“Water for now,” Roman said without looking up. “Give us a minute.”
“Of course, sir.”
Beatatrice looked up from her menu — first at Greg, then at Roman. Her hand moved to her chest in a question. Roman’s face softened almost imperceptibly as he met her eyes. He shook his head and pointed to a line on the menu.
Beatatrice squinted at the small print, then looked at Greg. “Excuse me,” she said. Her voice had the flattened rhythm of someone who had never heard herself speak. “What is this?” She pointed.
Greg’s smile wavered. He glanced at Roman, as if asking permission to answer. Roman’s jaw tightened. “The lady asked you a question.”
Greg snapped back to Beatatrice. He leaned in close. “That is the duck confit, ma’am.”
Beatatrice was watching his mouth — and Greg, like an amateur, turned his head toward the menu as he spoke. She missed every word.
“What?” she asked, brow furrowing.
And then Greg made the mistake that would end his career at Laura. Confronted with a deaf woman, he did what frightened, thoughtless people do: he confused a failure of hearing with a failure of intellect. He bent closer and began speaking with agonizing slowness, each syllable too loud.
“It. Is. The. Duck.”
His voice carried across the alcove. Then, reaching for a gesture he seemed to find clever, he added, “Duck. Bird. Quack, quack.”
Harper’s blood turned to ice water.
The silence that followed was total. At the surrounding tables, Roman’s bodyguards stopped mid-motion. Beatatrice recoiled as though struck, color flooding her face, eyes dropping to her lap. She understood exactly what had happened. Condescension needs no translation.
Roman closed his menu. The leather cracked against the mahogany like a gunshot.
Greg froze, his practiced smile still hanging on his face while his eyes began to catch up with what he’d done.
Roman turned his head slowly toward him. “What did you just do?” The voice was barely a whisper, and somehow worse for it.
“Sir, I was only trying to explain —”
“You barked at my mother like she was a stray dog.” Roman rose from his chair and unbuttoned his jacket. “You spoke to her as though she were stupid.”
“No, Mr. Moretti, I swear — I only thought she couldn’t hear me.”
“She can’t hear you.” Roman circled the table. The bodyguards were already on their feet, forming a wall between the alcove and the rest of the room. “That means she lacks hearing. It does not mean she lacks a mind.”
Greg was shaking now. The crumb scraper slipped from his fingers and clattered on the floor. “Please — I apologize. I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m so sorry.”
Beatatrice watched her son with alarm, grabbed his sleeve, shook her head. She couldn’t hear the words, but she could read the shape of the confrontation perfectly, and she hated it — Harper could see it plainly. Beatatrice Moretti did not want to be the reason her son became the monster everyone whispered about.
Roman gently freed his sleeve. “You made her feel small.” He stepped in close and fisted the lapel of Greg’s jacket, dragging the waiter toward him. “I have buried men for looking at her the wrong way. What do you imagine I’m going to do to you for turning her into a joke?”
Greg made a strangled sound. Paul stood frozen in the archway, every managerial instinct paralyzed.
Harper’s heart hammered against her ribs. Every instinct in her body screamed at her to stay exactly where she was. Roman Moretti was reputed to be a killer. Greg had been an idiot. None of it was her problem.
Then she looked at Beatatrice.
The older woman had pressed her fingers to her mouth. She was trembling. Tears stood in her eyes — and Harper had seen that precise expression once before, years ago, on the face of her little brother Leo, when other children mocked the way he talked. The humiliation of being misunderstood. The helplessness of watching strangers turn that misunderstanding into cruelty.
Harper stopped thinking. Muscle memory took over.