"I'm not hungry."
"You haven't eaten since lunch, and you've slept the day away. You're eating." He took my hand and led me back toward the main living area. "Come on. I had everything delivered while you were sleeping."
The dining table was set for two, covered dishes waiting. He pulled out a chair for me—not the one with the restraints, I noticed with a mixture of relief and disappointment—and waited until I sat before taking his own seat.
"We're going to do this differently," he said, uncovering the dishes to reveal what looked like gourmet Italian food. Potatoes, lamb, vegetables, and fresh bread. "You're going to feed yourself this time. But I'm going to watch. And you're going to eat slowly, properly, and you're going to finish everything on your plate."
"That's a lot of food."
"You need it." He served me a generous portion of everything, then did the same for himself. "Eat."
I picked up my fork and started on the potatoes. It was delicious—slightly crispy and perfectly seasoned. We ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Dez spoke again.
"Tell me about your company."
I looked up, surprised. "Why?"
"Because you run it. Because it matters to you. Because I want to know." He took a sip of the wine he'd poured. "Tell me about Castellano & Co."
Something in my chest loosened at the genuine interest in his voice.
"My mother started it thirty years ago," I said, warming to the subject. "She was a chemist with a PhD from Northwestern. She was working for one of the big cosmetics companies and got frustrated that everything was either effective but harsh, or gentle but useless."
"So she made her own."
"Exactly." I found myself smiling. "Started in our garage, mixing formulas at night after her day job. Her first product was a lip stain that actually stayed on for hours without drying out your lips. She sold it at farmers markets on weekends."
"And built an empire."
"Eventually. It took years. But she was brilliant and stubborn and refused to compromise on quality." I pushed pasta around my plate. "By the time I was in high school, we had our own lab. By college, we were in major department stores. Now we do about fifty million a year in revenue."
Dez let out a low whistle. "That's impressive."
"It was. It is." I corrected myself. "But my uncle has been slowly poisoning it from the inside. Suggesting we cut corners, use cheaper ingredients, outsource production to save money. All things my mother would have hated."
"But he's on the board?"
"He's the CFO. My mother gave him the position years ago, back when she trusted him. Before he married into the Vitale family and started thinking he deserved more." I took a long drink of wine. "Now he's just waiting for me to fail so he can take over and turn my mother's legacy into another generic cosmetics brand that puts profit over quality."
"Over your dead body."
It wasn't a question. Just a statement of fact.
"Literally, maybe." I tried to make it sound like a joke, but it came out flat. "He's made it clear what happens if I don't meet the terms of the will."
Dez set down his fork, his expression going cold in a way that made him look dangerous. "Tell me about his threats. Has he hurt you?"
"Not directly. He's too smart for that. But the implications are clear." I forced myself to keep eating. "If I don't produce a husband in the next six months, I lose everything. And if I do... well, accidents happen. Especially to women who stand in the way of powerful men."
"Not if they're protected by more powerful men."
My heart skipped. "Dez?—"
"Eat," he commanded softly. "We'll talk about this after you finish."
I obeyed, though the food had lost its taste. My mind was spinning with possibilities, with hope I was afraid to feel, with the knowledge that whatever Dez was about to propose could change everything.
When my plate was finally clean, he took it from me and set it aside. Then he stood and held out his hand.
