3. The Offer #3
She leads me down the hall, her heels clicking on the marble, while I follow in my squeaking sneakers, leaving wet footprints on floors that cost more than my education. But at least I'm not shivering anymore.
The study door is open.
Matteo is exactly where I left him. Same desk.
Same chair. Same position — like he sat down right after I walked out yesterday and simply waited, coffee going cold at his elbow, because he'd already done the math and knew the answer before I did.
He wasn't worried I'd say no. He just gave me time to catch up to the conclusion he'd already reached.
The thought makes my jaw tighten. He looks up when I enter, and I watch his eyes track the damp hair clinging to my neck, Gianna's cashmere cardigan draped over my frame, and the sneakers still leaving wet prints on his hardwood floor.
He doesn't smile. He doesn't gloat. He sets down his pen and gives me the only thing I need from him right now: his full attention.
For a second, neither of us speaks.
The silence stretches between us, thick with everything I’m not ready to admit. That I came back. That he knew I would. That some part of me hates him for being right.
I don’t sit. Sitting feels too much like surrender.
"I have conditions," I say.
He leans forward. Something shifts behind his eyes — not triumph, not relief. Something quieter. Something I can't read and don't trust.
"Name them," he says.
"Lucia's treatment begins immediately. Not after the wedding. Not after the contract is finalized. Now. Today. You start the process before I sign a single page."
"Done."
Too fast. I push harder.
"I keep my apartment. I'm not moving in here full-time; I need a place that's mine."
"The marriage needs to appear genuine. You'll need to stay here regularly for appearances. But the apartment stays in your name. I won't touch it."
"I'm not your property. I won't be paraded, managed, dressed up, or told what to think. In public, I'm your wife. In private, I'm Sofia Marino, and you do not forget that."
He's quiet for a moment. His eyes hold mine, and I feel the weight of his attention like a hand on my chest — steady, warm, pressing against something I don't want to feel.
"Anything else?" he asks.
"One more thing," I say, taking a breath. "When this is over — when the year is up and you have what you need — I walk away clean. No obligations, no debts, no leverage. Lucia's care continues regardless. You don't get to hold her life over my head as a leash."
Something moves across his face. Fast, unreadable. If I didn't know better, I'd say it looked like respect.
"Agreed," he says. "All of it."
He stands. He comes around the desk, and I'm suddenly aware of how close he is — close enough, I can see the stitch line beneath his collar, can smell whatever expensive, understated thing he wears, that cuts through the old-wood-and-leather air of this room. He extends his hand.
"Then we have a deal, Mrs. De Santis."
His hand is warm. His grip is firm but not crushing — controlled, deliberate, like everything about him. Our palms press together, and the contact sends the same jolt through me that I felt in the alley—the same electricity which I've been pretending was imaginary.
His thumb shifts — barely, just a fraction of an inch — against the inside of my wrist. Intentional or not, I feel it everywhere.
I hold on a beat longer than I should. So does he.
"Sofia," I correct. "You don't get to call me that yet."
I pull my hand back. He lets it go. But his eyes stay on me — dark, steady, and burning with something I am not willing to think about right now.
I'm standing in a mansion that belongs to a man I met just four days ago in an alley, wearing another woman's cardigan and leaving wet footprints on his floor—and I have just agreed to marry him.
The shiver that runs through me has nothing to do with the cold.
I turn toward the door before he can see the emotions building behind my eyes. Gianna is waiting in the hallway. She leads me out the same way she led me in—heels clicking, spine straight, not a single question asked.
The front door closes behind me. The rain has slowed to a mist. The estate grounds stretch out ahead of me, green and manicured and impossibly quiet, and I stand on the stone steps and feel the full weight of what I've just done settle onto my shoulders like a coat I can't take off.
I gave a stranger my name. My year. My freedom.
I did it for Lucia. I'd do it again. I'd do it a hundred times. That's not the part that scares me.
The part that scares me is the way his hand felt in mine. The way his thumb shifted against my wrist. The way he looked at me like I was something he hadn't planned for — and the way some traitorous, sleep-deprived, desperate part of me wanted him to keep looking.
I walk down the steps into the mist. One mile to the bus stop. Two buses home. Back to the apartment, the bills, the empty bedroom, the glass of water I still can't move.
I just made a deal with a man whose world runs on blood and silence.