Page 161 of The Art of Ruin

“You’ll see.”

“You’re very bossy lately.”

“You like it.”

He sounds entirely too confident saying it, and he should because he’s right. I love it when he gets bossy with me. I especially love it in the bedroom. But what I love most is that when I push back, he folds like a deck of cards, but only for me.

I narrow my eyes. “That’s not the point.”

“It sounded like the point.”

I throw a cushion at him.

He catches it one-handed without looking and even manages to not spill a drop of coffee.

Infuriating man.

Twenty minutes later, we’re stepping into a warm studio tucked above an old jewelry shop in SoHo while snow drifts softly outside the windows.

I stop dead in the doorway.

Long wooden workbenches fill the room beneath hanging pendant lights, scattered with tools and trays of gemstones, while soft music hums quietly in the background.

At the far end, an elegant, silver-haired woman looks up from arranging delicate chains and smiles immediately. “There you are.”

I turn slowly toward Adriano. “What is this?”

“You said your mother used to make jewelry with you.”

Emotion catches me unexpectedly somewhere behind my ribs.

One stupid story about glitter glue and plastic beads while we were half asleep in bed.

And somehow, he remembered.

Of course he remembered.

“You said you missed it,” he says quietly, suddenly looking almost uncertain for the first time since I’ve known him. “I thought maybe you’d enjoy this more than dinner.”

God.

My heart actually hurts. “It’s perfect,” I say honestly.

Relief flashes briefly across his face before it disappears beneath something warmer.

The woman approaches then, introducing herself as Celeste before leading us toward one of the workbenches near the windows. “You’ll be designing simple custom pieces tonight,” she explains smoothly. “Nothing too intimidating.”

“You’re seriously overestimating my design abilities,” I mutter.

Beside me, Adriano removes his coat before helping me out of mine automatically.

The domestic ease of it nearly kills me on the spot.

Celeste smiles knowingly like she’s seen right through both of us already.

For the next hour, the room settles into warmth and quiet conversation and constant, accidental touching. It’s like the jewelry-making version of the scene from Ghost with the pottery wheel, but with an audience, so slightly more PG.

At least—