Chapter 3
Matteo
The black SUV idles like a predator outside Isabella's building, and I lean against its polished surface with my phone in one hand, silver coin dancing between the fingers of the other.
From my position on the sidewalk, I have a clear view of the Tribeca building's glass lobby, watching the elevator indicator climb toward her floor.
Seven thirty-two PM. She's consistent, I'll give her that.
Breakfast at six-thirty, work by eight, dinner at eight PM sharp.
Isabella Callahan runs her life like a Swiss watch.
Other women have made me wait for hours, playing games with timing just to test their power.
But not Isabella. Predictable. Precise. Exactly what I need.
The coin tumbles over my knuckles in a steady rhythm, a habit that surfaces when I'm about to do something particularly dangerous.
Tonight definitely qualifies. Dom's voice echoes in my head: business first, complications later.
But the truth is, complications started the moment I saw her photograph.
The dreams have only gotten more vivid, more explicit, more impossible to ignore.
The elevator indicator stops on twelve. Her floor.
I straighten my black jacket and check my reflection in the SUV's tinted window. Auburn hair slightly messy, deliberately so. White button-down open at the collar, no tie. The look says casual confidence, a man comfortable in his skin. A man who gets what he wants without trying too hard.
Golden hour light bathes the street in warm honey tones, the July evening still holding the day's heat.
Office workers stream past in their end-of-day exodus, but my attention stays fixed on the building's entrance.
A doorman in a navy uniform holds the door for residents, offering polite nods and forgettable smiles.
No security cameras in the lobby that I can see.
No guards, no protocols. She really does live like someone who's never made enemies.
The doors open and Isabella emerges into the evening light, clearly heading out for her nightly dinner routine.
She's more stunning in person than in any photograph.
Honey-blonde hair catches the light as she walks, and her cream blouse moves like liquid silk against her skin.
Navy trousers hug curves that make my blood run hot, and those heels add just enough height to put her mouth at the right level for kissing. For other things.
She pauses on the sidewalk, reaching into her purse for something.
Phone, probably. Always connected, always performing for someone else's expectations.
I've watched enough surveillance footage to know she carries herself like a woman who learned early that being flawless is the only acceptable option.
Time to shatter that flawless facade.
I push off from the SUV and approach with the easy stride of a man who belongs everywhere he goes. She glances up at my movement, those emerald green eyes taking in my face with cautious curiosity.
"Isabella Callahan, right?" I let my trademark dimpled grin surface, the one that's opened more doors and more legs than I care to count. "Small world."
She freezes mid-step, and I watch her run through possibilities. Do we know each other? Should she recognize me? The uncertainty makes her even more beautiful, vulnerability bleeding through her composed mask.
"Do I know you?" Her voice is cultured, careful. Exactly what I expected from someone who spends her days among priceless art and dangerous men.
"Not yet." I slip the coin into my pocket, giving her the full force of my attention. "But I've been dying to fix that. Matteo Rosetti."
Recognition flickers in her eyes. Not my face, but the name. Everyone in New York knows the Rosetti name, even the ones who pretend they don't. Especially the ones who pretend they don't.
"I was just heading out for dinner," I continue, nodding toward the SUV. "Amazing little place in SoHo. You always walk to dinner alone in heels like that?"
She glances down at her shoes, then back at my face. Her pupils are slightly dilated, whether from the fading light or something else entirely. "I prefer to walk."
"Smart choice. Though after a full day on your feet at work, I'd think you'd want to give those heels a rest. The Met, right?
European Decorative Arts." I let that information hang between us, proof that I know more about her than a stranger should.
"Must be fascinating, working with all those beautiful, untouchable things. "
Her lips part slightly at the emphasis on untouchable, and I watch her throat work as she swallows. Good. She's feeling it too, this electric current that's been building since I first saw her photograph.
"How do you know where I work?"
"Same way I know you take your coffee black and prefer to walk rather than call a car." I step closer, close enough to catch her scent. Something clean and expensive that makes me want to bury my face in her neck. "I make it my business to know beautiful women."
She takes a half-step back, but doesn't run. Smart or naive, I can't tell yet.
"I should get going," she says, but her voice lacks conviction.
"Actually, I was hoping I could give you a ride." I gesture toward the SUV again, where my driver sits silent behind tinted glass. "I've got dinner reservations in twenty minutes, and I'd hate to eat alone. Plus, I'd hate to leave a beautiful woman walking after dark."
It's barely seven-thirty, still full daylight, and Tribeca is hardly dangerous. But the invitation is clear enough, wrapped in chivalry that women like Isabella understand, even when they know better.
"That's very kind, but I don't really know you."
"Fair point." I pull out my phone, fingers moving across the screen. "There. I just texted you my details. Name, phone number, even my LinkedIn profile if you're the corporate type. Now you know exactly who I am."
Her phone buzzes in her hand, and she glances down at the message.
I watch her calculate risks and probabilities, her analytical mind working through the angles.
Museum curator. Used to evaluating authenticity, detecting forgeries.
But she's also a woman who's spent her life being protected, sheltered from real danger.
"I promise I'm not a serial killer," I add with a self-deprecating laugh. "Just a guy who hates eating alone and was lucky enough to run into the most beautiful woman in Tribeca."
The compliment rolls off my tongue easily, but my reaction to her is absolutely real.
Standing this close, I can see the gold flecks in her green eyes, the way her pulse flutters at the base of her throat.
She smells like expensive perfume and something else, something that makes my mouth water and my hands itch to touch.
"Where in SoHo?" she asks finally.
My chest tightens with anticipation, but I keep my expression neutral. "Little French place on Spring Street. Intimate, quiet. Great for getting to know someone."
She glances toward the SUV, then back at my face.
I can see her wavering, caught between curiosity and caution.
Another woman might have walked away by now, but Isabella Callahan has spent years navigating dangerous social waters.
She knows how to read people, how to stay safe while taking calculated risks.
What she doesn't know is that I'm not a calculated risk. I'm a certainty.
"Alright," she says quietly. "But just to SoHo."
"Of course." I gesture toward the passenger door, already moving to open it for her. "After you."
The interior of the SUV is exactly what I planned: leather seats the color of midnight, subdued lighting, classical music playing softly through premium speakers.
Everything designed to suggest wealth without ostentation, power without threat.
My driver, Anton, nods politely in the rearview mirror but doesn't speak. He knows his role in this performance.
Isabella settles into the passenger seat with unconscious grace, her posture straight even in the confined space. I slide in beside her, close enough that my thigh almost brushes hers, and watch her reaction to the proximity.
"This is beautiful," she says, running her fingertips over the soft leather. "I don't think I've ever been in anything this nice."
"Really?" I let surprise color my voice. "Your family doesn't believe in luxury?"
The question is innocent enough, but I watch her face carefully. She stiffens slightly, a barely perceptible shift that tells me I've hit something.
"My family believes in many things," she says carefully.
I lean back, letting the silence stretch. Sometimes the best way to get information is to create space for people to fill it. But Isabella doesn't take the bait. She's too well-trained, too careful. Time for a different approach.
"Must be nice, having family that cares enough to worry about you. Chase Callahan seems like the protective type."
The words drop into the space between us like stones into still water.
The words are out before I can stop them, and I watch her face change. Shutters slam down behind her eyes, transforming warmth into wariness in an instant.
"How do you know my uncle?"
Too late to take it back now. I've shown my hand too early, let eagerness override strategy. But maybe it's better this way. Cleaner. More honest, in its way.
"Business," I say simply, and signal Anton to drive.
The locks engage with a soft click. Child safety locks, engaged from the driver's panel. Isabella doesn't notice immediately, too focused on my face, trying to read the truth there.
The power of having her trapped beside me, completely under my control, sends a dark thrill through my blood.
She's close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from her skin, can see the rapid flutter of her pulse at her throat.
Every breath she takes makes me want to lean closer, to claim what's mine.
"What kind of business?"
"The complicated kind."
The SUV pulls smoothly into traffic, heading uptown instead of south toward SoHo. Isabella notices the direction change first, then tries the door handle. It doesn't budge.
"This isn't the way to SoHo."
"No," I agree. "It's not."
Her breathing changes, becoming quicker and shallower.
I watch her run through options: scream, fight, negotiate.
But she's too smart to panic, too controlled to make a scene that might get her hurt.
Still, I catch the way her fingers tremble slightly as they grip the door handle.
Fear, carefully hidden but not quite invisible.
"This isn't a favor. This is a setup."
"Smart girl." I lean back against the leather seat, letting my voice drop to something more dangerous. "I was starting to worry you were just pretty."
She tries the door handle again, then turns to face me fully.
No tears, no hysteria. Just cold, calculating fury that makes my pulse spike with something that isn't quite fear.
But I notice the way she presses herself against the far door, putting as much distance between us as possible in the confined space.
The careful control in her voice that can't quite hide the tremor underneath.
"You think a smile and a fancy car are enough to take me?"
The question hits differently than I expected.
There's steel in her voice, a core of strength that makes my pulse spike.
It's intoxicating. Challenging. Exactly the kind of thing that makes me want to push her further, see how far that control extends.
Having her here, trapped and furious and trying so hard to hide her fear, sends heat straight to my cock.
"No, Isabella." I reach out and touch her chin, tilting her face toward mine. Her skin is impossibly soft, warm with anger and adrenaline. "But now that you're mine, I don't need charm."
She jerks away from my touch, eyes blazing. "I am not yours."
"Actually, you are." I settle back into my seat, watching her process the reality of her situation. "For the next few days, at least. Until your uncle learns to play nicely with others."
"Chase will kill you for this."
"Chase will try." I flip my coin between my fingers, metal catching the light. "But first, he'll have to find you. And I'm very good at hiding things I want to keep."
The SUV turns onto the highway, heading north toward the safe house. Toward isolation, toward the place where I'll have Isabella Callahan completely to myself. The thought sends heat through my veins, dark anticipation that has nothing to do with leverage and everything to do with possession.
She stares out the window at the city falling away behind us, her reflection ghostlike in the tinted glass.
I can see her hands clenched in her lap, knuckles white with tension she's trying to hide.
When she speaks again, her voice is perfectly controlled, but I can hear the fury underneath.
And beneath that, just barely audible, the fear she's working so hard to suppress.
"You have no idea what you've just done."
"Enlighten me."
"You've started a war you can't win."
I laugh, and the sound fills the confined space between us. "Sweetheart, the war started when your uncle decided to threaten my family. I'm just evening the odds."
"By kidnapping an innocent woman?"
"By taking something he values. There's a difference."
She turns to look at me again, and the expression in her green eyes makes my breath catch. Not fear, not even anger anymore. Something colder. More dangerous.
"You're going to regret this."
"Maybe." I reach out and brush a strand of honey-blonde hair away from her face, despite her effort to pull away. "But I doubt it."
The highway stretches ahead of us, carrying us north toward the lake house, toward isolation, toward whatever comes next. Isabella sits rigid beside me, her perfume mixing with the leather scent of the car, creating an intoxicating combination that makes me want to pull her closer.
But there's time for that later. Hours of time, with nothing but wilderness and silence around us. Time to discover what lies beneath her perfect surface, time to see how far I can push before she breaks.
Time to find out if she's as untouchable as she pretends to be.