She looks at the dress. “I know.”
I step closer and run my fingers over the fabric. It’s impossibly soft and decadent.
“He designed this?”
“He commissioned it.”
My pulse flutters. “Why?” I whisper.
Vivienne gives me a look that suggests I'm the stupidest woman alive.
“Because he’s in love with you. He always has been.”
I swallow, loudly.
“I’ll leave you to get changed,” Vivienne says, walking back to the door.
I wait until I hear the door close then change carefully into the dress. It fits perfectly. Like someone measured every curve of my body without ever touching me.
Looking back at my reflection I see myself as if for the first time. My posture exudes confidence, even if my heart doesn’t feel it. This dress has so much main character energy I’m not sure I can fulfil its potential.
The door opens again and Vivienne takes a breath.
“Well. Pfeiffer…”
I’d smooth my hands over the dress but my palms are sweating furiously.
“What if I’m too late?” I whisper, nervously.
Vivienne's expression softens.
“If it was too late, Pfeiffer…” She glances at the dress. “…that would have gone up in flames. There’d be nothing of it left.”
I fill my lungs one last time and nod at my reflection. “Okay. I’m ready.”
Vivienne steers me through the club. The familiar bass provides a deep pulse while my heart thumps erratically.
Jaws drop to the plush carpet as I pass in my stunning couture dress and heels, but my breaths truly speed up when we stop outside the VIP lounge.
Vivienne bends to my ear. “The Di Santo’s are here,” she whispers. “Are you going to be okay? After, you know… last time.”
I nod, concealing a shudder. How could I forget? I’d never been so terrified, nor so grateful to Fiero.
Vivienne snaps open the rope clips and I walk through to another heavy curtain. When it parts, my lungs evacuate.
Familiar men in dark suits sit around the long table, each of them free of their masks. My gaze slides from one end to the other, halting only when it lands on him and my heart outright stops.
There he is, sitting at the head of the table with his brothers on one side, the Di Santo’s on the other. Just like the last time I saw the Di Santo’s in this room, there’s an extra man I haven’t seen before perched on the end like an afterthought.
The second my presence is noted, all conversation dies in an instant.
My heart thumps like an earthquake cracking concrete. Insickeningly slow motion, Fiero’s eyes lift and lock onto mine, and the entire room disappears.
He looks wrecked. Not physically—God, physically he still looks like the muscled God he is—but emotionally. Like he hasn’t slept since he left my apartment.
Before I can breathe properly, the man perched at the end reaches for my waist lazily, tugging me toward him.
I blink in disbelief.
