“Hey.” I placed the food on the table and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s after work hours. You’re supposed to be relaxing.”
“It’s not after work hours in Asia.” He pushed back from his desk and rubbed his temple. He eyed the takeout bag on the desk. “What’s this?
“Dinner.” I retrieved the assorted plastic containers, napkins, and utensils. “From that Thai place you like so much on East 78th. I wasn’t sure what you were in the mood for, so I got curry puffs, basil stir fry,and…” I opened the last container with a flourish. “Their signature duck salad.”
Dante loved that duck salad. One time, he pushed back a call with the editor-in-chief ofMode de Viejust so he could eat it while it was still hot.
He stared at it, his expression inscrutable.
“Thank you, but I’m not hungry.” He turned back to his computer. “I really have to get this done in the next hour. Can you close the door on your way out?”
My smile melted at his brusque tone.
He’d been acting a little distant since we returned to New York two days ago, but tonight was the first time he’d been so blatantly dismissive.
“Okay.” I tried to keep my voice upbeat. “But you still have to eat. I’ll leave this here in case you get hungry later.” I paused, then added, “How’s work going? Overall, I mean.”
He was under a lot of stress with various supply chain issues and the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, of which the Russo Group was a sponsor. I couldn’t blame him for being a bit short-tempered.
“Fine.” He didn’t look away from his screen.
Tension lined his stiff shoulders and shadowed his features. He looked like a completely different person from the teasing, playful Dante in Paris.
“If anything’s wrong, you can talk to me about it,” I said softly. “You know that, right?”
Dante’s throat worked with a hard swallow.
When the silence stretched without any sign of a break, I gathered my portion of the dinner and ate it alone in the dining room.
The food smelled delicious, but when I swallowed it, it tasted like cardboard.
Dante’s broodiness didn’t improve over the next week.
Maybe it was work. Maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, it transformed him back into the cold, closed-off version of himself that made me want to tear my hair out.
The change in his attitude before and after Paris was so jarring I felt like we’d stumbled into a time portal and become stranded in the early days of our engagement.
He didn’t visit me for lunch, he was always “busy” during dinner, and he didn’t come to bed until long after I was asleep. When I woke up, he was already gone. We talked almost less than we had sex, which was never.
I tried to be understanding because everyone had their dark periods, but by the time the following Thursday rolled around, my patience had edged into the red zone.
The straw that broke the camel’s back came that evening, when I returned home from work to find Dante in the kitchen with Greta. She’d just gotten back from visiting her family in Naples, or Napoli, as she called it in Italian. However, she was already hard at work again—the marble island and counters groaned beneath the weight of various herbs, sauces, fish, and meats.
The smell beckoned me from the foyer, but when I entered the room, both she and Dante fell silent.
“Good evening, Miss Lau,” Greta said. When we were alone, she called me Vivian, but around other people, I was always Miss Lau.
“Good evening.” I scanned the banquet-worthy prep. “Are we having a party I don’t know about? This seems like a lot of food for two people.”
“It is,” she said after a brief pause. She frowned and flicked a glance at a stone-faced Dante before busying herself with the food.
My heart accelerated. “Arewe having a party?”
“Of course not,” Dante said when Greta remained silent. He didn’t give me a chance to relax before he added, “Christian and his girlfriend are coming over for dinner tonight. They’re in town for a few days.”
“Tonight?” I glanced at the clock. “Dinner is in less than three hours!”
“Which is why I came home early.”