There had been disagreements. One evening he had arranged a private driver for her without asking because a reporter had been seen outside the institute. Selene sent the driver away and told him that concern did not confer authority. Dante apologized and asked how she wanted safety decisions handled. They had written the answer down. There was something comic about building affection with the care of a legal contract. Selene found it unexpectedly romantic.
He reached into his coat and set a small object between them.
It was his father's broken watch.
“I fixed it,” he said.
Selene examined the worn dial. The second hand moved with a steady, quiet tick.
“I took it to a repair shop and admitted I didn't know what I was doing. The woman behind the counter told me I'd been making it worse.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“I thought it might.”
He waited until she looked up. “I kept trying to force the hands forward. She said a watch doesn't respond to impatience. You have to find the damaged part and accept that some pieces need replacing.”
Selene smiled. “That is dangerously close to a metaphor.”
“I know. I had to pay extra for it.”
He let her hold the watch for a while. Then his expression grew serious.
“Selene, I've wanted to say something for a long time. And I keep not saying it because I'm afraid it will sound like a payment, or an apology, or another way of asking you to make me feel better.”
She set the watch down. “Then say it without asking for anything.”
Dante looked toward the river. The room around them continued with its quiet work: a waiter taking an order, a fork touching a plate, the soft rumble of traffic outside.
“I love you,” he said. “Not because you saved me from losing money. Not because you made people see me as better than I was. I love the woman who told me my question was wrong. I love the woman who will tell me again. And I know that doesn't make the past disappear.”
Selene watched him. There were years when those words would have frightened her more than a public accusation. Love had seemed like another institution capable of withdrawing its approval without explanation.
She reached across the table and took his hand.
“I love you, too,” she said. “But I need you to understand something.”
“Anything.”
“No.” She smiled gently. “Not anything. You don't get to promise what you can't do.”
He laughed, eyes wet. “All right.”
“I love you. I want to see what we build. And if you ever start mistaking protection for control, I will tell you so. Very loudly, if necessary.”
“I believe you.”
“I hope you do.”
Outside, the river rolled on, indifferent to fortunes, reputations, and the names carved into stone. People went to work. Buses arrived late. Families argued about dinner. Somewhere, a student opened an old book and found a word that had survived because somebody had bothered to write it down.
Selene thought of Dmitri, of Frances's careful notebook, of Mateo's sister refusing to let his name vanish. She thought of the night in Loro when she had whispered a sentence and discovered she had not lost her voice after all.
Dante turned his father's watch over in his palm. “There's something I've been meaning to ask. Would you ever consider living with me?”
“In that enormous apartment with the marble floors?”