Chapter 9 - The First Date After the Divorce
One year later, Vincent Moretti showed up at my front door carrying a diaper bag covered in yellow ducks.
If anyone from his old organization had seen him, they might have died from shock.
Grace had chosen the bag herself by pointing at it in a store and shouting, “Duck!”
Vincent considered this legally binding.
“You’re early,” I said.
“Four minutes.”
“That is early.”
“I was told punctuality is respectful.”
“By your therapist?”
“Yes.”
I laughed.
Grace heard his voice from the living room and came running on unsteady toddler legs.
“Dada!”
Vincent’s entire face changed.
He dropped to one knee.
“There’s my girl.”
She crashed into his chest.
He caught her gently.
A year earlier, I had wondered whether I would ever be able to watch him hold our child without seeing the cable car.
Now I saw bedtime stories.
Pediatrician visits.
Mashed banana on his expensive shirt.
Sunday mornings at the park.
A man who had never missed a scheduled parenting visit unless Grace was sick and I asked him not to come.
A man who had never once used money, gifts, or guilt to push past a boundary.
He had become boring in the best possible way.
Reliable.
Consistent.
Predictable.
For Vincent Moretti, that was practically a supernatural transformation.
“Her lunch is in the side pocket,” I said. “She refused carrots this morning.”
“She likes my carrots.”
“She likes throwing your carrots.”
“That is still engagement with the vegetable.”
Grace giggled as if he were brilliant.
I rolled my eyes.
Vincent stood with her in his arms.
“You look nice.”
I looked down at my jeans and sweater.
“I look exactly the same as yesterday.”
“I know.”
The way he said it made warmth creep into my cheeks.
That had been happening more often lately.
It annoyed me.
Our divorce remained final.
We lived in separate homes.
Vincent had sold the mansion where we had been married and moved into a quieter house in Lincoln Park with a backyard Grace adored.
The federal investigations had ended six months earlier.
His cooperation helped convict Carlo and several others. Vincent accepted responsibility for financial violations tied to companies he had managed, paid substantial penalties, and agreed to years of federal compliance monitoring. Prosecutors declined to charge him in the violent cases because the evidence showed he had not ordered them and because his cooperation had been essential to dismantling Carlo’s network.
He no longer ran anything that required men to lower their voices when his name was mentioned.
Moretti Continental had been restructured into a legitimate logistics and real-estate company with an independent board.
Vincent owned less of it than he once had.
He seemed lighter because of that.
I had changed too.
With Rebecca and Hannah’s help, I created a nonprofit legal fund called High Ground.
The name was my idea.
It funded emergency legal services, temporary housing, and counseling for women trying to leave coercive relationships.
Vincent offered money once.
I told him the foundation would accept a donation only if it came through the same process as everyone else and gave him no influence.
He donated anonymously.
I knew anyway.
I never told him.
Some things did not need to become conversations.
“Where are you taking her?” I asked.
“The aquarium. Then lunch with Lucas.”
I smiled.
Lucas had moved back to Chicago three months earlier.
He had spent almost a year in Boston rebuilding his life away from the Moretti name before deciding he wanted a relationship with Vincent on his own terms.
He still called himself Lucas Reed.
Vincent never asked him to change it.
Grace adored him.
She called him “Unca Luke,” which made both men emotional every single time.
“Have fun,” I said.
Vincent hesitated near the door.
“Claire?”
“Yes?”
“There’s something I want to ask you.”
My stomach tightened automatically.
He saw it.
“Nothing about custody. Nothing serious.”
“That sentence has never made anyone feel less nervous.”
He smiled.
“Dinner.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“Dinner with me.”
“We have dinner together all the time. Grace’s birthday. Sunday handoffs. Lucas’s place.”
“No.” He shifted Grace to his other arm. “Dinner with me. Without Grace. Without lawyers. Without discussing pediatric sleep schedules.”
I stared at him.
“Are you asking me on a date?”
“Yes.”
A full year had passed since Grace’s birth.
Almost eighteen months since Aspen.
Vincent had never asked.
Not once.
That restraint mattered more than the question.
“Why now?”
“Because last week you laughed at something I said and touched my arm without thinking.”
My face heated.
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“Maybe you were blocking the doorway.”
“I was sitting down.”
“Details.”
He smiled.
Then his expression became serious.
“I’m asking because I think there may be something between us that is new. Not the marriage. Not the guilt. Not the baby. Something new.”
My throat tightened.
“And if I say no?”
“I take Grace to the aquarium and never mention it again unless you do.”
I studied him.
The answer was exactly right.
“Friday,” I said.
He froze.
“What?”
“Friday. Seven. One dinner.”
His face lit up so quickly I laughed.
“Do not make that face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you look like you just won a country.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You absolutely do.”
Grace clapped because everyone seemed happy.
Vincent kissed her cheek.
“Friday,” he repeated.
“Seven.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
“No.”
He stopped.
“I’ll meet you there.”
He nodded immediately.
“Of course.”
Our first date after divorce took place at a small Italian restaurant in River North where nobody knew us.
No private room.
No security team at the next table.
No bottle of wine worth more than someone’s rent.
Vincent wore a navy jacket and looked more nervous than he had on our first wedding day.
I loved that.
We talked for three hours.
Not about Aspen.
Not about Carlo.
Not about the shooting.
We talked about books, terrible movies, Grace’s obsession with ducks, Hannah’s new boyfriend, and whether pineapple belonged on pizza.
Vincent said no.
I said yes.
We nearly ended the relationship there.
Outside the restaurant, snow had begun to fall.
Vincent walked me to my car.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For dinner?”
“For saying yes.”
I looked at him.
He did not move closer.
Did not assume.
Did not turn a good evening into an expectation.
“Vincent.”
“Yes?”
“Kiss me.”
His eyes widened.
“Are you sure?”
I laughed softly.
“I will change my mind if you ask me three more times.”
He stepped closer.
The kiss was gentle.
Nothing like the desperate reunions I had once imagined in sleepless nights.
No dramatic claiming.
No past being erased.
Just two people in the snow, beginning again from zero.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested lightly against mine.
“I still love you,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“I am not asking for anything.”
“I know.”
“I just—”
“Vincent.”
“Yes?”
“Ask me on a second date.”
He smiled.
“Claire Bennett, will you have dinner with me again?”
“Yes.”
That was how we began.
Not with a wedding ring.
With dinner.
Then coffee.
Then a museum.
Then a disastrous cooking class where Vincent nearly set a towel on fire and claimed the stove was defective.
Months passed.
Grace learned to say “no” with extraordinary confidence.
Vincent celebrated every time.
“Strong boundaries,” he would say solemnly while our daughter refused shoes.
I laughed every single time.
One evening, eight months after our first date, I found a small wooden box on Vincent’s bookshelf while looking for Grace’s missing stuffed duck.
He saw me holding it and went still.
“What is this?”
His eyes dropped.
“Your old wedding ring.”
My breath caught.
“You kept it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you gave it to me in Aspen, and I needed to remember what it meant.”
I opened the box.
The diamond looked exactly the same.
I did not.
Neither did he.
“Were you planning to give it back?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“Only if you asked for it. And even then, I would not use it to ask you to marry me again.”
I looked at him.
“Why not?”
“Because that ring belongs to the marriage I broke.”
My eyes filled.
“What would you use?”
He went very still.
“That sounds dangerously close to a hypothetical proposal conversation.”
“Maybe.”
He did not take the bait.
“I would wait until you told me you were ready to have that conversation.”
I closed the box and handed it back.
“Good answer.”
He exhaled.
Then I kissed him.
Over his shoulder, Grace appeared in the doorway holding the missing stuffed duck.
She pointed at us and shouted, “Again!”
May you like
Vincent burst out laughing.
And for the first time, the future did not scare me.
