Chapter 13
Thirteen
Sloane
For the first time in weeks, I wake up and my first thought isn't fear.
Massimo's arm is heavy across my waist, his breath warm and slow against the back of my neck, his body curved around mine with a possessiveness that doesn't loosen even in sleep.
Rain still taps against the windows from last night's storm, lighter now, a soft rhythm that mixes with his breathing and the low hum of the heating system pushing warm air through the penthouse.
Pale morning light filters through the rain-streaked glass and casts watery patterns across the dark sheets, shifting and rippling every time a fresh gust hits the building.
I lie still and let myself feel it. Safe. Held. Known. The man behind me knows every ugly truth I carry and he's still here, still reaching for me in his sleep the way he has every night since I signed that contract a week ago.
A lot has been shoved to the back burner while I try to figure out my new temporary life.
I’ve given Massimo my keys and he’s promised to have my things brought over by tomorrow evening.
Neither of us know how long it will take to get this thing with Lorenzo straightened out, but we both agree it won’t be overnight.
There are a lot of moving parts to untying the promise my father made behind my back and without my consent.
Massimo slides out of bed and I hear the shower turn on.
Alone in bed, I place a hand on my midriff and allow myself a moment to dream about carrying this man’s child.
My brain is hooked on the thought of him releasing inside me last night.
It felt possessive and claiming and I can’t wait for him to do it again.
I'm still tangled in his dark sheets when Massimo appears at the foot of the bed several minutes later, showered and dressed in a dark suit with his hair still slightly damp.
He smells like soap and cologne and the warmth of clean skin.
The sight of him put together while I'm still half-asleep and bare-faced does unfair things to my pulse.
"Go back to sleep, tesoro. I have meetings this morning."
I reach for his tie and tug him closer. "You look too good to leave this bed."
"And you look too good in my sheets for me to think straight." He kisses me again, slower this time, his mouth warm against mine. "Rest."
“You know I can’t stay in your tower of glass forever.”
He doesn't answer, and the way he keeps checking his watch tells me we don't have time to argue.
His thumb traces my cheekbone. "I'll have Savine and Callan outside. Anything you need, they handle it."
"I know the drill."
He straightens, grabs his phone and keys from the nightstand, and pauses at the bedroom door. He looks back at me tangled in his dark sheets and something crosses his face that I can't quite read. Tenderness, maybe. Or worry.
"I’m only a few floors down. Come find me at any time."
"I will."
He steps out and I hear the elevator doors close. The penthouse goes quiet. I lie in his sheets for another ten minutes, breathing in cologne and clean cotton, before my phone buzzes.
I pick it up to see a notification from Bree pop on the screen.
Crap. I bounce up and flick my phone on to read the full message.
The wholesale order I placed two weeks ago is due today and I forgot all about it.
I can't afford to miss it. Sixty vintage reproduction dresses in four colors, the biggest order Midnight Boutique has ever received, and if they sit on the loading dock in this rain the fabric will absorb moisture and the colors will bleed before I can get them inside.
Forty-five minutes later, I'm dressed and standing in the penthouse kitchen arguing with two men in dark suits. They are paid to keep me alive and are currently failing to understand that keeping me alive includes keeping my business alive.
"The order arrives this morning. If I'm not there to receive it, sixty dresses sit in the rain and I lose twelve thousand dollars in inventory.
" I pour coffee into a travel mug and cap it, the steam escaping around the lid carrying the dark, bitter scent of Massimo's imported beans that cost more per bag than my monthly coffee budget.
"You're ordered to keep me safe wherever I am, right? Then keep me safe at my boutique."
The taller guard, a man named Savine who has the build of a linebacker and the communication skills of a parking meter, exchanges a look with his partner.
"Ms. Whitmore, Mr. Santoro's instructions were—"
"To protect me. Not to lock me in this tower.
That can be someone else's story, not mine.
" I take a sip of the coffee I just brewed.
It's annoyingly good, smooth and rich with a caramel finish that makes my usual grocery store brand taste like dirt water by comparison.
"Massimo is busy and that order won't wait. You can follow me, stand outside, check the perimeter, do whatever your training tells you to do. But I'm going to my shop." I’ve stayed closed too long as it is. I can’t leave my life on hold forever. Lorenzo wouldn’t dare do a thing to me there.
Not when my clients would turn into witnesses.
Savine pulls his phone and texts someone. I assume Massimo. He reads the response, pockets the phone, and nods once.
"Fine. But you don't leave our sight. If you break a nail we get caps in our knees."
My brows pinch together. “Did Massimo say that?”
Callan answers. “You don’t wanna know what happens if you get a simple papercut. Mind being careful?”
Oh. Wow. I make a mental note to talk to Massimo. I don't want these men afraid of their own boss because of me. But I also can’t lose this order. "Deal. Let me grab my bag."
The SUV cuts through morning traffic, the wipers sweeping rain from the windshield in steady arcs.
I sit in the back seat with my travel mug and watch the city slide past through tinted glass, the storefronts of Wicker Park still dark, the sidewalks glistening wet, a few early joggers hunched against the drizzle.
Savine drives with both hands on the wheel and his eyes moving between the mirrors in a pattern I've started recognizing as trained surveillance.
His partner rides shotgun with his window cracked an inch despite the rain, listening to the street I guess. Or he likes water in his face.
Who knows.
They drop me at the front of Midnight Boutique at nine fifteen. But not before Callan takes my keys, sweeps the area and then ushers me inside like I am legit royalty.
“Savine is parking the car. I’ll be at the front door and he will cover the back. You do not leave the inside of this shop. Period. Clear?”
“Don’t scare away my customers. Clear?”
He ignores me and turns, disappearing to…well, I have no idea. All I know is I don’t see him so neither will any clients who come in.
The brass bell chimes when I push through the door and the familiar sound settles into my bones, a bright, clean ring that makes me feel like me.
The shop smells like lavender sachets and clean cotton and the faint mustiness of vintage fabric that has become the scent of home to me, warm and safe and entirely mine.
Five minutes later my shipment arrives and Savine does his job rather well. He checks everything. The driver, the boxes, the little handheld I sign before the shipment is officially mine.
I’m pretty sure the delivery man will never want to bring me packages again.
I slice open the first box with a box cutter, the blade parting the packing tape with a satisfying rip, and pull back the tissue paper.
The dresses are perfect. Emerald green swing dresses with sweetheart necklines, the fabric soft and heavy between my fingers, the stitching clean and tight, the zippers smooth when I test them.
I hold one up to the light filtering through the front window and the color catches, rich and deep and alive, and I feel a smile pull at my mouth that has nothing to do with Massimo Santoro and everything to do with the fact that I am good at what I do.
This is mine. This boutique, these dresses, this business I built with my own hands and my own taste and my own stubborn refusal to let anyone tell me what a woman should look like.
Lorenzo can send silk slippers and my dad can call it silly and the whole world can close in around me, but this shop is mine and nobody gets to take it.
I work for an hour. Tag the new arrivals, the gun clicking softly as each tag pierces fabric.
Steam the wrinkles, the iron hissing as I press creases from emerald cotton.
Arrange the new dresses on the front rack where the morning light catches the color through the rain-streaked window.
Bree arrives at ten, shaking water from her umbrella in the doorway, and we fall into our rhythm, her handling the register while I rearrange the window display with the new stock.
The brass bell chimes at ten forty-five.
I look up from the display expecting the delivery driver with the second shipment.
Lorenzo Ferraro walks into my boutique.
My stomach drops through the floor and my fingers tighten on the dress hanger so hard the metal bites into my palm.
He's in a navy suit, no overcoat, his dark hair slicked back, his jaw freshly shaved with a precision that makes his face look like it was assembled in a lab.
His cologne reaches me before he does, heavy and expensive and wrong in this space, a scent that clashes with my lavender and cotton.
He doesn't look at me first. He goes to the nearest rack and runs his fingers along the fabric of a red dress, rubbing the material between his thumb and forefinger with an unhurried ease. He studies it. Touching it the way he undoubtedly touched all the things in my closet.
My skin tightens from my wrists to the back of my neck. Every inch of me recoils watching his fingers on fabric I chose, fabric I steamed, fabric that belongs in my world and not under his hands. My molars press together so hard my jaw aches.