available material?" I ask.
"Your client testimonials, regulatory filings, and last two press releases," she replies briskly.
I set the résumé down. It lands with a soft slap.
The panel is watching me the way they always do when I enter a room late: trying to read whether they've done something wrong, whether their evaluation aligns with mine, whether I'm pleased.
I rarely tell them.
I glance back down at the résumé. At the name in the header.
Livia De Luca.
