She was holding herself together. Barely. The cracks were there if you knew how to look—the shadows under her eyes that makeup couldn't quite hide, the tension in her shoulders, the way her breathing was just slightly too controlled.
She'd been doing this for a long time. Holding it together. Pretending everything was fine. Being exactly what everyone expected while the real her stayed locked away somewhere safe, somewhere no one could reach.
I knew because I did the same thing every day.
But I had Santo to fight with and Marco to confide in and Donatella to remind me I was human. I had family, flawed and complicated but there, always there, ready to catch me if I fell.
Who did she have?
The thought settled into my bones like something that had always been there, just waiting to be noticed.
This woman needs to be taken care of.
She's a little.
The thought surfaced from somewhere deep, a part of my brain I usually kept locked away. The part that noticed things I wasn't supposed to notice. The part that recognized needs that had no acceptable name.
It should have been absurd. I barely knew her. We'd exchanged exactly one sentence.
But I felt it like a certainty, like gravity, like something that had been true before I ever walked into this room.
Fuck.
Talk, Dante, talk!
She needed a Daddy.
Christ. I was losing my mind.
"Thank you." The words came out rougher than intended, scraped from a throat that had forgotten how to work. "I appreciate you coming."
It was inadequate. Barely polite. The kind of response you gave a stranger you couldn't be bothered to acknowledge properly.
I watched confusion flicker across her face. A slight furrow between her brows, there and gone. She probably thought I wasa cold bastard who couldn't be bothered with pleasantries. Or worse—she thought the rumors were true, that the new Caruso don was as ruthless as they said, that she was walking into a prison instead of a marriage.
The mask slid back into place. Smooth and perfect, revealing nothing.
"Of course," she said. Formal. Distant. Matching my tone exactly. "If there's anything our family can do during this difficult time, please don't hesitate to ask."
She withdrew her hand from mine.
I hadn't realized I was still holding it.
The Morettis moved away, back into the crowd, and I stood in the center of my father's funeral reception with my heart hammering against my ribs and a woman's perfume lingering in my lungs.
She had no idea what she'd just done to me.
Business. It was all just business.
Chapter 4
Gemma
Themarblewascoldunder my palms.
I gripped the edge of the sink hard enough that my knuckles had gone white, hard enough that I could feel the veins standing out against my skin, and watched my reflection shake apart in the mirror.
The Peninsula's bathroom was all polished surfaces and soft lighting—the kind of luxury designed to make you feel pampered, cared for, safe. Gold fixtures. Thick towels monogrammed with the hotel's crest. A rainfall showerhead and a soaking tub big enough for two.
