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Before the car even stops, I throw open the door and gulp exhaust-thick air, my stomach churning.

I have reason to be angry and hurt, but so does she. Grab a random passerby and ask them to judge who has been more wronged, and they would say Isabella, and I’m not sure they’d be mistaken.

I hurt her. I betrayed her. While my actions weren’t as horrible as the world thinks, that does not leave me blameless.

I was young, and I was naive, and I made a mistake, and the moment I realized it, all I wanted was to talk to Isabella – to beg her forgiveness, yes, but also to make sure she knew I hadn’t done what people said. I would never hurt her that way.

I wanted her to know the truth.

And she does. I sent her a letter of explanation, bleeding with every word, starting and restarting it until I hit the right note, the one that accepted my share of the blame and laid none on anyone else.

She could infer where else that blame belonged and how to portion it.

I would not wail, “It wasn’t my fault.” I wasn’t a child.

I made a choice, and it was wrong, and possibly unforgivable, and I would not cower behind the shield of youth and naivete.

I told her the truth, and she spat in my face.

Actually, I wish she had spat in my face. Instead, she sent that letter, dripping with vitriol and heaping all the blame at my feet.

That is what pushes me from the car, staggering and woozy. When the driver hurries to ask whether I’m all right, the memory of that letter prods me to smile weakly and lie that I’m just feeling carsick. Then I take a moment to compose myself before striding into the hotel.

Chin up. Press forward.

Isabella’s choice of hotel is an act of war, and I accept her challenge.

First, though, I need a moment to prepare.

I take a seat on a high-backed lobby chair and pull out my phone.

If I am about to walk into a trap – a reality-show camera crew or even a room of old-fashioned journalists – there are two people who must be warned.

I call my mother first. I haven’t let her know I’m in New York yet. Sunday is Mass, followed by an afternoon of church socializing, and I didn’t want to interfere with her day. Now, though, she needs warning.

Her phone rings three times before going to voicemail, which means it’s sitting on her dining-room table. Unless she’s expecting a call, she often leaves it behind for church, lest even a vibration disturb others. I tell her that I’m in New York and we’ll talk this evening when she’s home.

The next call is harder, and I hit the name… only to hang up before the first ring. What do I even say?

Hey Marco, it’s me. So, first I lied about why I’m in New York.

Remember that package that came to Lucy Callahan, and I said I had no idea who that was?

I lied there, too. In fact, I’ve been lying since I met you.

I am Lucy Callahan. The name sounds vaguely familiar, you say?

Ever heard of Colt Gordon? Er, yes, that Colt Gordon. Well…

There is no way to give that conversation the space it needs before I meet Isabella. Even if I could, this isn’t a conversation for a hotel lobby. I want to at least video call, so he can see my face when I give him the news.

I start a text, saying we need to talk, and I’ll call in a few hours.

“Ms. Callahan?” a voice says.

I turn to see a stone-faced young woman. She’s mid-twenties, immaculately dressed, with a straight black page-boy cut and bright red lips.

“Ms. Callahan?” she repeats.

I rise. “Yes.”

“Follow me, please. Ms. Morales is waiting.”

I look at my phone, text half-written. She stands there, her expression still as blank as a cyborg’s, but in that blankness, I feel judgment. She knows who I am, and the longer I dally, the more uncomfortable this will become.

I glance up at a row of world clocks showing the time in Los Angeles, Sydney, Moscow and London. It’s already 9 p.m. in Rome. If anything does go wrong here, Marco will be asleep by the time it hits the news. No reason to worry him with another ominous “we need to talk” message.

I delete my text, pocket the phone and follow the young woman to the elevators.

The young woman escorts me to the penthouse suite – the same one Isabella rented all those years ago. Of course. Why bring me here and then pull her punch at the last second? Might as well follow through and hit me with all she has.

The young woman raps on the door. A moment passes. Then it opens, the figure obscured behind the door.

“Thank you, Bess.” That voice, with its trace of a Mexican accent, slams me in the gut.

The young woman – Bess – says, “Is there anything else I can get you, ma’am?”

“No, you have the rest of the day off.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

“I insist.” While Isabella’s tone stays warm, that steel thread is unmistakable. Bess tenses but only dips her chin and retreats without a glance my way.

Isabella stays behind the door, and I brace for a click of camera shutters documenting my entry. Instead, there is only Isabella and she is…

The word old springs to mind, but I reject it with a wince. I will not be cruel. I’ve hurt her enough. Old isn’t the word, anyway. Old er is correct, and it was only a shock, as if I expected to confront the woman I last saw fourteen years ago.

There’s frost in her hair, artfully threaded through, as if she has declared herself past the age where dying it jet black would flatter her aging face.

She has let her face age. I would expect no less.

She’s still beautiful, still bearing that impossible figure, if a little thicker through the middle.

“Isabella,” I say stiffly.

She doesn’t even seem to hear me, just stares, as if at a stranger.

“Yes?” I say.

I hear the bite in that word, like armor snapping around me. I shake it off. I need her to think I come defenseless, expecting a gentle, tear-and-apology-filled reunion.

I want to try for something softer, but standing in front of her, there’s nothing soft in me.

That’s a lie. There is softness – and every instinct screams to protect it, to shield myself before she can home in on my weak spots.

Forget subtlety, then. I’m in no mood to manufacture it. Too angry and too anxious, and I must focus on the former.

I stride past her and look around. “Where are you hiding the cameras?”

“Cameras?” Her voice crackles, as if she has to dig to find it.

I turn on her. “You sent a parcel bearing my old name into my new life. If you found me, you know I don’t go by Lucy anymore. That parcel was a grenade lobbed over the parapet.”

She blinks. “No, that wasn’t – By using your old name, I only wanted to get your attention.”

“Because otherwise, I’d ignore a parcel addressed to me? Who does that? Someone else found that parcel. Someone I haven’t told about my past.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think–”

“You always think, Isabella.” I walk into the suite.

“I’m here because I recognize a threat when I see one.

By using my old name, you reminded me that you know who I am, so I’d damn well better accept your invitation.

After I arrived, I realized this might be more than a personal takedown.

Then I saw the hotel you’d chosen, and that left no doubt. ”

Isabella walks to a chair and lowers herself into it. “I’ve made a mess of this.”

“Only if you expected I wouldn’t figure out what you were up to.”

“There is no camera crew, Luce – Genevieve.”

“Lucy to you.”

She nods. “Look around all you like. If you’re worried about hidden cameras, I’ll phone down and ask for another room.”

I almost say yes to call her bluff. But if we are being recorded, then she’s miked, and moving venues won’t help.

“No one is recording this?” I say.

“They are not.”

“I have your word on that? The understanding that I’ve come in good faith, with no agenda of my own, simply to hear what you have to say?”

“Yes.”

That’s enough for me, considering my phone is also recording this conversation in case I need to prove I wasn’t the doe-eyed idiot who bounded into her trap unaware.

“Why here, then?” I say.

She looks around the suite. “It was a good memory. I wanted to recapture that, to remind us both of a better time.”

“I am well aware of the fact that you were kind to me, and you were generous, and I betrayed you. Bringing me here only salts the wound.”

“Then I apologize. That was not my intention.” She watches me as I take a seat. “You’ve changed.”

I laugh. I don’t want to – not this kind of laugh, harsh and bitter. I bite it off and say simply, “I had to. But if you truly wish to extend an olive branch, Isabella, then I’d like to begin by saying that I don’t want to compare war wounds. You may accept the dubious honor of most injured.”

“I don’t want it,” she says softly. “I’m not sure I’ve earned it.”

“Then let’s put that aside. I’m fine. This is about you – what you need from this conversation.”

She rises and pours coffee without a word. When she hands me a cup, I pretend not to notice her hands trembling as I take the bone-china mug with thanks.

“I spent a very long time hating you, Lucy,” she says as she settles back into her seat. “I was hurt, obviously. Devastated. In my position, it’s difficult to allow anyone into my house, around my family.”

“You trusted me. I betrayed you. I understand that. I have never not understood it.”

She nods. “Then perhaps you were the more mature one. I apportioned blame, and I gave you the lion’s share. I took some, too, for allowing you in based only on Karla’s recommendation. And I gave some to Colt, but not nearly as much as he deserved.”

She tugs her skirt over her knees. “I made excuses for him. He was going through a rough patch. Roles were drying up. His body wasn’t what it used to be. He was feeling old, and I brought a pretty girl into our home. What did I expect?”

“That he’d act like a forty-year-old husband and father and not see a teenage employee as a potential conquest?”

She flinches at that, but I don’t withdraw the words.