Page 14 of Ricardo

Not foolishly or carelessly.

She understood there was a knife somewhere in the room. She simply did not rush to show me her throat.

That kind of woman is dangerous.

That kind of woman makes a man wonder.

And wondering is exactly the problem.

I think about her as I drive through Chicago, one hand on the wheel, the other resting against the center console while traffic crawls ahead of me. Julia O’Brien is not in the car. She is not in front of me. She is not saying my name in that steady voice or looking at me as if she has already decided I do not frighten her enough to make her foolish.

Still, she is there.

I think about Mario’s office. The coffee. The way she kept working while I sat across from her. The way she answered me without rushing to fill every silence. She did not flirt, exactly. She did not perform. She treated me like a man she could speak to plainly, and I have spent too much of my life around people who speak to me through calculation.

Julia calculates too. She would have to. Judge Patrick O’Brien’s daughter would have learned that before she learned half of life’s kinder lessons.

But she does not make herself smaller when she calculates.

That is what I remember.

I also remember green eyes. Freckles over the bridge of her nose, faint beneath her makeup, more visible when the light catches her face. A composed mouth that does not soften easily, which makes me think of what it would take to make it soften for me.

No.

Dante’s friend.

Dante, who stopped by Mario’s office to take Julia to lunch again. I remember him throwing his arm around her and calling her Jules while they passed my office, and I tried not to be too obvious about paying attention.

I know it is friendship. I know Dante does not want her in the way a man wants a woman. He looks at Julia with affection, with protectiveness, with the ease of someone who has known her through years I was not part of.

That should make me grateful.

In some ways, it does.

I like knowing that she has someone so protective of her. And I like knowing that my son is capable of such protectiveness.

But it does not make me like the situation anymore.

Not because he has done anything wrong. Because he occupies a place in her life that I do not.

He has Jules.

I have Miss O’Brien, Julia, and a cup of coffee I have thought about far too often.

The light turns green. I ease the car forward and leave the densest part of the city behind me.

I should be thinking about the boy’s new home.

It started after Victoria officially moved in with Mario.

I cannot blame the twins for wanting space. Mario’s house has changed. Not badly, by any means. It’s warmer, like the house in Italy was when Anna was alive.

Victoria is a few months pregnant now, engaged to Mario, and the two have apparently been acting like newlyweds, so the boys say. So the boys generously decided that the new couple needs their privacy.

Then Lorenzo’s boys decided they wanted in on a little independence, too. As usual, they managed to convince Dante to join in on their antics as well.

So, all five of them have gone in and bought themselves a bachelor pad.