Chapter 3

Dante POV

Marcus Calloway called me four days before the wedding, which told me everything I needed to know about how badly he wanted what I was about to take off the market.

"I hear congratulations are in order," he said, all silk and no substance. "Salvatore's girl. Didn't take you long to console yourself, Dante."

"Careful."

"I'm only saying what half the city's thinking. A young widow's fortune, an old widower's convenience, some might call it opportunistic."

"Some might find themselves reconsidering that opinion if they keep voicing it where I can hear them."

He laughed, but it didn't reach wherever passed for his spine. "My son would've made her a fine husband. Younger and much better suited to a woman her age."

"Your son is twenty-three and has never run anything larger than his father's patience. He'd have gotten her killed inside a year, either by his own carelessness or by making himself a target no one respected enough to leave alone."

I let the silence sit. "The wedding is Saturday, Marcus. I'd advise sending a gift instead of a grievance."

I hung up before he could answer, because there was nothing else worth saying to a man who saw a grieving twenty-six-year-old as a transaction he'd lost.

He wasn't wrong that half the city was calling it opportunistic. He wasn't wrong that I'd spent five years building a reputation as a man who didn't remarry, didn't soften. He was wrong about the reason I was breaking all of it at once, but I understood why he'd never guess the truth… I barely believed it myself.

I went to see her that evening, ostensibly about wedding logistics. In truth I told myself several other reasons and believed none of them.

She was staying at her father's house until the wedding. My men posted at every entrance though she hadn't asked for them and made her opinion of them clear every time she walked past. I found her in the study, going through a box of Salvatore's papers, dressed down in a way I hadn't seen her yet… soft grey sweater, hair loose, feet bare against the hardwood. Something in my chest went tight at the sight of her like that, unguarded.

"Mr. Moretti. Come to inspect the merchandise before Saturday?"

"I came to ask what flowers you'd prefer, actually. The wedding planner insists it matters."

That got her attention. "You're marrying me for protection and you're asking about flowers."

"I'm marrying you for protection. That doesn't mean I intend to erase you from your own wedding."

I moved further into the room, closer than logistics required, close enough to see the fine gold flecks in eyes I'd been telling myself for two weeks were simply brown. "What would you have chosen, if this were a wedding you'd wanted?"

Something softened in her. "White ranunculus. My mother grew them. I don't imagine that matters to anyone but me."

"It matters," I said, meaning it more than the sentence let on. "I'll have them sent."

She studied me like I'd said something more complicated than I intended. The look in her eyes told me more things than I needed to know. She didn’t trust me fully but somehow, she knew we were in for a long ride and no matter what happened, I was never going to leave her side even if she tried. So if she wanted a full garden of flowers, I sure as hell was going to give it to her because after what she had been through, she deserved it and more.

"Why are you really here, Mr. Moretti?"

"Dante," I said. "You're marrying me in four days. I'd prefer you use my name."

"Why are you really here, Dante."

I stepped closer, close enough that if she stepped back she'd hit the desk behind her. She didn't step back.

"Marcus Calloway called me an hour ago," I said, quieter now. "Suggested his son would have suited you better. Younger, he said."

"And you came all the way here to tell me you disagreed?"

"I came here because some part of me wanted to see your face when I told him no."

Her breath caught, quiet, but I heard it. I watched her pulse move at her throat, quick, betraying whatever composure she was holding onto, and understood with sudden clarity that I wanted to put my mouth exactly there, badly enough that I had to remind myself, deliberately, of every reason I'd sworn this would be a marriage in name only.

"You said separate rooms," Elena said, barely above a whisper. "Separate lives. You said you had no interest in pretending at something neither of us wanted."

"I did say that."

"Was it a lie?"

I should have said yes. Instead I reached out, slow enough that she could have stopped me, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, my fingers grazing her jaw. She shivered under a touch that barely qualified as one.

"It wasn't a lie," I said, my thumb still resting against her jaw. "It was a promise I intend to keep, Elena, because you deserve a husband who keeps his word even when keeping it costs him something."

My gaze dropped, helpless, to her mouth. "But I won't pretend, standing this close to you, that keeping it isn't going to cost me a great deal."

"Dante…"

A knock at the study door had us both stepping back at once, guilty as children, and by the time her housekeeper poked her head in to ask about seating arrangements, we were two people discussing flowers again, nothing more but she caught my sleeve at the front door as I left, just for a second, just long enough to make my pulse do something undignified.

"Saturday," she said, like she was reminding herself as much as me.

"Saturday," I agreed.

I sat behind the wheel of my car for a full five minutes before I trusted myself to drive, turning over the shape of a promise I'd made with absolute conviction two weeks ago and was already, four days before my wed

ding, in very real danger of breaking.