While she reads, I think of Noah. I think of Chapter One. The Fendi suit. The way Elizabeth shows up at the park, naïve and optimistic. The way the truth crushes her. The way she runs. And then—

If it means a chance to be with you, I’ll be here every Saturday at sunset for the rest of my life.

When Gabriella looks up at me, I realize there are tears in my eyes. She puts her hand out, takes mine in it.

“Lanie.”

“I’m so sorry. I think it’s right that the truth come out about Noah, but I had no idea this piece was coming, that it would publish now. I didn’t want to ruin your event.”

“I understand,” Gabriella says, swirling her wine thoughtfully. “Secrets have their own lives.” She picks up her phone and types furiously. “But I’m canceling your interviews this afternoon.”

I nod. Gabriella knows her market, and it may be for the best to distance myself from the Italian launch entirely—

“You’ll need to save your strength for the party,” she says.

“You still want me to speak at the launch?”

Gabriella sets her phone down, looks up at me, and crosses her arms. “I think you owe our readers an explanation.”

“Yes. And I will do my best to give it to them.” I sit up straighter in my chair. I square my shoulders. “I believe in the truth of Noa Callaway and in Noah Ross. I believe in this book, and the ones coming after it. I didn’t come all this way to hide.”

“Very well.” Gabriella smiles at me, approving. “I don’t think the guests will go so far as to actually run you into the sea, but just so you’re prepared, they will expect catharsis.”

With eight hours to go before a couple hundred Italian women eat me like an appetizer at an elegant party that will be livestreamed around the world, I rev the Ducati’s engine and wonder which way to go. What does one do with a free afternoon on the Amalfi Coast, a yearning heart, a looming comeuppance, and a man on the other side of an ocean who won’t pick up his phone?

When I see a sign on the side of the Amalfi Coast highway for the road to Castel San Giorgio, I recognize the name. I remember I’d read it’s the launch site for hang gliders over the Amalfi Coast. I couldn’t have planned this better if I’d tried. I wind the bike up the long medieval road and park in a pebble lot behind an ancient Greek temple.

I come upon a woman about my age, inspecting the parachutes of two gliders next to a tangle of harnesses and helmets. She has a kind face and a lime green bandana in her hair.