Page 16

Fuck this guy.
The low glow of the candlelight carved sharp angles across his face, and for a second, he looked nervous, a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
My sisters had taught me that true power thrums in silence. I let the room settle around us, the quiet pressing against him.
He swallowed, his confident smile flickering. He had no idea I’d already made the only decision that mattered. Not in a million years would I become Mrs. Lucianos. Not with a man who thought he could grade my life by the curve of my smile.
Four
LEON
Iason uncurled the blueprints across my cluttered desk, flattening the heavy rolls against scattered invoices, half-finished sketches, and last night’s cold coffee swirls. A stained mug slid toward the edge.
I lunged, braced my palm against the desktop, and steered it back to safety. Dark liquid pooled in the saucer, droplets clinging to the rim.
“Leon, your office looks like a shipwreck,” he said, tapping a stray takeout container off the corner. “How do you find anything in this chaos?”
I leaned back in my chair, feet propped on the leg of a drawing table. “Chaos breeds creativity,” I shot back. “Besides, youlive in a penthouse that is larger than this entire floor, and it’s crammed from floor to ceiling with items you won’t part with.”
He grinned, reaching for his reading glasses and perching them on the bridge of his nose. “We’re both slackers, then. What we need is wives.”
“No, that’s what house cleaners are for,” I corrected and tapped the blueprints with a pencil. “A wife is so much more complicated than that.”
“I guess.” He shrugged, shoulders lifting beneath his crisp shirt. “Maybe so. At this rate, I’ll be forty and still flying solo. Perhaps a hybrid model—a spouse who also mops the floors?”
I set the pencil down and pushed the unruly stack of sketches aside. “That plan sounds outdated. You’d offend half of the world.”
He jabbed a finger at me. “Says the guy waiting to be selected as a husband in an arranged marriage. You don’t get more old-fashioned than that.”
“Can we get back to these blueprints? I have to double-check every dimension before the permit office opens.”
He lifted his glasses, slid them onto the bridge of his nose, and scanned the drawings. The fluorescent light above threw acute angles across the lines of the countertop, seating areas, and a raised stage for live acts.
Iason traced a corridor, paused, and tapped a beam’s measurement. “These beams will need extra support if you plan to open that balcony.”
I sank into the worn leather chair behind the desk.Running my family’s restaurant and entertainment venues felt like a storm I navigated daily. Iason had guided me through menu redesigns, seating layouts, and licensing battles—I couldn’t imagine pulling it off alone. Even when he teased me about personal matters, he was my anchor.
While he studied the schematics, my mind drifted to Calista.
During lunch, a connection had sparked when I asked her about her studies. Her eyes brightened with enthusiasm, exuding a passion that energized the atmosphere.
In the days since, every image of her pulled taut like a bowstring, the tilt of her chin, the way light danced in her green eyes, the scent of her perfume.
I lifted a stray sticky note from the desk and twisted it between my thumb and forefinger. By the time I left the café, I’d called an organic grower north of town, secured six dozen white roses, and arranged their delivery to her sister Layana’s estate. Layana’s gates stood guarded by iron spikes and uniformed staff. Calista’s address remained a secret. Tracing property records, cross-referencing social pages, and making discreet inquiries, each step confirmed that the Vitalis family took security seriously.
Iason peered over the plans. “If we reinforce that wall with steel columns, you’ll keep the ceiling from sagging under all that equipment.”
I pressed my fingertip to the blueprint’s faded ink. “That’ll work.”
Then I looked away from the drawing frame to the cluttered office, at the peeling corners of posters from lastseason’s acts, at the list of daily repairs scrawled on a scrap of paper.
“I need patience,” I said, more to myself than to him.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” I cleared my throat. “Just considering next steps.”
He tapped his pen on the desk. “Next steps for the project or next steps for you?”