No one asked me if I’d do it. It was simply decided.
Even if someone had asked, I would’ve said yes. How could I not? I wanted to support my dad. But I hadn’t considered what that support would cost me.
It wasn’t the hard work—I could handle long hours and late nights. What gutted me was losing control over my time. I was a piece on someone else’s chessboard, moved at will. Client appointments didn’t matter. Shopping for my business didn’t matter. If I was needed at a lunch, a rally, an interview, I had to drop everything at a moment’s notice, without question.
I’d lost ten clients in the past year. Ten. And every time, it felt like a part of me withered and died.
This wasn’t just a business. It was my passion and my last, fragile link to my mom.
To me, she was the most beautiful woman in the world—always smiling, always expressive, always draped in color. Fashion wasn’t just something she wore. It was how she lived. And it had rubbed off on me.
We used to play dress-up with the treasures in her closet. Later, she taught me to sew, to alter clothes, to make them my own.
She died when I was nine. An aneurysm. No warning. No goodbye.
For months afterward, I wanted nothing. Nothing but her. My room felt cold and empty, so I slept in her closet. My dad let me. He didn’t know what else to do. I curled into my sleeping bag on the carpeted floor, one of her dresses clutched in my arms, and cried into the fabric that still smelled like her.
It was during one of those nights—wrapped in the scent of her and cocooned in her world—that I decided what I wanted to do with my life.
I wanted to dress people the way Mom had dressed me. I wanted them to feel what she'd made me feel—confident, seen, beautiful. And every time they smiled, it would be a smile for her too.
Swallowing past the tightness in my throat, I retied the shoulder straps of my dress, adjusting the bows until they sat just right.
Not everything was lost.
I just had to make it to November 8th.
If my father won? Great. If he lost? I would be devastated for him, but at least the campaign would be over. I’d be off the hook. Jenny had promised.
I could start putting my business back together.
If there was still a business left to save.
The door swung open. I didn’t get a ton of walk-ins, but when it happened, it was always a nice surprise. Especially now.
“Hi! Come on i?—“
My greeting got strangled on its way past my lips. It wasn’t a prospective client standing on my doorstep.
It washim.
Romolo Ferraro tilted his head, his gaze drifting over my body.
I blinked once, twice, praying he was an apparition. He wasn’t. He was still there, staring at me like I was something he couldn’t wait to sink his teeth into.
How had he found me? He didn’t even know who I was. Or at least… I’d thought he didn’t. Clearly, I’d been wrong.
His intense stare unsettled me, but worse was the slow, dangerous smirk that curved his lips as he slightly turned. Flashing me the snake and dagger tattoo on the side of his throat, he reached behind him, and…
Locked the door.
My heart rate soared. If one of my fainting spells hit right now, it would be the worst possible time.
I waited for that telltale flash of heat to appear, but it didn’t. Not yet.
“I have an appointment coming any second now,” I warned him, rising from my seat while I gripped the side of the desk, just in case I started feeling woozy.
His eyes glittered. “Doubt it.”
