Page 118 of The Art of Ruin

“My mom used to make these when I was sick,” he says after a moment, placing the first slice into the pan. The butter hits the heat with a soft hiss, and the smell immediately fills the kitchen, warm and salty and ridiculous in how comforting it is. “Grilled cheese. Tomato soup. Ginger tea if she thought we were pretending.”

“You pretended to be sick?”

“Matteo did.”

“Of course he did.”

“He was terrible at it.”

“Also unsurprising.”

His mouth curves faintly as he adds the cheese. “She always knew. Fussed over him anyway.”

“She sounds lovely.”

“She was.”

There’s no hesitation in the answer, just warmth and love. “And your dad?” I ask carefully. I know the loss of their dad is fresh, only losing him a little over a year ago.

He flips the sandwich with neat precision, the bread golden already. “He was quieter. Less demonstrative. But my mother only had to look at him, and he’d do whatever she wanted. He adored her.”

I smile at that. “That sounds familiar: the women in the Mancini family having the men wrapped around their little fingers.”

He glances at me. “Careful, that could be considered slander.”

“I said nothing that wasn’t true.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately, you might be right.”

He says it with a wide smile on his face.

“I often am.”

“I’ve noticed.”

The sandwich sizzles between us, and for a minute, the only sounds are the fire in the next room, the faint noise of distant fireworks outside, and the quiet scrape of the spatula against the pan.

“They were very much in love,” he says eventually, softer now. “My parents. Not loudly, not theatrically. But you felt it in the house. In the way they moved around each other, the soft looks, the respect, the affection.”

I rest my chin lightly in my hand, watching him more than the food now. “That’s rare.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Is that what you want for Letty?”

His gaze stays on the pan, but his expression changes. Not closing down exactly. More like something inside him turns toward his daughter even though she isn’t in the room.

“I want her to feel safe enough to expect it,” he says. “Not to settle because she doesn’t know what love is supposed to look like.”

Oh. My. Heart.

I swallow.

There are moments when he says things like that, calm and matter-of-fact, and it becomes impossible to keep pretending he’s only the terrifying man in expensive suits who issues instructions like the world is built to follow them. To remember he’s my boss.

“You’re an amazing dad,” I say.

He looks at me then.