This was what I wanted. What I'd been planning for.
So why did I feel something dangerously close to disappointment?
I turned off the water and gripped the sink again, steadying myself against the marble's cold weight.
I'd noticed things. That was the problem. I'd noticed his hands—large, capable, the kind of hands that looked like they could build something or break it with equal ease. I'd noticed his shoulders, broad under the perfectly tailored suit, the way they carried authority without demanding attention. I'd noticed the way he commanded the room simply by existing in it, how people oriented toward him like flowers toward the sun without him ever raising his voice.
I'd felt a pull toward him. Physical. Instinctive. The kind of awareness that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with something older, deeper, more dangerous.
It terrified me almost as much as Enzo's presence had.
But I knew what it meant to be drawn to a powerful man and I would not make that mistake again.
Dante Caruso was not my savior. He was not my escape. He was another cage, gilded and comfortable perhaps, but a cage nonetheless. Whatever I'd seen in his face—the widened eyes, the clenched jaw, the roughness in his voice—it didn't mean anything. It couldn't mean anything.
I dried my face with one of the thick monogrammed towels and began the slow process of putting myself back together. Foundation to cover the evidence of crying. Mascara carefully reapplied. Hair smoothed back into place.
A knock at the suite door made me flinch before I could catch myself.
The sound was polite. Professional.
I tightened the belt of my robe—I'd changed out of the funeral dress the moment I was alone, unable to bear the weight of it against my skin—and crossed to the door on legs that felt less steady than they should.
The peephole showed a young woman in Peninsula livery, her face professionally neutral, her arms wrapped around an enormous flower arrangement. White lilies. Dozens of them, cascading from a crystal vase that probably cost more than my first car.
Funeral flowers.
The association hit me before I opened the door. White lilies were for death. For mourning. For the caskets of men like Vito Caruso, lowered into the ground while three hundred people watched and pretended to grieve.
I unlatched the door anyway.
"Delivery for Ms. Moretti." The woman smiled—a practiced customer-service smile that revealed nothing. "Where would you like them?"
"The entry table is fine."
She set them down with the careful precision of someone who handled fragile things professionally. The scent of the lilies filled the suite immediately, cloying and sweet, the kind of sweetness that coated your throat and made it hard to breathe.
"Is there anything else I can—"
"That's all. Thank you."
I pressed a tip into her hand, ushered her out, and stood alone in the foyer with the flowers looming between me and the rest of the room.
There was a card. Of course there was a card. Tucked into the arrangement like a blade hidden in silk.
White envelope, heavy cardstock. The kind of stationery that announced money and taste and the expectation of being taken seriously.
My fingers trembled as I reached for it.
I almost didn't open it. Almost left it sealed, unread, a mystery I could pretend didn't exist. But that was the coward's way out, and I had spent too many years being a coward. Pretending I didn't see the things I saw. Pretending the truth would go away if I just ignored it hard enough.
I slid my finger under the flap and pulled out the card.
The handwriting was elegant. Familiar. I had love letters in that same precise script, hidden in a box at the bottom of my closet because I'd never been able to bring myself to destroy them. Proof that I'd been wanted once, even if the wanting had been a lie. Evidence that someone had seen me, chosen me, claimed me.
Now those same careful letters spelled out a different message:
The flowers are for the death of your freedom. Welcome back, sweetheart. I've missed you. —E
