Chapter 3 - Beneath the Gilt and Marble
The dining table of Villa dei Fiori was a thirty-foot slab of polished walnut that had reportedly been salvaged from a sixteenth-century convent in Lombardy. It was laid with sterling silver so heavy it clinked with the dull, ominous ring of small weapons, and illuminated by twenty-four beeswax tapers whose flickering flames danced in the dark grain of the wood.
I sat to Luca’s right, occupying the seat traditionally reserved for a betrothed wife.
Directly across from me sat Gianna Bellini, whose crimson silk dress now looked less like festive holiday attire and more like a pool of fresh blood on the snow. To my left, at the head of the table, sat Nonna Elena. Salvatore sat to Gianna’s right, his heavy shoulders hunched like a gargoyle’s above his plate of carpaccio.
“It must be fascinating,” Gianna began, her voice sweet as cyanide as the servers poured a dry Barolo into our crystal stems, “to transition so seamlessly from organizing travel itineraries to sitting at a family vigil. Tell me, Miss Hayes, does the firm offer a specialized per diem for holiday companionship?”
The table went entirely still. Julian let out a low, muffled snicker into his napkin.
Luca’s fork stopped halfway to his plate. He didn't drop it. He set it down with geometric precision, the silver never making a sound against the porcelain. When he began to shift his weight to speak, I felt the movement against the silk of my dress.
Under the table, out of sight of the candle-lit room, I laid my hand flat against Luca’s thigh.
The muscle beneath his trousers was corded like steel cable. The touch was completely unprofessional, shockingly intimate, and instantly effective—his head turned toward me, a dark storm brewing in his eyes.
*Let me,* I communicated with a single look.
I picked up my wine glass by the stem, swirled the dark red liquid once, and smiled across the table at Gianna.
“The firm doesn't have a per diem for personal loyalty, Miss Bellini,” I said, my voice smooth, calm, and perfectly modulated to carry across the long table. “Just as it doesn't have a line item for the seven million dollars in delinquent port fees your father’s logistics syndicate owes to Moretti Holdings. Which, if I recall correctly from the third-quarter audit I signed off on last Tuesday, are thirty days past due.”
Gianna’s face flushed a violent, blotchy pink. Her wine glass trembled slightly in her manicured hand.
“You insolent little clerk—” Salvatore began, slamming a scarred palm onto the table. The crystal jumped.
“Salvatore,” Luca said.
He didn't yell. The word was spoken at conversational volume, but it dropped like an iron portcullis.
Luca leaned back in his high-backed chair, casually resting his left arm across the back of my seat, his hand resting openly on the nape of my bare neck, fingers lightly brushing the edge of the emerald choker. The display of casual, protective ownership was absolute.
“You are a guest at my table,” Luca said, his voice flat, devoid of mercy. “If you speak to Emma with anything less than the reverence you owe the woman who holds my ear, I will not wait until the new year to call Bellini’s notes. I will foreclose on your docks by dawn. And you will spend Christmas morning explaining to your dockworkers why their pensions are frozen in an escrow account managed by my ‘clerk’.”
A silence fell over the room that was terrifying in its weight.
Salvatore’s jaw worked, his teeth grinding audibly, but he slowly pulled his hand back from the table. Gianna looked down at her plate, her fingers white where she gripped her linen napkin.
Nonna Elena broke the silence. She let out a dry, rasping laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping over stone.
“The girl knows her numbers,” the old woman cackled, stabbing a piece of roast veal with her fork. “Pass the salt, Salvatore. You talk too much and your investments are soft.”
***
An hour later, the dinner dissolved into the traditional after-dinner brandy and cigars in the grand salon. Escaping the suffocating cloud of Cuban tobacco and cold glares, I slipped out through the French doors into the darkened wing of the estate, my heels clicking softly against the parquet floors.
I needed air. I needed five minutes where someone wasn't mentally measuring me for a pine box.
I found myself in a massive, two-story library lined with thousands of leather-bound volumes. A single green-shaded banker’s lamp burned on a massive mahogany desk beneath a stained-glass window that rattled against the rising blizzard outside.
I leaned back against the edge of the desk, letting out a long, ragged exhale. My hands were shaking. Now that the adrenaline was draining, the terrifying reality of what I was doing came crashing down. I had publicly humiliated a mafia boss’s daughter and threatened an underboss with financial ruin.
“You were reckless.”
I jumped.
Luca stepped out of the shadows between the high bookshelves. He had shed his tuxedo jacket, his white shirt glowing faintly in the dim green light, his tie completely undone and hanging loose around his collar.
“I was protecting you,” I shot back, my voice hushed but fierce. “Gianna was baiting you into an outburst that Salvatore could use to claim you were emotionally unstable to the board. I neutralized her.”
“You put a target on your back,” Luca said, walking toward me. He didn't stop until he was standing directly between my parted knees as I leaned against the desk. The proximity was intoxicating, suffocating. “Salvatore doesn't forgive public embarrassment. He’s small-minded, and he’s dangerous.”
“I’m not afraid of Salvatore,” I whispered, my heart hammering violently against the black platinum choker.
Luca looked down at me, his gaze dropping to my lips before rising back to my eyes. The coldness that had defined him for three years was completely absent. In its place was something raw, dark, and terrifyingly real.
“You should be,” he whispered, his hand coming up to cup my jaw. His thumb brushed my cheekbone, his skin hot against my winter-chilled face. “Because he isn't the most dangerous man in this house tonight, Emma.”
“Who is?”
May you like
“I am,” Luca murmured. His fingers slid into the loose waves of my hair, tilting my head back slightly. “Because for three years, I told myself that you were off-limits. That keeping you behind a desk was the only way to keep you clean. And now that I’ve seen you wear my mother’s jewels... now that I’ve heard you claim me in front of my family... I don't think I can ever let you go back to that desk.”
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