Chapter One
LIVIA
Today you'll learn how to be a disaster. In heels.
First, spill coffee down the front of your only decent blouse while you sprint down Meridian Street toward the most important job interview of your life.
Make sure it spreads. Make sure it blooms across the silk, so it takes the shape of South America on the map.
Oh, and be sure to watch it happen and do nothing about it because you are already seven minutes late and the cup was mostly empty anyway so what’s the point?
Next, keep an arm wrapped around your one good bag, but the zipper bursts apart anyway, scattering lipstick, granola crumbs, and a daycare permission slip across the floor like confetti from hell.
Don't forget to add the—
Bzzzz. Bzzzz
My phone vibrates somewhere inside the black hole that used to be my purse.
Perfect.
Absolutely perfect.
I crouch in the middle of the sidewalk while people stream around me in expensive coats and sharper expressions, one heel wobbling dangerously against a crack in the pavement.
Wind whips my hair across my mouth as I shove tampons, receipts, and a tube of mascara back into my bag with all the dignity of a raccoon digging through roadside trash.
“Come on,” I mutter under my breath. “Come on, come on…”
The phone keeps buzzing.
I finally yank the phone free only to nearly drop it when I see the caller ID.
Dante.
Kissing my teeth, I silence the call and straighten, purse firmly in place now and keep walking.
Hearing his voice right now would be the emotional equivalent of pouring lighter fluid onto this already flaming garbage fire. Whatever he wants, and he always wants something, it can wait. It has waited five years. It can wait another hour.
And even then, he can go to hell.
Nico had a meltdown this morning. Full tears, tiny fists, the works. All before seven a.m.
So, to say I have energy to handle another tantrum, from a grown man at that, would be optimistic at best.
I shove the phone back into my bag and pick up speed, dodging a woman with a tiny designer dog tucked beneath her arm like an accessory.
The cold air slices through my lungs as I move, part of me hoping Nico isn't tormenting my best friend right now.
He didn’t want the blue shirt this morning. He didn’t want the green cup too. He wanted "the car that goes vroom vroom” which we couldn't locate because our apartment is approximately the size of a generous walk-in closet.
I tore apart the couch cushions. I checked under his bed. I found several Cheerios and an old crayon, but no toy car.
After finally getting him to Piper's with promises of pancakes, extra cartoons, and the firm assurance that Mama would find the car, he let me leave, but his chin was still wobbling when I kissed his forehead.
The wobbling chin gets me every single time. In fact, I spent the first three blocks of my commute feeling like a genuinely terrible person.
But there’s only so much worry I can afford right now with rent overdue, bills piling up, and food running out. Again.
Those envelopes all sit on my kitchen counter in a neat little stack that I rearrange instead of opening because rearranging is free.
My last severance check from Calloway & Voss dissolved in under six weeks. Groceries, back rent, Nico's dentist appointment, the pediatric specialist visit I'd been putting off. Gone. All of it.
Which means this interview, this specific interview, on this specific morning, with this specific coffee stain spreading across my chest is not just important.
It's everything.
If I blow this, I’ll have to crawl back to my father with my tail between my legs and my son in tow.
I'd rather chew glass.
Speaking of glass.
The building finally rises into view across the street. Dark glass, brushed steel, and enough reflected sunlight to temporarily blind innocent pedestrians.
Ferretti Global Risk.
Forty-six floors of money, power, and people who definitely do not have yogurt stains hidden inside their handbags.
I push through the revolving doors and suddenly feel like a child in a museum.
Everything gleams.
The marble floors shine so brightly I can practically see my financial ruin reflected back at me.
A massive chandelier hangs overhead like something stolen from European royalty, and the lobby smells faintly of expensive cologne, polished wood, and people who look like they apologize by buying countries.
Women in tailored suits click across the floor in terrifying confidence. Men murmur into headsets while carrying coffees that probably cost more than my grocery budget this week.
Meanwhile, I have a caffeine stain drying over one boob and a granola bar crushed into the lining of my purse.
Sexy.
A sleek security desk stretches across the center of the lobby. Behind it sits a woman with silver-blonde hair twisted into a knot so perfect it deserves architectural recognition.
Her eyes flick up as I approach.
They pause briefly on my blouse.
I resist the urge to fake my own death.
“Good morning,” she says politely.
I smile with all the desperation of a hostage negotiator. “Hi. I’m here for the nine-thirty interview with corporate communications?”
“Name?”
“Livia De Luca.”
Her manicured fingers move across a tablet.
For one horrifying second, I imagine she’ll look up and say, I’m sorry, Ms. De Luca, we actually only hire women who have their lives together.
Instead, she nods. “Twenty-third floor. Check in with Ms. Delaney.”
Relief hits me so hard my knees nearly buckle.
“Thank you.”
“You’re late. Fifteen minutes.”
There it is.
“I know,” I say carefully. “There was an accident on Meridian.”
Technically true.
The accident was my life.
“But very on brand for compliance work, I think,” I add, purely speaking from panic. “We love a good risk, right?”
She does not laugh. Tough crowd.
She hands me a visitor badge and points toward the elevators.
I turn too quickly, immediately catching my heel on the edge of the marble floor.
My body tilts violently sideways.
A tiny sound escapes me. Something between a gasp and the noise a goat makes in front of an incoming truck.
I brace for impact, but it never comes.
A hand closes around my elbow firmly enough to stop my fall before I crack my skull open in the lobby of Ferretti Global Risk.
My face flushes with warmth instantly.
“Oh my God…”
My words die.
The man steadying me is tall. Really tall. Dark hair threaded through with silver at the temples. Dark charcoal suit. Crisp white shirt open at the throat. Expensive watch glinting beneath the lobby lights.
And sharp gray eyes fixed on me with calm, unnerving focus.
I clear my throat. “Uh, sorry, I—”
“You okay?” He asks in the smoothest baritone I've ever heard. Like pure honey to my ears.
My eyes snap up and I look at him more carefully. That voice…
His phone buzzes in his pocket and he glances down at it. He looks back at me and lets go. “Go on.”
The man has already stepped back, walking briskly as he takes his call.
I stare after him for a second, wondering why something about him tickles at a memory.
As I speed-walk to the elevator, I pinch my cheeks for color and whisper the same mantra I have repeated since Nico was born. You got this, Liv. You've faced worse.
The hiring panel waits in a sleek conference room on the twenty-third floor. Three serious faces. One intimidatingly polished woman.
I launch into my presentation before my butt fully hits the chair, rattling off my experience at Calloway & Voss, my certifications, my fresh ideas for their family-office compliance division.
I lay it all out the way I rehearsed it at eleven o'clock last night with Nico finally asleep and a cup of tea forgotten beside me.
My mouth moves at double speed, the way it always does when I’m terrified. But the more I speak, the more impressed they seem.
I even catch a few slight nods. One smile.
Today's not all ruined after all.
The woman at the center of the table glances down at my résumé again.
“Your background is mostly legal communications,” she says. “Why transition into compliance strategy?”
Because legal communications stopped paying enough to keep my lights on.
Because my former boss decided downsizing sounded kinder than firing.
Because my son needs to eat at least three times every single day.
I don't say all that aloud. Instead, I fold my hands neatly in my lap and offer the corporate version.
“Compliance is really about trust, you know? Most people think it’s only regulations and policy, but–and this is backed with data–the companies that survive crises are usually the ones communicating clearly before things go wrong. Compliance is conscious storytelling.”
A beat of silence follows.
The man on the left nods slowly and the polished woman writes something down.
Please let this be a good sign.
Another interviewer flips through my portfolio. “You handled crisis response for Calloway & Voss during the HarborTech breach?”
“Yes.”
“That was messy.”
I shrug slightly. “That’s one word for it.”
A small laugh slips around the table and my shoulders loosen an inch.
“We worked eighteen-hour days for nearly three weeks,” I continue. “Regulators wanted answers. Clients wanted blood. The media wanted a villain. My job was making sure none of those groups destroyed each other before legal finished its investigation.”
“And you succeeded?”
“We kept ninety-two percent of our clients.”
Another moment of silence, but they seem more interested now.
The woman finally leans back in her chair. “Why Ferretti Global?”
Because your starting salary could save my life and my landlord taped a FINAL NOTICE to my door yesterday while Nico colored dinosaurs on the living room floor, and I lay awake every night calculating how many meals exist inside one carton of eggs.
I smile instead.
“Your firm is expanding faster than your internal systems,” I say. “That creates vulnerability. Especially with high-net-worth clients. You need someone who understands both communication and damage control before small issues become catastrophic ones.”
Another look passes between them.
Definitely a good sign.
I’m just beginning to breathe easier when a voice speaks.
“Interesting,” a voice, one I remember immediately, says.
My head swivels to the door. It's the man from the lobby.
Either I developed selective hearing or he's a ghost, because how didn't I hear him come in?
For some reason, my heart rate picks up as he walks up to me.
One of the men sits up quickly, saying, “Mr. Ferretti. This is Ms. De Luca. She—”
“Small issues like what?” Those gray eyes pin me in one spot.
I’m still processing the shock that this man who caught me in the lobby is in fact, Valentino Ferretti, owner and CEO of Ferretti Global Risk when he steps fully into the room, all six-foot-something of almost inhuman hotness.
The panel straightens like soldiers acknowledging a general. He doesn’t even glance at them. Those stormy gray eyes stay locked on me.
He reaches across the table for my resume without wasting another moment. The motion pulls his sleeve back just enough and I notice three olive branches wrapped around a broken key in black ink.
My brain goes quiet.
Completely quiet.
All previous thoughts in my head are now violently blocked out by the steady climb of my heartbeat in my own ears.
Three olive branches. A broken key.
Fuck.
“Ms. De Luca?” He calls but that cool Italian-Southern voice only drags me further back in memory.
Back to Venice.
Back to a time five years ago, when my broken heart only cared about sex, alcohol, and escaping my father.
With dizzying accuracy, I remember how I traced every inch of that very tattoo with my fingers on that balcony.
And everything that came after that.
I look at him, and as his gray eyes meet mine, I wait with dread for the spark of recognition.
I wait for him to say it's you.
It doesn't come. Instead, his brows are furrowed in curiosity.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Ms. De Luca.”
You have no idea, I almost say aloud.
The ghost is currently four years old, obsessed with toy cars, and has his eyes.