The Photograph

Dominic stood when I approached the table.

He had taken off his jacket and rolled his sleeves to his forearms. Without the formal armor, he looked younger and considerably more dangerous to my concentration.

My scarf lay folded beside a glass of water.

"You're on time," he said.

"I threatened to stay another hour. Everyone became very efficient."

He held my chair. I let him.

Bellini's was warm without being fussy. Candlelight touched the old brick walls, and the room smelled of garlic, butter, and bread that would ruin my plans to eat sensibly.

"Your cousin's restaurant?" I asked, unfolding the menu.

"Mine."

"That's convenient. If the date goes badly, you can fire the witnesses."

He looked at me over his water glass. "Is this a date?"

I immediately regretted speaking.

"You invited me to dinner."

"I did. I was hoping we agreed about why."

My face warmed. "Then stop looking so pleased with yourself."

"I'm trying."

He wasn't trying very hard.

I ordered mushroom pasta. He asked the waiter to bring bread and then turned back to me.

"Have you eaten today?"

"I had a granola bar."

"That's an ingredient, Emma."

"There was also coffee. Several courses of it."

When the bread arrived, he pushed the basket within reach without another comment. I ate two pieces while telling him about a patient who had proposed marriage to every member of staff except the chaplain.

"Personal objection?" Dominic asked.

"Apparently he wasn't his type."

He laughed, and the table stopped feeling like a test I hadn't studied for.

He asked questions, real ones. Whether I liked my apartment. What I did on days off. Whether there was anything I wanted to do that didn't involve taking care of someone.

That one made me pause.

"I used to draw," I said. "Badly. Mostly people on trains."

"Why did you stop?"

"I got busy. Then I got embarrassed about being bad at something I enjoyed."

"That sounds like a terrible reason."

"I have several. Would you like them alphabetically?"

"I'd like to see the drawings."

I glanced down at my plate. "You haven't earned access to my badly proportioned commuters."

"Then I'll have to be patient."

I asked him what he did when he wasn't working.

"I swim. I cook when my mother lets me near her kitchen. I lose arguments with my brother on the telephone."

"What kind of arguments?"

"He teaches history. He believes that qualifies him to explain everything I've ever done wrong."

"Does he have enough time for that?"

Dominic lowered his fork. "You've become comfortable remarkably quickly."

"The pasta helped."

His brother lived in Colorado. Dominic spoke of him with affection and a hesitation I didn't yet understand. He said his father was dead, and I didn't ask for details when his expression closed.

I told him why I had become a nurse. My grandmother's illness when I was sixteen. The hospice nurse, Alice, who had stayed after the house went quiet and washed the teacups nobody could bear to touch.

"I thought being useful would make losing people easier," I admitted. "It doesn't. But sometimes it gives them one less thing to be frightened of."

His thumb moved once along the edge of his glass.

"That matters more than you think."

"You sound certain."

"I've spent enough time around frightened people."

Before I could answer, a man in a navy suit appeared beside our table, holding a folder.

"The Caruso papers," he said. "They wanted a decision tonight."

Dominic didn't reach for the folder.

"Then leave them in my office, Adrian."

"I thought you should know before—"

"I heard you."

The words were quiet. Adrian stopped talking.

His gaze moved to me, lingered, then dropped to the scarf beside my plate.

"Of course," he said. "Enjoy your evening."

After he left, the restaurant seemed louder.

I put down my fork. "Is this the part where you tell me people exaggerate about your family?"

Dominic leaned back, studying me.

"What have you heard?"

"That your business extends beyond restaurants. That some of the men who work for you aren't paid to reserve tables."

"They're not."

I appreciated the answer. I also wished I hadn't needed it.

"And you?"

"I run the businesses my father left. Some are legitimate. Some relationships attached to them should have ended years ago."

"Why haven't they?"

"Because ending them has consequences I haven't always been willing to pay."

No one had forced him to admit that. I watched the candlelight catch the pale mark on his knuckle.

"Should I be afraid of you?"

His expression changed.

"I won't hurt you. But I won't tell you there's nothing dangerous about my life."

I sat with that for a while. He let me.

"I should probably go home," I said eventually.

"I'll call your car."

"I can do that."

"I know."

He paid while I ordered a ride. Outside, he waited with me under the brass light. When the wind lifted my hair into my mouth, I fumbled with my scarf, and he raised a hand.

"May I?"

I nodded.

He freed the trapped strands and settled the scarf around my neck. His fingertips brushed the skin below my ear. I looked up, and he was suddenly close enough that I could see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw.

"I'm glad you came," he said.

I wanted to ask whether I should see him again. I wanted him to make it easy.

My phone buzzed before I found the courage.

Mom: Found this while sorting Grandma's boxes. Look how little you were.

The photograph opened beneath the message.

My grandmother stood in her old kitchen, one hand on my shoulder. I was about eleven, missing a front tooth. Beside us stood a dark-haired young man with his left hand resting on the back of a chair.

A pale scar crossed his knuckle.

I enlarged the image.

The wind snapped between us. Dominic looked from my face to the screen, and the warmth left his expression.

I turned the photograph toward him.

"You knew my grandmother."

He didn't answer quickly enough.

"That night in your car," I said. "Did you already know who I was?"