Chapter 6 - Foundations of Stone
Fourteen months later.
May in Rome is not like May anywhere else on earth. The jasmine vines that drape the high stone walls of the Aventine Hill burst into white, intoxicating bloom, filling the warm evening air with a scent so sweet it makes the whole city feel like a wedding.
In the courtyard of the newly restored Palazzo Cardelli, eighty people sat at two long, rustic tables beneath a canopy of wisteria and ancient orange trees.
The courtyard’s fourteenth-century travertine piers stood straight, polished, and secure, braced internally by the invisible carbon-fiber tension system that had earned *Studio Bennett-Bellini* the prestigious Europa Nostra Conservation Award three weeks earlier.
At the head of the main table sat Claire Bennett.
She wore an ivory silk slip dress, simple and breathtaking, her hair swept up in an elegant, unhurried twist held in place by an antique tortoiseshell comb Matteo had given her on her twenty-ninth birthday. Her skin was golden from a year of Mediterranean sun; her eyes were calm, bright, and completely steady.
Beside her sat Matteo, his linen shirt open at the collar, pouring wine for Arthur Vance and his daughter Melissa.
Melissa Vance raised her glass of vintage Chianti, her hazel eyes dancing with genuine warmth.
“To the lead architect,” Melissa said, tapping her crystal glass with a silver knife. “Who not only finished the Merion Square project two months ahead of schedule and twelve percent under budget, but did it while designing three historic renovations across Lazio and opening a secondary studio in SoHo.”
A chorus of laughter and cheers rose from the table, joined by Matteo’s family, the restoration crew, and several members of the Roman design board.
Arthur Vance leaned back in his chair, smiling his rare, thin smile. “I’ve spent forty years in private equity, Miss Bennett. I have backed six hundred commercial projects. Merion Square is the first one where the initial blueprints didn't require a single engineering revision before the ground-breaking. Evan used to tell me that level of precision was impossible.”
“Evan didn't know how to use a plumb line,” Claire said easily, taking a sip of her wine.
The table laughed again. The mention of Evan’s name no longer brought a chill to the room. It had been reduced to what it deserved to be: an absurd, harmless footnote in an otherwise magnificent story.
Evan was currently eight months into a twenty-four-month sentence at a minimum-security federal facility in upstate Pennsylvania, having pled guilty to two counts of corporate wire fraud and one count of making false statements to a municipal redevelopment authority. He was working in the prison library, organizing government documents—a chore he had reportedly complained was “beneath his administrative capabilities.”
Richard and Linda had been forced into a short sale of the Bryn Mawr home. They had downsized to a two-bedroom rental condo near King of Prussia, paid for by the meager remnants of Richard’s state pension.
Linda spent her days posting passive-aggressive inspirational quotes on Facebook about “the pain of ungrateful children,” while Richard spent his afternoons at a local diner, cornering retired accountants to explain how he had *almost* closed the biggest private equity deal in Pennsylvania history before his daughter “sabotaged” him.
None of their messages ever reached Claire.
Her American phone line was gone. Her business was incorporated in Italy. Her social media was managed by a boutique public relations agency in Milan that had strict instructions to block any IP address originating from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
She hadn't punished them. She had done something far more devastating: she had completely erased their relevance from her life.
As the dusk deepened into an indigo night, the courtyard was illuminated by dozens of small lanterns hung from the wisteria branches, their light flickering like fireflies against the ancient stone arches.
Matteo stood up from his chair, reached down, and took Claire’s hand, pulling her gently toward the open marble staircase that led to the upper loggia.
“Come,” he whispered. “You have worked enough for one evening.”
They walked up the wide stone steps, away from the chatter and laughter of the party, until they reached the high terrace overlooking the Tiber River.
Below them, Rome stretched out in a sea of amber lights, dark domes, and terracotta roofs, framed by the dark silhouette of the Janiculum Hill. The river wound through the city like a dark silk ribbon, reflecting the illuminated arches of the Ponte Sant'Angelo.
Matteo stood behind her, his arms wrapping around her waist, his chin resting against the curve of her shoulder. She leaned back against him, feeling the steady, familiar beat of his heart through his linen shirt.
“You are quiet,” Matteo murmured, his lips brushing her temple.
“I was just thinking about that list,” Claire said, looking out over the city.
“The Christmas Eve list?”
“Item twenty-three,” Claire smiled faintly. “*Park your Civic on the street so Evan’s Audi has the garage bay.*”
Matteo chuckled, his chest vibrating against her back. “And what is item twenty-four now?”
Claire reached into her purse, which sat on the stone balustrade, and pulled out a small, heavy brass key.
It wasn't a key to an office. It wasn't a key to a temporary rental.
It was the key to a small seventeenth-century villa in the hills above Frascati—a house with three acres of olive trees, a wide stone terrace facing the sea, and a drafting studio with two skylights that Matteo had spent the last four months quietly restoring for her.
She held the key up in the moonlight, watching the brass catch the amber reflection of the city below.
“Item twenty-four,” Claire said softly, turning in his arms to look up into the dark, loving eyes of the man who had seen her talent when she was invisible to everyone else. “Item twenty-four is: *Never build someone else’s house while your own is freezing.*”
May you like
Matteo leaned down and kissed her.
The kiss was slow, deep, and tasted of sweet wine and the eternal city—a city built on ruins, strong enough to outlast empires, and finally, completely, hers.
