Chapter 6 - THE MAN HIS DAUGHTER CHOSE
A week later, Lily refused to eat dinner unless Hannah was present.
“She’s negotiating,” Rosa said under her breath from the doorway.
Luca sat across from his daughter at the breakfast table while she pushed peas around her plate with grim determination.
“I want Miss Hannah.”
“She’s still recovering.”
“She can sit.”
Luca rubbed a hand over his face. “That’s not the point.”
Lily crossed her arms. “You said she’d come back.”
“I said she would see you when she was stronger.”
“She’s stronger now.”
Rosa tried not to smile.
The truth was, Hannah had been back to the house twice already—once for tea in the nursery, once for an afternoon of coloring and puzzles that left Lily visibly calmer than she had been in days. Something about Hannah’s presence soothed the raw fright still clinging to the child.
Luca understood that.
He also understood something else he had spent all week refusing to examine too closely.
He liked having Hannah in the house.
The place felt less cold.
Less performative.
More human.
By seven o’clock, he was driving to her apartment again.
When Hannah opened the door, she was wearing a soft green sweater, her hair down, one crutch tucked beneath her arm. She looked surprised and faintly amused.
“Does your family ever rest?”
“No.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“My daughter is on a hunger strike.”
Hannah blinked. “What?”
“She has decided she won’t properly eat dinner without you.”
Now Hannah was outright laughing.
“She is absolutely manipulating you.”
“I’m aware.”
“And yet you’re here.”
“And yet I’m here.”
He held up a coat he had brought in case the evening turned cold.
Hannah bit her lip, trying not to smile too much. “Luca Moretti, mafia king of Chicago, defeated by a three-year-old.”
“She’s vicious.”
Hannah’s eyes softened. “Give me five minutes.”
At the house, Lily sprinted the second Hannah entered the dining room.
“Miss Hannah!”
Luca moved automatically, ready to catch her if she collided too hard with Hannah’s healing leg. But Hannah bent carefully and opened her arms. Lily launched herself in, hugging with the complete devotion only children manage.
“Daddy said you were still pokey,” Lily declared.
Hannah laughed against her hair. “Pokey?”
“Because of the stitches.”
“That is medically accurate.”
Lily accepted this and took Hannah’s hand all the way to the table.
During dinner, the transformation in Lily was immediate. She ate. She talked. She held up her spoon and informed them both that giraffes couldn’t wear hats because their heads were “too up.”
Hannah responded seriously. “That’s a strong architectural problem.”
Lily nodded solemnly. “Exactly.”
Luca watched them over the rim of his glass.
He had known Hannah was good with Lily. He had not fully understood the scale of it. She didn’t merely entertain his daughter. She translated her world. She listened without condescension, answered without dismissal, and somehow made a child feel seen without being spoiled.
After dinner, Lily dragged Hannah to the playroom to show her the newly repaired dollhouse. Luca followed more slowly and found himself standing in the doorway while Hannah sat on the rug helping Lily fit tiny furniture into tiny rooms.
“You’re staring,” Hannah said without looking up.
He leaned against the frame. “Observing.”
“That’s a more arrogant word for it.”
He almost smiled.
Lily held up a little wooden bed. “This room is for the mommy.”
Hannah glanced up, then back to Lily. “And who sleeps here?”
Lily thought hard. “Daddy. But not Vanessa.”
The room went quiet.
Luca felt the familiar punch of grief, anger, and guilt that had become the background pulse of his week.
Hannah answered gently. “No, not Vanessa.”
Lily nodded, satisfied, then pointed to the smallest room. “And this is where bad people go when they lie.”
Hannah looked at Luca. Their eyes met.
Neither of them laughed.
Later, after Lily fell asleep in Hannah’s lap during a picture book, Luca lifted his daughter carefully and carried her upstairs. When he came back down, he found Hannah in the dim nursery lamplight, staring at the mural on the wall.
“She still reaches for you in her sleep,” he said quietly.
Hannah turned.
“That’s because she’s afraid you’ll disappear.”
He absorbed that.
“She lost her mother,” Hannah added. “Then she almost lost trust in her home. Children don’t separate those things neatly.”
He stepped farther into the room.
“And what do you recommend?”
She gave him a tired, genuine look. “Consistency. Honesty. Fewer adults pretending children don’t understand.”
He nodded slowly.
Then, after a pause, he asked, “Would you come back?”
Hannah’s eyebrows lifted. “As what?”
“Estate children’s coordinator,” he said, as if he’d been rehearsing it. “You’d oversee Lily’s routine, staff surrounding her, educational support, household child safety. Better salary. Better hours. Full benefits.”
She stared at him.
“You made that title up.”
“Possibly.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then Lily and I survive the heartbreak.”
That dragged a smile out of her.
But it faded a moment later.
“I can’t step into Vanessa’s ghost and pretend this house hasn’t been a battlefield.”
“That isn’t what I’m asking.”
“Then what are you asking?”
He answered more honestly than he intended.
“I’m asking for the one person in this house my daughter still trusts.”
May you like
And that, Hannah realized, was not really a job offer.
It was a plea.
