Chapter 5 - Olivia Says No
The last thing I wanted was to be in that breakfast room.
The second-to-last thing I wanted was Vanessa Bellini believing she had the right to decide whether she spoke to me.
So I stood in the doorway with one eye swollen, my hair unbrushed, and Mrs. Carter’s navy robe hanging past my ankles.
Luca looked angry.
“At least sit down,” he said.
“I’m okay.”
“You were dizzy an hour ago.”
“I’m less dizzy now.”
Vanessa gave a short, humorless laugh.
“This is what we’re doing? Discussing her dizziness?”
I looked at her.
She stopped smiling.
Luca stepped between us slightly.
I hated that.
Not because I thought he was trying to control me.
Because I had spent the entire night feeling like everybody else’s evidence.
The injured employee.
The witness.
The reason the wedding was ending.
I wanted to be a person again.
“Mr. Moretti,” I said, “could you not stand in front of me?”
His eyebrows lifted.
Then he moved aside.
Vanessa noticed.
So did Mrs. Carter.
I walked to the table and sat.
Vanessa remained standing.
She looked beautiful even exhausted. That had always irritated me a little. Some people looked like magazine covers while ruining your day.
She folded her arms.
“I’m sorry you were hurt.”
The apology arrived polished and ready.
I waited.
She frowned.
“Is that all you’re going to say?”
“You said you wanted to talk to me.”
“I did.”
“Then talk.”
Her mouth tightened.
“I did not hit you.”
“No.”
“You fell.”
“Yes.”
“Because you were trying to run out of a private conversation.”
I looked at Luca.
He did not interrupt.
Good.
I turned back to Vanessa.
“I was trying to leave after you grabbed my shoulder.”
“I touched your shoulder.”
“You pulled me backward.”
“Because you had been listening at the door.”
“I walked into a room where I was told to put towels.”
“You could have announced yourself.”
“I was carrying towels in the house where I work.”
Mrs. Carter made a small sound that might have been a cough.
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed.
“I was under enormous stress.”
“So was I.”
“You don’t understand the situation.”
“You told me I’d lose my job if I repeated what I heard.”
“That was wrong.”
“You told me Mr. Moretti would believe you over me.”
Vanessa glanced at Luca.
“That was said in anger.”
“It worked.”
She looked back at me.
“What?”
“I believed you.”
My voice shook, which annoyed me.
“I believed you so much that I served dinner for four hours with half my face hidden because I have seventy-four dollars left until payday and I thought you could make sure I never got hired in another house like this one.”
Luca’s gaze dropped.
Vanessa stared at me.
For a moment, she had no answer.
Then she said, “I would never actually do that.”
I almost laughed.
“How would I know?”
That was the whole thing.
People with power loved to explain afterward which threats they had never intended to carry out.
From where I stood, the difference was invisible.
Vanessa sat across from me.
“I was afraid.”
“So was I.”
“I had more to lose.”
The words came out before she could stop them.
The room changed.
Vanessa closed her eyes briefly.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“Yes, you did.”
I said it quietly.
“You had a wedding. A house. A name. A ring you wanted. I had a job. You thought yours counted more.”
She looked at me with genuine pain then.
Not guilt exactly.
Recognition.
Luca moved toward the coffee pot.
He poured himself a cup and did not drink it.
Vanessa rubbed her thumb over the engagement ring box.
“My mother lived her whole adult life being compared to another woman,” she said.
“I heard.”
She looked at Luca. “You told her?”
“No,” I said. “I was standing in the doorway.”
Her cheeks flushed.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I don’t want you to say anything.”
“Then why agree to talk?”
“So I could say no.”
Vanessa stared at me.
I took a breath.
“No, I’m not telling you it’s fine. No, I’m not saying I understand because you were scared. No, I’m not going to help make this easier between you and Mr. Moretti. And no, you don’t get to decide whether what happened to me was serious enough for a doctor or serious enough to matter.”
My fingers had gone cold.
I tucked them under the sleeves of the robe.
Vanessa’s eyes glistened.
She looked away first.
“I am sorry,” she said.
This time the sentence was smaller.
Less polished.
I believed she meant it.
That did not make me forgive her.
“Okay,” I said.
She looked back, almost offended.
“That’s it?”
“That’s what I have right now.”
For once, Luca’s voice carried no command.
“That’s enough.”
Vanessa stood.
She left the ring box on the table.
At the doorway, she turned to me.
“You think he’s different from me because he’s being kind to you today.”
Luca’s expression hardened.
I answered before he could.
“I don’t think anything about him today.”
Vanessa gave me a long look.
Then she walked out.
The room stayed quiet after her footsteps disappeared.
Mrs. Carter began clearing dishes that nobody had eaten from.
Luca picked up the ring box.
“I’m sorry.”
I rubbed the edge of the robe sleeve between my fingers.
“For what?”
“That she threatened your job.”
“She did that.”
“In my house.”
I looked at him.
He seemed to think the location made it his failure.
Maybe it did.
But I was tired of men collecting responsibility the way they collected weapons.
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
His eyes met mine.
“Mrs. Carter says Vanessa told staff not to bring household complaints to me unless they were urgent.”
I looked at Margaret.
She kept stacking plates.
“When?” I asked.
“Two months ago,” Mrs. Carter said.
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
She stopped stacking.
Then she gave me a look so familiar I almost laughed.
The look of an employee who knew exactly how ridiculous the question was.
“Because,” she said carefully, “Mr. Moretti does not enjoy being interrupted with household matters.”
Luca opened his mouth.
Mrs. Carter lifted one hand.
He closed it.
That surprised all of us.
She continued. “He has never been cruel to staff. He pays on time. He pays well. He protects people when there is a serious problem. But there is a difference between knowing you will be protected in a crisis and believing you are allowed to bother someone before it becomes one.”
The coffee machine clicked behind her.
Luca stared at the cup in his hand.
“You all think I don’t want to hear problems.”
Mrs. Carter chose her next words with care.
“We think you want solutions.”
“And if we don’t have one,” I added, “we wait.”
He looked at me.
“That’s why you lied at dinner?”
“Partly.”
“What was the other part?”
“Vanessa was sitting next to you wearing your ring.”
His face changed.
I stood.
The dizziness was mostly gone.
“I’m going home after Dr. Harris checks me again.”
“You should take two days paid.”
“Fine.”
He looked surprised that I had accepted so easily.
“I’m not going to argue with free sleep.”
That almost made Mrs. Carter smile.
As I reached the door, Luca said, “Olivia.”
I stopped.
“I’m meeting Elena at noon.”
I had no idea why he was telling me.
“Okay.”
“If Vanessa’s plan involved anything beyond the ring, I’ll tell you.”
I turned back.
“Only if it affects me.”
He looked confused.
“I don’t need to know everything,” I said. “I just need to know whether I’m safe and whether I still have a job.”
“You do.”
“Then that’s enough for today.”
I walked upstairs.
Halfway to the blue room, I heard the front doors open below.
A man’s voice spoke to Daniel.
Then Mrs. Carter called Luca’s name.
I leaned over the railing.
William Mercer stood in the foyer holding a padded envelope.
“I forgot something last night,” he said.
He looked toward Luca.
“Vanessa asked me to deliver this to Elena after the photographs.”
Luca took the envelope.
On the front, in Vanessa’s handwriting, were two words.
May you like
For Elena.
