The moment Dani said “be my boyfriend for one dinner,” Luca should have said no. He was her brother’s best friend, which meant she was completely, categorically off-limits.
But she had looked at him with those dark eyes full of quiet desperation, and the word “yes” had left his mouth before his brain had any say in the matter.
It started simply enough. One dinner at her parents’ elegant townhouse in Rome’s Prati neighborhood, where her mother had been relentlessly pushing a family-approved suitor named Marco. Dani needed a shield. Luca was convenient. That was the story they told themselves.
He arrived at the door in a jacket he’d ironed twice, which he refused to examine too closely. She opened the door in a deep green dress, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, and for a moment neither of them said anything at all.
“You look…” he started.
“Don’t,” she said quickly, a faint flush rising in her cheeks. “We’re just doing a favor. Come in.”
The dinner was warm and loud and full of her mother’s magnificent cooking — slow-roasted lamb, rosemary potatoes, a Barolo that cost more than Luca’s rent. He held Dani’s hand across the table when Marco’s name was mentioned. She squeezed back harder than necessary, and he found he didn’t mind at all.
Her father, Enzo, watched them with quiet, careful eyes. He had known Luca for fifteen years, since the days Luca had practically lived at their apartment on Via Cola di Rienzo, eating their food and borrowing their son’s football boots. Enzo said nothing, but his gaze moved between them like a man reading a map he already knew by heart.
After dessert, on the narrow balcony overlooking the courtyard below, Dani leaned against the iron railing and exhaled.
“Thank you,” she said. “You were convincing.”
“I’m a good actor.”
She turned to look at him. The courtyard light caught the side of her face, and Luca made himself look at the street instead.
“Luca.” Her voice was softer now. “Why did you say yes?”
He gave her the safe answer. “Because you asked.”
She nodded slowly, like she was deciding whether to believe him, and they went back inside.
The problem was that one dinner became two. Her mother called the following week, delighted, and Dani panicked and called Luca. A Sunday lunch near the Borghese gardens. Then a cousin’s birthday aperitivo in Trastevere, where they stood close together in a crowded bar and he had to lean down to hear her over the noise, his lips nearly brushing her ear.
Each time, they told themselves it was temporary. Each time, it became a little harder to remember why.
They developed habits. He learned she took her coffee with no sugar but always reached for the sugar anyway, then changed her mind. She learned he got quiet when something bothered him, and she’d wait him out until he talked. They texted each other things that had nothing to do with the arrangement — a ridiculous news headline, a song she thought he’d like, a photo of a dog outside his office building that she had named, without asking, Professore.
Her brother, Matteo, noticed.
Matteo was Luca’s oldest friend, the person who had pulled him through a failed business, a broken engagement, the death of his father. He called Luca on a Tuesday evening, his voice careful and even.
“Tell me it’s not real,” Matteo said.
Luca was quiet for too long.
“Luca.”
“It started as a favor,” Luca said finally.
“And now?”
Another silence. Outside his apartment window, Rome was doing what it always did at dusk — turning golden and indifferent and unbearably beautiful.
“I don’t know,” Luca said, which was the most honest thing he’d said in weeks.
Matteo’s voice was low. “She’s my sister. If this goes wrong, I lose both of you. Do you understand that?”
“I understand.”
“Then be sure,” Matteo said. “Before you do anything. Be sure.”
Luca pulled back after that. He answered Dani’s texts more slowly. He made an excuse for the next family dinner. He told himself he was being responsible, protecting everyone, doing the right thing.
Dani let two days pass. Then she appeared at his door on a rainy Thursday evening, her coat damp, her expression composed in the way she composed it when she was actually upset.
“Did I do something?” she asked.
“No.”
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