Chapter 2
Cece
The weight of Rafe's jacket swallowed me whole as I huddled against the passenger door of his ridiculously expensive car.
The leather seats that probably cost more than my rent squeaked beneath me every time I shifted, which was often, because sitting still meant acknowledging the crushing silence between us.
His knuckles were white against the steering wheel, jaw clenched so tight I could practically hear his teeth grinding.
I wanted to scream, to throw his jacket back in his stupidly handsome face, to demand he take me back to the club where at least I had a plan.
Instead, I stared out the window and watched the glittering nightlife of New York blur past, wondering how the hell I'd ended up here.
“Why did you owe him that much?” Rafe's low rumble finally sliced through the silence.
I kept my eyes fixed on the passing streetlights. “That's none of your business.”
“I just made it my business. To the tune of—” he named the figure, and I flinched, “—so I think I'm entitled to know why.”
“I needed the money,” I said, each word clipped and precise. “Santiago loaned it to me.”
“For what?”
I crossed my arms over my chest, painfully aware of how little the club's costume covered beneath his jacket. “Rent. Dance classes. Life. Not all of us have trust funds.”
His jaw tightened. “And you didn't think to ask anyone else for help before you started taking your clothes off for strangers?”
That stung. I whipped my head around to glare at him. “I was dancing, not stripping. There's a difference.”
“Not at Santiago's club, there isn't.” Rafe's voice remained controlled, but his eyes, when they briefly flicked to mine, burned with something I couldn't quite name. “Does Everlee know?”
The mention of my sister sent ice through my veins. “No. And she's not going to.”
He made a noncommittal sound that scared me more than an outright threat would have.
The car slowed as we turned onto my street, the transition from Manhattan's sleek avenues to my corner of Alphabet City as jarring as always.
Rafe's Aston Martin looked obscenely out of place among the weathered brownstones and graffitied storefronts.
I sank lower in my seat, praying none of my neighbors were around to witness this.
“Which building?” he asked, scanning the row of apartments.
I pointed. “The red one. You can let me out here.”
“Not a chance.” He pulled up directly in front, killing the engine with a decisive poke of his finger.
Before I could stop him, he was out of the car and opening my door, one hand extended as if I were some society date he was escorting to a gala instead of a broke dancer he'd just hauled out of a club like a caveman.
I ignored his hand and climbed out myself, stumbling slightly on legs still wobbly from the adrenaline crash. “Thanks for the ride. You can go now.”
Rafe's expression didn't change as he closed the car door. “Lead the way.”
“You have no business being here,” I said, trying to inject some steel into my voice despite the fact that I was standing on a dirty sidewalk wearing nothing but a skimpy costume and his oversized jacket.
His lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. “I have unfinished business with you, Cecelia. And I'm not discussing it on the street.”
The way he said my name—my full name—sent an unwelcome shiver down my spine. No one called me Cecelia except him, like he was staking some kind of claim on the syllables.
I knew that stubborn set of his jaw well enough to recognize it was pointless arguing. With a huff, I turned and marched through my building's entrance and up the stairs toward my apartment. All the while I was acutely aware of his presence at my back, tall and imposing and far too composed.
At my door, I automatically reached for the spare key I kept hidden under the corner of the welcome mat. Rafe's hand shot out, closing around my wrist before I could retrieve it.
“You're kidding me,” he said, disbelief coloring his voice. “You hide your key under the mat? In this neighborhood?”
I yanked my arm free. “Some of us don't have doormen and state-of-the-art security systems.”
“Some of us apparently don't have common sense either.” He crouched down and retrieved the key himself. “This is how people get murdered in their beds, Cecelia.”
I flinched at his words, more stung than I wanted to admit. “Give me that.” I snatched the key from his fingers and shoved it into the lock. My apartment door stuck slightly—it always did when humidity was high—and I had to shoulder it open. I didn't bother inviting him in. He'd follow regardless.
“Nice place,” he said, his tone making it clear it was anything but.
My studio apartment, which had always felt like a cozy sanctuary to me, suddenly seemed painfully small and cluttered.
The futon couch that doubled as my bed was still open from this morning.
Dance clothes hung from a drying rack in the corner, bills and papers were scattered on almost every surface.
And there, in a chipped glass on the windowsill, a single rose. Withered now, its dark red petals curling inward like beckoning fingers.
My stomach dropped at the sight of it. The fifth one this month, always appearing when I wasn't home.
I'd thrown the first four away, but kept this one as evidence, though for what, I wasn't sure.
The police hadn't cared—no forced entry, no threatening notes.
Just flowers from an admirer, they'd said.
Some admirer.
“What’s with the dead flower?” Rafe asked, his eyes missing nothing.
“It’s nothing,” I said a little too quickly. “It's old. I forgot to throw it out.”
He didn't believe me—that much was clear from the way his eyes narrowed—but he let it go and moved further into my space. I fought the urge to hide the stack of rejection letters or the past-due notices pinned to my corkboard.
Hugging Rafe's jacket tighter around me, I wished I could disappear into it. “I need to change.”
His dark eyes swept the room, taking in every detail with that calculating precision I'd always found both fascinating and unnerving. “Go ahead.”
Grabbing the first clothes I could find—leggings and an oversized sweater—I ducked behind the folding screen that separated my “bedroom” from the rest of the space. Even with the screen between us, I could feel his presence.
“So,” his voice came from near my window, “are you going to tell me why you owed Santiago enough money to buy a small car?”
I yanked the sweater over my head, grateful for the barrier of cloth between me and those penetrating eyes. “My rent was overdue. I needed to make it up quickly.”
“Try again.” The dismissal in his tone made my cheeks burn.
I emerged from behind the screen, chin lifted in defiance despite the humiliation churning in my stomach.
“What do you want me to say, Rafe? That I'm a failure?
That I can't make ends meet? That after two years in New York, I'm still scraping by on teaching beginner ballet to tone-deaf toddlers while every audition ends with 'thank you, next'?”
My voice cracked on the last word, and I hated myself for it. Hated him for witnessing it.
Rafe stood by my window, silhouetted against the city lights, looking like he'd stepped out of a magazine in his tailored suit and perfect posture.
His eyes drifted to my desk, where a stack of rejection letters sat in plain view.
Next to them, my latest bank statement showed an alarming negative balance.
“How long?” he asked, his voice softer now.
Needing to move, to do something with the restless energy coursing through me, I paced. “How long what?”
“How long have you been this desperate?”
“I'm not desperate,” I snapped. “I had a temporary setback. I was handling it.”
“By dancing for Santiago.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “He offered me a solution. Six months of dancing would clear the debt.”
“And after that?” Rafe's eyes narrowed. “Santiago doesn't let pretty things go easily. What was the next step in his solution?”
The implication made my stomach turn, because I'd asked myself the same question in the quiet hours of the night.
“There wasn't going to be a next step,” I insisted, but the tremor in my voice betrayed me.
Rafe pushed away from the window and took a slow step toward me. “Why didn't you go to Everlee?”
I stopped pacing and whispered, “I couldn't.”
“Why not?” Another step closer.
“Because she has enough to worry about with the baby coming and…” I swallowed hard. “Because I'm supposed to be the one who has it together. The one who doesn't need rescuing.”
“And yet.” His gesture encompassed my apartment, the rejection letters, the evidence of my failure.
“You can't tell her.” The words rushed out before I could stop them. “Please, Rafe. She can't know about this.”
Something shifted in his expression, something cold and calculating. Tilting his head slightly, he studied me with the intensity of a predator assessing prey. “What would you do to keep this from her?”
“What?” The word squeaked past my lips.
He moved to the window again, his back to me, hands clasped behind him in a way that screamed old money and control. “I need a wife.”
I blinked, certain I'd misheard. “You what?”
“My father is trying to force me into an arranged marriage with a client's daughter.” His voice was cool, detached, as if discussing the weather rather than his life. “I need an alternative.”
A startled laugh escaped me. “And you thought of me? Why, because I'm so clearly marriage material?”
He turned to face me, and the intensity in his eyes killed the laughter in my throat. “Marry me.”
It wasn't a question. It wasn't even a proposal. It was a command, delivered with the casual certainty of a man who wasn't used to hearing the word no.
“You're insane,” I whispered.
“I'm practical.” He stepped closer, his presence suddenly filling the small room. “You need money and discretion. I need a wife who isn't Samantha Hastings. It's a simple exchange.”
“Simple,” I repeated, the word tasting bitter. “There's nothing simple about marriage, Rafe.”
“There is when it's a business arrangement.” He checked his watch, the expensive timepiece glinting in the dim light of my apartment. “Your debt to Santiago is now your debt to me. Marry me, and I'll consider it paid. Plus, I'll ensure you have financial security moving forward.”
My mind raced, trying to make sense of what he was proposing. “And Everlee?”
“Never needs to know why we suddenly decided to get married.” His voice dropped lower. “Though I suspect she and Liam will be quite pleased with the development.”
I knew what he meant. Everlee had been trying to set us up for months, convinced that the tension between Rafe and me was romantic rather than whatever it actually was. I'd always laughed it off, telling her that Rafe de Luca was the last man on earth I'd ever consider.
And now here he was, offering me a way out of my mess, with a price tag I never saw coming.
“How long?” I asked, my voice small.
“A year. Maybe two. Long enough to be convincing and to get my father off my back.” He checked his watch again. “You have one minute to decide, Cecelia. After that, I'll assume your answer is no, and I'll be calling your sister on my way out.”
“That's blackmail,” I said, voice trembling.
“That's negotiation.” His face remained impassive. “Fifty seconds.”
Mind spinning, I paced again. Marriage to Rafe meant giving up my freedom, my independence, everything I'd fought for since moving to New York.
But refusing meant watching Everlee's face when she learned her little sister had been dancing at Vice and Virtue, borrowing money from men like Santiago Alvarez.
It meant disappointing her again, confirming that I was exactly the mess our mother worried I was.
“Thirty seconds.”
“Stop counting,” I snapped. “I can't think with you standing there like some kind of... of...”
“Twenty seconds.”
Feeling trapped, I pressed my palms against my eyes.
Marriage to Rafe de Luca. The man who'd been a thorny presence in my life since Everlee married Liam.
The man who looked at me like he could see straight through me, who called me Cecelia in that way that made my skin prickle.
The man who'd just carried me out of a club over his shoulder like a caveman.
“Ten seconds.”
“Yes,” I finally whispered, praying I hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of my life.