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Isadora

The champagne tastes like an obligation poured into a glass.

I sip it anyway, watching my so-called friends dance beneath the pulsing lights of New York’s most exclusive nightclub. The VIP section—rented out for my bachelorette party—feels like another gilded prison. Just like the De Angelis estate. Just like my entire life.

“Isadora! Come dance!” Valentina calls, waving her hands above her head, diamonds glittering at her wrists. She is the daughter of my father’s consigliere . Not a friend. An assigned companion.

I force a smile and raise my glass. “In a minute!”

My wedding to Luca Calvino is in two weeks. Fourteen days until I’m handed from one family to another like a peace treaty. The thought makes me drain my champagne in one swallow.

The irony isn’t lost on me. Here I am, surrounded by luxury, draped in a designer dress that costs more than what most people make in months, and I’ve never felt poorer. My currency isn’t money; it’s obedience.

“The bride needs another drink!” Someone shouts, and suddenly, there’s a fresh glass in my hand. I don’t argue.

Two hours later, the party has wound down. Most of my “friends” are stumbling drunk, taking selfies with bleary eyes and smeared lipstick. I’ve nursed my drinks carefully. Tonight is too important for recklessness.

“We should head back to the hotel,” Valentina slurs, leaning heavily on another girl. “Big day of spa treatments tomorrow.”

I nod. “You all go ahead. I need some air first.”

“Want me to wait?” she asks, though her eyes are already drifting toward the exit.

“No need.” I wave her off with practiced casualness. “I’ll catch a cab in a few minutes.”

She doesn’t argue, which tells me everything about our supposed friendship. Once they’re gone, I wait precisely seven minutes, keeping my expression neutral for the ever-present cameras. Then I move.

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 Calvino 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 Calvino’s fiancée. Not a pawn in my father’s chess game with the Calvino 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?”

I nod, not bothering to ask how he knew.

“Congratulations,” he says, but the word carries no warmth.

“Don’t bother. It’s not a love match.”

His eyebrow raises slightly. “Arranged?”

“Something like that.”

He watches me over the rim of his glass. “We Italians certainly love our traditions.”

I laugh, the sound genuine for the first time tonight. “Says the man named Alessio.”

“Touché.” This time, his smile reaches his eyes, transforming his face from merely handsome to devastating. Something low in my body tightens in response.

The music changes, shifting to something slower, with a persistent beat that seems to match my pulse. Without asking, Alessio stands and extends his hand.

“Dance with me.”

It’s not a request.

I should say no. I should finish my drink and leave. Instead, I place my hand in his, feeling calluses that shouldn’t exist on a man wearing a watch that costs as much as a car.

He leads me to the dance floor, which is really just a small area near the DJ booth where a handful of couples move together. When he turns to face me, his hand slides to my lower back, pulling me closer than propriety would allow. Not close enough to cause a scene, but intimate enough to make my breath catch.

“I don’t usually dance with strangers,” I say, even as my body betrays me by fitting itself against his.

“We’re not strangers anymore, Chiara.” His breath ghosts across my ear. “You’re running. I’m... let’s say I’m between missions. And tonight, we’re just two people in a club.”

His hand is warm through the thin fabric of my dress. I can feel each finger pressing slightly against my spine, guiding me as we move to the music. Up close, I catch his scent—expensive cologne with undertones of something darker, more primal.

“What kind of missions?” I ask, already knowing he won’t give me a real answer.

His smile turns predatory. “The kind that would make you run from me, not toward me.”

Warning bells sound in my mind, but my body isn’t listening. If anything, the danger in his words only makes the heat building between us more intense.

“Maybe I like dangerous things,” I say, surprising myself with my boldness.

His hand tightens almost imperceptibly on my waist. “Be careful what you wish for, principessa .”

The endearment—the same as what my father calls me, yet entirely different in this man’s mouth—sends a shiver down my spine. I wonder if he can feel it, my skin prickling beneath his touch.

“Who says I’m wishing?” I tilt my head back to meet his gaze directly. “Maybe I’m taking.”

Something dark and hungry flashes across his face. In one smooth motion, he turns us so my back is against a shadowed wall, his body shielding me from the rest of the club. Not pinning me, but close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from him.

“Is that what tonight is, Chiara?” His voice has dropped lower, rougher. “Taking what you want before you surrender to your arranged marriage?”

The way he says it makes heat pool low in my belly. “And if it is?”

His eyes drop to my lips, then back up. “Then I’d say your fiancé is a very unlucky man, to have to force a woman like you into marriage.”

I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “He’s not forcing me. My father is.”

Alessio’s jaw tightens. “Fathers,” he says, the word like a curse. “They have a way of controlling our lives, don’t they?”

There’s a story there, but I don’t ask. Tonight isn’t for sharing histories or truths.

“Not tonight,” I say, and I’m not sure if I’m reminding him or myself. “Tonight, my father doesn’t exist. Neither does my fiancé. There’s just—”

“Us,” he finishes, and the word feels like a brand.

His hand comes up to cup my cheek, thumb brushing lightly across my lower lip. The touch is electric, sending sparks racing along my nerve endings. I’ve been kissed before, even had two boyfriends during my years at the university, but none of them made me feel this way with just the lightest touch.

“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs, his face inching closer to mine.

I should. I will have to marry Luca in two weeks, regardless of what happens tonight. But at this moment, with this stranger’s body radiating heat against mine, his eyes promising things I’ve never experienced, I can’t form the words.

Instead, I reach up and curl my fingers into the lapel of his jacket, pulling him that final inch towards me.

When his lips meet mine, it’s not gentle. There’s nothing tentative in the way he claims my mouth, his hand sliding from my cheek to the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair. I gasp, and he takes advantage, deepening the kiss until I’m dizzy with want.

I’ve never been kissed like this—like I’m being devoured, like he would consume me whole if he could. My arms wind around his neck as his free hand grips my hip, pulling me flush against him.

He tastes like expensive scotch and forbidden desires. Each stroke of his tongue against mine sends currents of electricity straight to my core. I press closer, shameless in my need, forgetting where we are.

When he finally pulls back, we’re both breathing hard. His pupils are blown wide, the amber nearly swallowed by black.

“Not here,” he says, his voice a growl that makes me shiver.

I know what he’s asking. Know that I should say no, should return to my hotel, to my bridesmaids, to the life that’s been mapped out for me.

Instead, I hear myself say, “Your place?”

His smile is sin incarnate. “Too far. Bathroom. Now.”

As he leads me toward the bathroom area, his hand possessive at the small of my back, I wonder what I’m doing. This isn’t like me—I’ve been raised to be prime and proper, spent my entire life being the perfect daughter, following rules, and preparing for my role as a mafia wife.

But maybe that’s why I need this. One night of my own choosing before a lifetime of duty.

I glance at Alessio as he holds the door to the women’s bathroom open for me, his eyes dark with promise. Something tells me this man will ruin me for anyone else, and for the first time in my life, I welcome the destruction.ar