Arturo has been sitting in this chair for an hour with another woman's weight on his leg, and he has heard every word of the party being planned on his own tablet.

He knows the date. He signed the ballroom out of the estate book in March, in his own hand, under a name that is not yours.

You are in the doorway, and Fulco has come in behind you with the tray instead of putting it down and leaving, which means his brother has already decided something.

Arturo says, to you and not to the room.

He lifts his hand off Ornella's knee and puts it on the arm of the chair, palm up, where the staff cannot read it as anything at all, and the room waits for you to say something.