Page 20 of Ricardo

“You cannot take away my dessert privileges in my own home.”

“Test me,” Edoardo says.

Behind me, Tomasso is listing foods that sound good to him. “You should order some of the veal, the eggplant. Oh, tiramisu is good. Maybe some extra pasta. Victoria is eating for, like, six these days.”

A pause, then: “Please don’t tell her I said that.”

Matteo looks at him with the tired patience of a man who has spent his entire life keeping his brother alive.

“No promises,” Dante says.

I walk away to place the order.

Once I do and walk back, the only one left in the foyer is Dante.

“Everyone left to set up some sort of table situation,” he says. “We're having a big table custom-made for nights like this, but it's not coming for a couple of weeks.”

I glance around the foyer. “A custom table?”

Dante smiles. “Matteo insisted.”

“He is his father's son.”

“He said if we’re going to have everyone here, we need a table large enough for the family. Tomasso said we could just put three tables together and call it rustic.”

“I assume Matteo did not appreciate that.”

“Matteo looked like he was going to age ten years in front of us.”

I slip my phone into my pocket and study the half-unpacked room. “This house may age all of you ten years.”

“It might,” Dante says, but he does not sound worried. “But it’s good, Papà.”

I look at him.

He leans against the bottom of the staircase, hands in his pockets, still wearing that streak of dust on his shoulder. “I know you’re not thrilled.”

“I am thrilled you chose somewhere secure.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“No,” I agree. “It is not.”

His smile fades a little, though he still looks more amused than defensive. “We’re not trying to run wild.”

“You are five unmarried Conti men in a house with a pool, a wine cellar, and Tomasso.”

“Well, when you say it like that...”

He laughs under his breath and looks toward the sitting room, where the others are moving furniture and arguing about something I cannot quite make out. “We wanted somewhere that was ours. That’s all.”

I understand that more than I want to.

Dante has lived his whole life in my houses. In Naples and here. For a short while, we lived with my father when he fell ill. These were all places with rules already built into the walls. Places where protection and expectation are often the same thing.

“This is still family property now,” I say.

“Yes, but it’s ours.”