“Yes.”
Just like that. No bargaining. No warning. No patronizing speech about family or dignity. Just yes.
I stood too quickly and nearly dropped my purse.
“I should probably explain one more thing,” I said. “I may have implied you were… dangerous.”
Tobias looked at the ceiling.
Lorenzo slipped his hands into his pockets. “Miss Hayes, half this city has implied worse.”
“It was more specific than that.”
“How specific?”
“I may have said head of the mafia.”
The room went very still.
Heat rushed to my face.
“I panicked,” I said. “Well, technically I planned to panic in advance.”
Tobias turned his head away, but I saw his shoulders move once.
Lorenzo studied me for a long second.
Then he laughed.
It was quiet, unexpected, and so human that I forgot for a moment to be embarrassed.
“I see,” he said. “And do you often solve personal problems by inventing organized crime connections?”
“No. Usually I eat cereal over the sink and imagine better arguments three hours too late.”
His smile faded into something gentler.
“Then Thursday,” he said. “I will be your dangerous man.”
I should have felt relieved.
Instead, for reasons I could not explain, I felt seen.
Thursday arrived with cold rain and a sky the color of pewter. I spent the entire day moving through the hotel like someone inhabiting the body of a capable woman while the real me sat in a corner holding a paper bag to breathe into.
By six, I had changed three times. By seven, I had almost canceled twice. At seven-thirty, a black car pulled up outside my apartment building.
Tobias was driving.
He opened the back door without comment.
Inside, Lorenzo sat waiting.
I slid in, careful not to brush against him, though the car smelled faintly of cedar and clean leather and something warm I could not name.
“You look nice,” he said.
The compliment was simple. Not appraising. Not possessive. Nice.
“Thank you,” I said. “You look like you’re about to buy the restaurant or foreclose on it.”
“That depends on the service.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
For the first time all day, my lungs remembered how to work.
At Bellini’s, everything unfolded exactly as Ethan had designed it.
My mother had chosen the largest round table in the center of the room, visible from every angle. Chloe sat beside Ethan, glowing nervously in a cream sweater dress. My father looked tired. Aunt Marjorie and Uncle Paul had been invited too, because apparently a humiliation required witnesses to be considered formal.
When Ethan leaned across the table and whispered, “I’m marrying your sister,” I saw the old expectation in his eyes.
Break, he seemed to say.
Instead, I lifted my glass.
“Congratulations,” I said. “I’m dating the head of the mafia.”
Then Lorenzo walked in.
Now, with his hand extended beside my chair, the restaurant waited.
I placed my hand in his.
His fingers closed around mine with warm steadiness.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, though he was not late at all.
My mother’s mouth opened, then closed.
Chloe stared at Lorenzo as if he had stepped out of a rumor.
Ethan recovered first. He always did. His charm was a coat he could put on over anything.
“You must be Lorenzo,” he said, rising halfway from his chair and extending a hand. “Ethan Prescott.”
Lorenzo looked at Ethan’s hand, then at his face.
After a pause just long enough to be noticed, he shook it.
“Mr. Prescott.”
Ethan’s smile tightened. “I didn’t realize Olivia was seeing anyone.”
“There is much you do not realize about Olivia,” Lorenzo said.
My mother laughed too brightly.
“Well, this is certainly a surprise. Olivia didn’t mention she was bringing a guest.”
“She mentioned it to me,” Lorenzo said.
That ended the matter so cleanly that even my mother seemed unsure where to place her objection.
A waiter appeared with a chair. Lorenzo took the seat beside me, and the table rearranged itself around his presence without anyone moving. Conversations resumed, but carefully, as if every sentence now had to pass through customs.
“So,” Aunt Marjorie said, leaning forward with the determined cheer of someone who enjoyed disasters as long as they happened to other people, “how did you two meet?”