Matteo leaned back in his chair, his eyes scanning her face with a familiarity that felt both strange and comforting. “It really has. You’ve grown up a lot since the last time we saw each other. I barely recognized you.”
Isabella chuckled, shaking her head in disbelief. “I could say the same about you. The last time I saw you, you were—what? Thirteen? Fourteen?”
“Fourteen,” Matteo confirmed with a grin. “We were just kids back then. Time flies, doesn’t it?”
“It really does,” Isabella agreed, feeling a strange sense of nostalgia wash over her. She remembered the summers when the Rossini family would visit, the long dinners filled with laughter and stories of the business world her father and Matteo’s father ruled together. It all seemed so far away now, like a different lifetime.
They s
