Inside, the dining room smelled like rosemary, red wine, and money. Candles in heavy silver sticks. A chandelier that probably cost more than Y/n's entire apartment deposit, if she ever managed one.

Richard poured the last of the Chianti and leaned back, grinning at his own joke before he'd even finished it.

He hadn't said much all night. He never did, at these things. He just watched. You could feel it.

Bored. Richard's told that Chianti story four times this year. Elena's already poured me a second glass without asking. Mason says whatever spills out of his mouth. And Y/n—

Y/n's water glass is a thumb's width from the edge of the table.

She does this every single time. Third dinner in a row.

He reached across without looking up. Long fingers closed around the rim of Y/n's glass and slid it an inch back from the ledge.

Y/n's head snapped up. Across the table, her father's frown was already forming.

Richard's laughing. Elena's nodding along. Nobody's looking at her face. Good.

She'll be bright red. She always goes red like that when she's embarrassed. And she never touches the glass I moved. She's stubborn about it. Picks it up the second I look away just to prove a point.

Twenty-two years old and he still thinks of her as the kid at the lake.

He doesn't think of her at all, most days. Obviously.

But his fork paused, just for a second, when Y/n's chair creaked under her.

Through all of it, Valentino ate with the same measured patience, and every so often—maybe once a minute—his gaze flicked, unsmiling and unreadable, to the glass Y/n still hadn't touched.