“If you’re going to murder me, Mrs. Carter, I’d prefer you wait until after the wedding.”
That was the first thing Lorenzo Duca ever said to me.
Mostly because I had just tripped over a rug that probably cost more than my car, grabbed his black silk necktie with both hands, and nearly strangled the most feared man in Chicago in front of six armed guards.
“I’m not murdering you,” I gasped. “I’m falling.”
There was a difference.
Technically.
My right heel had caught the corner of the enormous Oriental rug covering the marble foyer of the Duca estate in Lake Forest. My suitcase rolled away from me. I pitched forward, reached for the nearest stable object, and discovered too late that the nearest stable object was attached to Lorenzo Duca’s throat.
I yanked.
Hard.
His massive body jerked toward mine.
I slammed into his chest.
Then the entire foyer went silent.
One of the guards turned toward the wall.
His shoulders shook.
The jerk was laughing.
I slowly raised my head.
Lorenzo Duca was thirty-eight years old, somewhere around six-foot-five, and built like somebody had designed a linebacker before remembering he was supposed to attend board meetings.
Black suit.
White shirt.
Dark hair.
Trimmed beard.
Hands large enough to make mine look ridiculous.
And eyes so controlled they were somehow more intimidating than anger.
I released his tie.
“Oh.”
Brilliant, Amelia.
Really memorable.
I tried stepping backward.
My heel slipped again.
Lorenzo caught me around the waist before the back of my skull could introduce itself to Italian marble.
A blonde woman standing near the staircase stared at us.
She was beautiful in that polished, expensive way that made ordinary women instinctively wonder whether their mascara had migrated south.
Her mouth curved.
Not quite a smile.
More like a judgment wearing lipstick.
Lorenzo noticed.
So did I.
That mattered later.
At that moment, however, I was concentrating on surviving my introduction.
“Do I get three falls before you send me home?” I asked.
The guard behind Lorenzo made a choking sound.
Lorenzo stared at me.
Then the corner of his mouth moved.
I pointed at him.
“You smiled.”
“No.”
“You absolutely did.”
Behind him, Marco Bellini—Lorenzo’s right-hand man—suddenly found the chandelier fascinating.
Coward.
Three months earlier, I never would have imagined myself standing in a mansion outside Chicago arguing with a suspected organized-crime boss about whether he had smiled.
I was Amelia Carter.
Thirty-four.
Plus-size.
Single.
Owner of a small bakery-café in Milwaukee that made enough money to keep twelve employees paid and the lights turned on but not enough to impress anybody’s mother.
My former fiancé, Ethan Cole, had spent two years treating my body like a renovation project he had reluctantly agreed to finance.
Ethan never called me fat.
Men like Ethan were smarter than that.
“That dress isn’t doing you any favors.”
“Maybe skip dessert tonight. We have engagement pictures next month.”
And my personal favorite:
“I only say these things because I want you to feel confident.”
Funny how Ethan’s version of my confidence always required less of me.
Less food.
Less weight.
Less laughter.
Less space.
Eventually, I gave him back his ring.
He told our friends I had “self-esteem problems.”
That was Ethan’s gift.
He could stab you and somehow convince everyone the blood was your personality flaw.
A year after I ended that relationship, a letter arrived at my bakery.
Not an email.
Not a text.
An actual letter.
Cream paper.
Embossed initials.
Rosa Duca had apparently never met a century she couldn’t ignore.
She was Lorenzo’s grandmother, and according to her letter, she had known my late father years earlier through business acquaintances. She was also involved in a discreet matchmaking arrangement among wealthy families whose children apparently had millions of dollars but no ability to meet someone at Target like normal people.
Her proposal sounded insane.
Spend ninety days at the Duca estate.
Get to know Lorenzo.
Separate bedrooms.
No obligation.
No financial penalty for leaving.
If, at the end of ninety days, we both wanted marriage, we would marry.
I nearly threw the letter away.
Then Rosa called.
“What’s wrong with your grandson?” I asked.
“Mostly his personality.”
I laughed.
“Good,” she said. “You’re not afraid of me.”
“I don’t know you.”
“Exactly.”
That should have been warning number one.
Warning number two came when I searched Lorenzo online.
Shipping.
Construction.
Warehouses.
Nightclubs.
Charitable foundations.
And enough articles containing phrases like “alleged connections” to make any sensible woman close her laptop.
Chicago had one version of Lorenzo Duca.
Powerful.
Cold.
Dangerous.
Women had another.
That version was whispered over cocktails.
It involved his intimidating physical presence, his height, his strength, and the rumors surrounding the six women who had previously considered marrying him.
All six had left.
One of them called me three days before my trip.
“You have no idea what you’re agreeing to.”
“Then tell me.”
Silence.
“Just don’t say nobody warned you.”
Click.
Very helpful.
So naturally, because curiosity has always been the dominant cause of my bad decisions, I packed a suitcase.
Now Lorenzo picked up that suitcase himself.
“I can carry it,” I said.
“I know.”
“Then why are you carrying it?”
“Because you’ve been in my house for forty seconds and already lost two fights with the floor.”
Marco coughed into his fist.
I stared at Lorenzo.
“Was that a joke?”
“No.”
“It was.”
He started upstairs.
I followed.
My room was larger than my Milwaukee apartment.
Lorenzo placed my suitcase beside the bed and handed me a brass key.
“One key?” I asked.
“Yours.”
“What about housekeeping?”
“They knock.”
“Marco?”
“He knocks.”
“You?”
“I knock.”
I studied him.
“And if I lock it?”
“Nobody enters.”
Something inside me went unexpectedly quiet.
Ethan had once copied my apartment key without asking. He walked in whenever he wanted. Opened drawers. Checked shopping bags. Read notifications on my phone.
He called it openness.
It took me three years to call it what it was.
Control.
Now the man half of Chicago supposedly feared was giving me the power to lock him out of a room inside his own house.
That contradiction bothered me.
In a good way.
Dinner was worse.
And better.
Rosa Duca was seventy-nine, barely five feet tall, dressed entirely in black, and apparently the only human alive who could insult Lorenzo without triggering a regional emergency.
“I heard you nearly killed him,” she said.
“I tripped.”
“Marco said the tie changed color.”
Marco stared at his plate.
“Traitor,” I muttered.
Rosa smiled.
Then she asked the question I had expected.
“You’ve heard the stories?”
Lorenzo became completely still.
He was waiting.
For disgust.
For a joke.
For me to ask about the six women.
Instead, I shrugged.
“I’ve heard that people with too much money gossip worse than women at a church bake sale.”
Rosa smiled.
Lorenzo didn’t.
But his shoulders relaxed.
Then I knocked my spoon onto the floor.
Because dignity and I were apparently still traveling separately.
Later, Lorenzo found me near the windows overlooking the grounds.
“You can leave tonight,” he said.
“Did I offend your silverware?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“A car can take you home. The ninety-day agreement remains valid. You lose nothing.”
I looked at him.
He wasn’t threatening me.
He expected me to leave.
That was different.
“If I leave,” I said, “it’ll be because of something you do. Not something a woman whispered into a martini.”
Then I turned dramatically and walked away.
Into the wrong hallway.
Three steps later, I returned.
Lorenzo silently pointed left.
“Not one word.”
“I said nothing.”
His mouth twitched.
That should have been harmless.
Instead, it became the first crack.
Over the next two weeks, I discovered two Lorenzos.
There was the man who held meetings behind locked doors while black SUVs arrived after midnight.
Then there was the man who repaired Rosa’s broken bracelet clasp himself.
The man who carried an injured employee to a waiting car.
The man who crouched down so Marco’s five-year-old daughter could hand him a drawing.
She had drawn Lorenzo as a giant rectangle with angry eyebrows.
He framed it.
Then I discovered the rings.
Six velvet boxes in a half-open office drawer.
Six diamond rings.
Six women.
Six failures.
I was holding one when Lorenzo appeared behind me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He didn’t yell.
That would have been easier.
He simply took the box, closed the drawer, and walked me back upstairs.
After that, he became painfully polite.
Which was how I knew I had hurt him.
Then Bianca Romano returned.
She was the blonde from the foyer.
One of the six.
She sat across from me one afternoon with a glass of Chardonnay.
“Are you adjusting?”
“Yes.”
“Lorenzo can be… intense.”
“I own a bakery. I’ve survived Sunday brunch customers.”
Her smile tightened.
“You haven’t discovered everything yet.”
That warning again.
That evening, I overheard Marco talking to Lorenzo.
“She’s different.”
Lorenzo answered quietly.
“They always are until they know.”
I froze outside his office.
Until they know what?
I didn’t confront him.
I watched.
Lorenzo noticed when I stopped eating strawberry pastries and started choosing chocolate.
Chocolate appeared beside my coffee the following morning.
At a charity luncheon, a woman looked at my fitted burgundy dress and told me I was “brave.”
Lorenzo’s hand settled gently against my back.
“You look beautiful,” he said loudly enough for her to hear.
He didn’t insult her.
Didn’t threaten her.
He simply walked me away.
Ten minutes later, he got lost trying to find the ballroom.
I laughed so hard I nearly sat on a decorative planter.
Apparently Chicago’s most feared man couldn’t navigate a hotel corridor.
Then I saw what his strength actually meant.
At one of Duca Construction’s sites, a temporary support collapsed and trapped a worker.
Three men couldn’t lift the steel beam.
Lorenzo could.
Barely.
His face turned red.
His hands shook.
His shirt stuck to his back.
But he held it long enough for the worker to be pulled free.
Then the worker’s six-year-old daughter ran toward him crying.
Lorenzo knelt.
He held out one enormous hand.
And waited.
He let the child decide whether she wanted it.
She did.
That image stayed with me.
Everyone talked about what Lorenzo’s strength could destroy.
Nobody talked about what it could save.
That night, we almost kissed.
I was leaning against the kitchen island.
Except I missed the island.
And fell.
Again.
He caught me.
Again.
Then Lorenzo laughed.
Really laughed.
Deep and rough and completely unguarded.
I stared at him.
His hands remained around my waist.
Mine rested against his chest.
His eyes moved toward my mouth.
He leaned closer.
Then stopped.
He waited.
That did something dangerous to me.
A man who could take almost anything he wanted was waiting for permission.
I started closing the distance.
Rosa walked into the kitchen.
She froze.
Slowly backed out.
Then yelled down the hall, “Marco, stay away from the kitchen. Something useful is finally happening.”
I covered my face.
Lorenzo groaned.
Romance, Duca style.
The next morning, Lorenzo was gone.
A white envelope sat beside my coffee.
Inside were six photographs.
Six women.
Six dates.
Bianca’s picture was on top.
Five words had been written across the back.
ASK WHY SHE REALLY LEFT.
My coffee went cold.
Then I realized the frightening part.
The estate had guards.
Cameras.
Electronic gates.
Motion sensors.
Nobody should have been able to leave that envelope beside my plate.
Marco entered.
He saw my face.
Then the photographs.
Everything changed.
Gates locked.
Staff were questioned.
Security recordings were pulled.
Lorenzo returned twenty minutes later.
He looked at the photographs.
Then at me.
I knew exactly what he expected.
The question six women had apparently asked before leaving.
Instead, I held up the envelope.
“How did this get inside your house?”
Something changed in Lorenzo’s expression.
Because he understood what I had understood.
Whoever was playing with us wasn’t outside the gates.
They were already inside.
And before that night was over, we discovered seventeen minutes of security footage had disappeared.