25. Danica
— ? —
Danica
The fitting studio was a converted loft in downtown LA, all exposed brick and natural light and racks of expensive fabric. I’d been standing on this pedestal for forty-five minutes while a woman named Marguerite circled me with pins in her mouth and a look of intense concentration.
The dress was a deep, dark green. Silk that moved like water, with a neckline that dipped low in the back and a slit that showed just enough leg to be interesting without being scandalous. It was the kind of dress that made you stand up straighter just by wearing it.
Tomorrow was the gala. Tomorrow, after months of fighting and crying and rebuilding, I would finally get to see my event happen the way it was supposed to. Kids front and center. Donors actually meeting the people they were helping.
I was so focused on not fidgeting while Marguerite pinned my hem that I didn’t hear the door open.
“I have the vendor contracts you needed signed and…”
I turned my head.
Stefan was standing in the doorway, folder in hand, frozen mid-sentence.
His eyes went wide. Then traveled down. Then back up. Then just… stayed there, fixed on me like he’d forgotten how to look anywhere else.
“I should go,” he said, but he didn’t move.
“Stay.” The word came out before I could think about it. “But don’t move. There are pins everywhere.”
Marguerite shot me a look that suggested she had opinions about men showing up during fittings. But she didn’t say anything, just went back to pinning with slightly more aggressive energy.
Stefan stayed in the doorway. He didn’t move. Just watched me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
I’d seen Stefan look at me a lot of ways over the years. With love, with frustration, with distraction, with that particular hunger that used to make my knees weak. But I’d never seen him look at me like this.
Like touching me was something he had to earn back one inch at a time.
“You look…” he started.
“Careful.” I held up a hand. “There are pins.”
“I was going to say impossible.” His voice was rough. “How am I supposed to focus on anything tomorrow when you’re going to be wearing that?”
“You’ll manage.”
“Will I? Because right now I’m having trouble remembering my own name.”
Marguerite made a sound that might have been a cough or might have been a laugh.
“The dress is for the gala,” I said, fighting a smile. “Not for you.”
“Everything you do is for you. I’m just lucky enough to be in the room.”
God. This man.
Marguerite finished the last pin and stepped back, examining her work with a critical eye.
“Five minutes to set the hem,” she said. “Then we can do the final adjustments.”
She disappeared into the back room, leaving Stefan and me alone. He still hadn’t moved from the doorway.
“You can come closer,” I said. “Just watch the pins.”
He walked toward me slowly, like I was something fragile that might shatter if he moved too fast. Stopped at the edge of the pedestal, close enough to touch but not touching.
“I brought the contracts,” he said, holding up the folder. “But that feels very unimportant right now.”
“It’s important for the gala.”
“The gala feels very unimportant right now too.”
I laughed, the way I used to before everything went wrong.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m accurate.” He was looking at me again, that same intense expression.
“Dani, I know I’ve said this before, but I need you to hear it.
You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
Not just tonight. Not just in this dress.
Every day. Every single day, I look at you and I can’t believe you’re real. ”
My throat tightened. “Stefan…”
“I wasted so much time not telling you that. Not showing you. I got so caught up in building things that I forgot the most important thing was already built. It was you. It was always you.”
I didn’t know what to say. So I just stood there, pinned into a dress that cost too much money, looking at the man I’d married and wondering if we could really find our way back.
My phone rang.
The moment shattered. I fumbled for the device, nearly impaling myself on a pin, and saw Evie’s name on the screen. Evie, who had the volunteers and the buses, and who never called during a fitting unless something was on fire.
“Hey, I’m in the middle of…”
“We have a problem.” Evie’s voice was tight, panicked. “A big problem.”
I put her on speaker. “What’s wrong?”
“Paula canceled the buses. The ones bringing the kids to the gala tomorrow.”
The blood drained from my face. “What?”
“She used the committee credit card. Said it was a ‘budget reallocation.’ The bus company just called to confirm the cancellation. The kids have no transportation. Forty-three kids, Danica. They’re stranded.”
Stefan stepped closer, his expression hardening.
“When did she cancel them?” I asked.
“Two days ago. But she told the bus company not to notify us until today. Something about ‘protecting the committee’s privacy.’”
Two days. She’d been sitting on this for two days, waiting until the last possible moment, making sure we couldn’t fix it.
“Can we rebook?”
“I’ve called everyone. Every bus company in LA is booked solid. It’s a Saturday night in June. No one has availability.”
I felt something cold settle in my chest. Something that felt a lot like ice.
“She did this on purpose,” I said quietly.
“Of course she did.” Evie’s voice was bitter. “She’s been trying to sabotage this event since day one. This is just her final play.”
“Evie.” Stefan leaned toward the phone. “Send me the list. Every kid, every address, every wheelchair and oxygen tank. I’ll have transport confirmed to you in an hour.”
“You have forty-three kids’ worth of transport lying around?”
“I have seven hospitals’ worth. Send the list.”
Evie hung up. Stefan was already typing.
“The hospital shuttles,” I said. “The patient vans. You could have them here in an hour.”
“I could.” He didn’t look up. “I could also buy the bus company.”
“So do that.”
“No.” Now he looked up, and something in his expression made my heart skip.
“Paula wanted them to show up quietly and sit in a garage. She’s spent two months trying to make those kids invisible.
I’m not sneaking them in the back in a hospital van.
They’re going to arrive like the most important people in this city, because tomorrow night they are. ” He paused. “Do you trust me?”
A month ago, I would have said no. I would have tried to fix this myself, alone, the way I always did. But a month ago I didn’t know he’d buy a middle seat in economy just to sit next to me, or let his arm go numb so I could sleep, or cry in a storage unit over a letter from my dead mother.
“Yes,” I said. “I trust you.”
He nodded once, then raised his phone to his ear.
“Chief. It’s Stefan Salvatore. I need your reserve engines.
The ones in the museum bay, the two you retired in March, anything that isn’t on the line.
And any off-duty crews who want a night of overtime on my dime.
Tomorrow, 6 p.m., lights on. Nothing in service.
Not one rig that’s supposed to be somewhere else. ”
He hung up.
“Who was that?”
“County fire chief. I repaired his granddaughter’s heart four years ago.
He’s been waiting for a chance to pay me back and I’ve never let him.
” He was already typing again. “He has six reserve engines and about a hundred guys who’d drive them for free.
I’ll pay anyway. The ambulances are ours.
Salvatore Medical runs forty of them for patient transport, and the non-emergency fleet sits in a lot on Saturday nights.
Every one of those kids gets a vehicle built for an oxygen tank and a driver trained to use it. ”
“And nobody who needs an ambulance tonight goes without one.”
“Nobody.” He looked up, and there it was, that fierce, determined smile that used to terrify board members and charm donors in equal measure. “Paula wants to play games? Fine. Let’s play.”