Page 5

I slip out through the kitchen, where I’d earlier palmed a hundred-dollar bill to a busboy for information about the staff exit. Outside, I pull off the “bride-to-be” sash and stuff it into a nearby trash can. My engagement ring—a gaudy five-carat diamond that Luca picked without consulting me—stays firmly in my clutch. I can’t risk losing it, but I refuse to wear it tonight.

Thirty minutes later, I’m in a different club—smaller, more exclusive, with no connection to either the Calviño or De Angelis families. Here, the lights are low and blue, and the music has a sensual throb rather than a deafening pound. I’ve changed in a department store bathroom into a small, simple black dress I’d hidden in my purse. I wear no flashy jewelry, and my hair is freed from my earlier ponytail, half hiding my face. I think I’ve nailed the anonymous look I am going for.

For one night, I want to be nobody. Not the De Angelis princess. Not Luca Calviño’s fiancée. Not a pawn in my father’s chess game with the Calviño family.

Just Isadora.

I take a seat at the bar, order a vodka soda, and for the first time all night, I allow my shoulders to relax.

“Hmm…that’s better,” I murmur to myself, taking a small sip. The alcohol burns pleasantly down my throat.

“What is?”

The voice slides into my consciousness like velvet over steel. Deep, with the barest hint of an accent, I can’t place. Not Italian, something else.

I turn, and the world shifts beneath me.

He’s tall, with broad shoulders encased in a perfectly tailored charcoal suit. Dark hair, cropped short on the sides but with enough length on top to hint at waves. But it’s his eyes that capture me—intense, calculating, a shade of amber so dark they’re nearly black in this light. He studies me with an unnerving focus, as if he can see beyond the careful mask I’ve crafted.

“Excuse me?” I respond, buying time as my pulse accelerates.

His mouth quirks slightly. Not quite a smile. “You said ‘that’s better.’ I was wondering what improved.”

“My drink.” I lift my glass slightly. “The first one was too sweet.”

He doesn’t believe me. I can tell by the way his eyes linger on mine, searching. Yet, he nods anyway and takes the seat beside me without asking for permission.

“Alessio,” he offers, not extending his hand.

I hesitate, then decide the truth is less important than this moment of freedom. “Chiara.”

“Not your real name.” It’s not a question.

“Does it matter?”

He considers this and then signals the bartender. “Scotch. Neat.” When his drink arrives, he turns the glass slowly between his fingers before asking, “What are you running from tonight, Chiara?”

The question catches me off guard with its accuracy. “What makes you think I’m running?”

“You keep checking the door. Your shoulders tense each time someone new walks in. And you’ve positioned yourself to see most of the room while keeping your back to the wall.” He takes a sip of scotch. “Either you’re expecting someone unpleasant, or you’re hiding.”

My stomach tightens. In my world, being read so easily can be dangerous. “Are you always this observant of strangers?”

“Only the interesting ones.” His gaze travels slowly down my neck to where my collarbones peek above the neckline of my dress, then back to my eyes. The path of his attention feels like a physical touch, raising goosebumps along my skin.

I should leave. I don’t know this man. He sees too much. But something about him pulls at me—a gravitational force I can’t explain.

“Maybe I just wanted a quiet drink,” I say.

“In a nightclub?”

“Fair point.” I concede with a small smile. “Let’s say I’m celebrating.”

“What’s the occasion?”

I think of my impending marriage, of the cage door swinging shut in fourteen days. “One of the few nights of freedom I have left.”

Something flickers in his eyes—a shadow of recognition, perhaps. “Marriage?”