"I heard everything today. The Ferraro deal, Lorenzo, the debts." His jaw tightens and the muscle jumps beneath his ear. "I'm not going to let that happen."
"You don't get to decide what happens to me. My father already tried that. It didn't go well."
"I'm not your father." He takes a step toward me. One step. He’s now close enough that I can smell the hint of whiskey on his breath and feel the warmth radiating from his chest through the gap between us. "I promised you once that no one would harm you. That you were safe. I keep my word. I'm offering you a way out. You’d be a fool not to take it."
My pulse hammers so hard I can feel it in my fingertips. "What kind of way out?"
Massimo’s next words force me to accept a reality I am trying to run from.
"Marry me."
The room tilts. The string lights blur. I grip the back of the chair tighter, the wood biting into my palm and stare at him.
"A marriage of convenience?” I demand harshly.
There’s a moment of silence.
“Yes,” he states.
The word comes out so low it vibrates through me, and I can't decide if I want to jump for joy or demand he leave.
“Take my contract instead of Lorenzo's. It protects you from the Ferraro claim, shields your father's assets, and gives me legal standing to challenge any existing arrangement." His voice is pure lawyer now, measured and precise, each word placed with the certainty of someone who's been drafting this argument for hours. It’s obvious because there’s not an ounce of hesitancy.
But his eyes are not lawyerly at all. His eyes are burning and desperate and full of hunger.
He brushes away wisps of hair that have fallen across my face. "You'd live in my penthouse. You'd be under my protection. Lorenzo can't touch you if my ring is on your finger."
"A contract marriage." I hear my own voice and it sounds far away, thin, like it's coming from somewhere behind me instead of from my own mouth. "You're asking me to sign another contract. What's the difference? Your contract or his?" I’m not opposed to his proposal. But I want to hear him say the words. My heart of hearts wants to hear the man I’ve loved from afar for years say he wants me.
My heart quickens. Petty, maybe. But a girl can have her cake and eat it too, damn it.
"I'm asking you to choose. Lorenzo's cage or mine." He pauses. "And I'm asking you to remember whose hands you trusted last night."
My arms loosen across my chest. My fingers uncurl from my elbows. I look at this man standing in my apartment offering me a marriage on paper and a protection I didn't ask for. I want to say no because a contract is exactly what I'm running from. Another man deciding what happens to my body...no thanks. Another arrangement I didn't initiate.
But this man's hands are the only ones that ever made me safe. And he's looking at me right now with those penetrating eyes, standing in the warm amber of my string lights with his sleeves rolled and his tie gone and his heart on his face, and I am so tired of being brave alone.
"If I say yes." My voice is barely a whisper. "What happens?"
"You sign tonight." He taps the leather folio on the counter. "I've had it drawn up."
"Tonight."
"Lorenzo isn't going to wait, Sloane. And neither am I."
I look at the red heel in the box. The shoe I lost running from him. The shoe he kept. The shoe he carried to my door.
He cares. But why?
“Why do you care?”
“You’re the second person to ask me that tonight.”
“And?”
For the first time, my father’s best friend steps into my personal space, gathers me in his arms and lowers his lips to mine.
He knowingly kisses me for me. His warm, firm lips find the dip in my shoulder. Teeth scrape along the tender flesh and I melt into him. My lashes fall closed and I mentally capture this moment for the dark days I know will come.