Chapter 2
Giovanni led me onto the dance floor as though we had done it a hundred times.
I had not slow-danced with anyone in years.
That realization arrived at the worst possible moment—when his right hand settled lightly at my waist and my left hand rested against the shoulder of a man whose name had apparently caused half the ballroom to forget how conversations worked.
“You’re staring at my collar,” he murmured.
“I’m trying not to step on you.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“I haven’t moved yet.”
The corner of his mouth shifted.
“Then your record is perfect.”
I looked up despite myself.
For a man who had just recruited a stranger into an imaginary marriage, Giovanni Fierro seemed annoyingly calm.
Around us, couples moved beneath the chandeliers while the orchestra played something soft and old-fashioned. Beyond the windows, Chicago glittered along the river, all silver reflections and tiny headlights.
“You understand,” I whispered, “that pretending to be someone’s wife usually requires more preparation than ten seconds.”
“Eight seconds.”
“That isn’t better.”
“It was enough.”
“For what?”
His gaze moved past me.
“For Tyler Brooks to stop looking pleased with himself.”
I refused to turn around.
“I’m not doing this for Tyler.”
“Good.”
That answer surprised me.
Giovanni guided me through a slow turn.
“Do it for yourself.”
“I don’t need a man to make my ex jealous.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“Then what exactly are we doing?”
“We’re dancing.”
“And after that?”
“We improvise.”
“That is a terrible plan.”
“It’s worked so far.”
“It’s been forty seconds.”
“Forty excellent seconds.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
A real laugh.
It felt so unfamiliar that my throat tightened immediately afterward.
Giovanni noticed.
He didn’t mention it.
That, more than anything, made me relax.
Most people in my family treated sadness like a stain that needed to be pointed out before it spread.
Giovanni simply adjusted his hand as we turned.
After a moment, I asked, “Why is everyone staring at you?”
“Some of them know my family.”
“That still doesn’t explain why Mr. Henderson at Table Eleven looked like he swallowed an olive whole when you told me your name.”
“He once spent six months negotiating a building purchase with my company.”
“What company?”
“Fierro Development Group.”
I finally recognized the name.
Not from gossip.
From buildings.
The Fierro name was attached to hotels, office towers, restorations, and a new medical research center near the lake. I had passed their signs on construction fences for years without thinking about the people behind them.
“You’re that Fierro?”
“There are several of us.”
“And you run it?”
“Mostly.”
I closed my eyes for half a second.
“Wonderful.”
“What?”
“I accidentally fake-married a billionaire.”
“Not quite.”
“Millionaire?”
“Jessica.”
“What?”
“Please don’t start estimating my taxes while we dance.”
I almost laughed again.
Across the floor, I finally allowed myself one glance toward Tyler.
He was no longer smiling.
Vanessa said something to him, but he barely seemed to hear her.
The satisfaction I expected never came.
Instead I felt tired.
Not triumphant.
Not vindicated.
Just tired of having my life measured against his.
Giovanni seemed to read something in my expression.
“Want to stop?”
The question mattered.
He had started this by giving an order, but now there was nothing commanding in his tone.
I considered it.
“No.”
“All right.”
“Your aunt is still watching.”
“Yes.”
“The brunette too.”
“Yes.”
“Who is she?”
“Alessandra Vance.”
“And she wants to marry you?”
Giovanni sighed.
“That is a much more complicated sentence than it appears.”
“Try me.”
“Her father and my uncle have been business partners for twenty years. My aunt decided a marriage between Alessandra and me would be elegant, practical, and convenient.”
“And Alessandra?”
“She enjoys making my aunt think she has a chance.”
I blinked.
“So the woman glaring at me doesn’t actually want you?”
“She may be glaring because you stepped on the hem of her dress when we walked past.”
“I did?”
“Barely.”
“You could have warned me.”
“You were busy pretending not to look at Tyler.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“You notice too much.”
“So I’ve been told.”
The song began winding toward its final notes.
Panic fluttered unexpectedly in my chest.
The dance had given me a temporary place to hide.
When it ended, I would be Jessica again.
Jessica with the repaired shoes.
Jessica whose mother wished she had brought someone.
Jessica whose ex-husband had just reminded her how close she lived to the edge of every paycheck.
Giovanni’s expression changed.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“That usually means something happened.”
Before I could answer, the orchestra ended.
Applause rippled through the room.
Giovanni did not release my hand.
“Twenty more minutes,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“Give me twenty minutes. After that, if you want to leave, I’ll make sure nobody follows you.”
“I’m not being chased.”
“I know.”
“Then why would anyone follow me?”
“Because my aunt is walking toward us.”
I turned.
An elegant woman in her late sixties was crossing the ballroom with the purposeful stride of someone who had never once been ignored successfully.
Alessandra walked beside her.
My mother was coming from another direction.
Sophia had noticed too.
“Oh, no.”
Giovanni’s fingers tightened slightly around mine.
“Breathe.”
“If you tell me to act natural, I will abandon you immediately.”
“I was going to say smile.”
“That’s worse.”
His aunt stopped in front of us.
Up close, she had Giovanni’s amber eyes.
“Giovanni.”
“Aunt Elena.”
Her attention moved to me.
“And you are?”
I waited.
Giovanni waited too.
That was when I realized he wasn’t going to answer for me.
I swallowed.
“Jessica Hale.”
Elena smiled politely.
“I know who you are, dear. You’re Sophia’s sister.”
That caught me off guard.
“You know Sophia?”
“I know everyone whose wedding Giovanni attends voluntarily.”
Sophia reached us just in time to hear that.
“Mrs. Fierro,” she said, slightly breathless.
“Elena, please.”
My sister’s eyes jumped between Giovanni and me.
Then they dropped to our joined hands.
“Jess?”
I opened my mouth.
Giovanni spoke first.
“Sophia, I owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
“For not telling you sooner that Jessica and I know each other.”
My heart attempted to escape through my ribs.
Sophia stared at me.
“You know each other?”
“Apparently,” I said.
Giovanni’s thumb brushed once across my knuckles.
A warning.
Or encouragement.
I wasn’t sure.
Elena studied us.
“How long?”
Giovanni looked at me.
And suddenly, ridiculously, I understood the question he was really asking.
How much of a lie was I willing to tell?
I thought of Tyler.
Then I thought of Lily.
The second thought decided it.
I slipped my hand from Giovanni’s.
“We’re not married.”
Silence.
Giovanni did not flinch.
Elena’s eyebrows rose.
Sophia stared.
Alessandra made a small sound that suspiciously resembled a swallowed laugh.
I continued before courage abandoned me.
“He asked me to pretend for one dance because his family was pressuring him about something, and I agreed because I was having a terrible evening.”
“Jessica,” my mother said behind me.
Of course she had arrived for exactly that sentence.
I closed my eyes.
“Hi, Mom.”
She looked from me to Giovanni.
“You told people you were married?”
“No. He told one person.”
“I told Jessica I needed a fake wife,” Giovanni corrected.
“That is not helping,” I whispered.
Alessandra openly laughed this time.
Elena gave her a look.
Then, to my astonishment, Elena looked at Giovanni and said, “You are forty-one years old.”
“Forty-two next month.”
“That makes this worse.”
“I suspected it might.”
Sophia covered her mouth.
She was trying not to smile.
My mother was not.
“This isn’t funny.”
“No,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
I could feel the old reflex rising—the one that told me to apologize, smooth things over, make everyone comfortable.
For once, I resisted it.
“It isn’t funny that I spent the evening answering questions about why I didn’t bring a man. It isn’t funny that my ex-husband felt comfortable telling me I threw my future away by having our daughter. And it isn’t funny that for about one minute, being introduced as somebody’s wife made everyone look at me differently.”
My mother’s face changed.
“Jessica, I never—”
“You did.”
I kept my voice soft.
That mattered to me.
I wasn’t interested in causing a scene.
I was simply too tired to keep pretending there wasn’t one already.
“You asked why I came alone. Aunt Marie asked if I had ‘given up.’ Sandra seated me beside the kitchen because she said married couples needed the better tables. I know none of you meant to be cruel. But sometimes meaning well doesn’t make something feel good.”
Sophia looked stricken.
“I didn’t know about the table.”
“I know.”
“Jess, I swear I didn’t.”
“I believe you.”
My mother looked down.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Elena Fierro cleared her throat.
“Well.”
Everyone turned to her.
She looked at Giovanni.
“You invented a wife because I mentioned Alessandra at dinner.”
“Six dinners.”
“That is not the point.”
Alessandra raised a hand.
“For the record, I have repeatedly told everyone involved that I have no intention of marrying Giovanni.”
“You said you were keeping your options open,” Elena replied.
“I was talking about dessert.”
Giovanni rubbed the bridge of his nose.
I stared at Alessandra.
She smiled.
“Sorry about the glare earlier. You did step on my dress.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It survived.”
Elena turned back to me.
“My nephew owes you an apology.”
“I do,” Giovanni said immediately.
I looked at him.
“For what?”
“For putting you in the middle of this without explaining enough.”
There was no defensiveness in his face.
That made it easier to answer.
“I did take your hand.”
“You did.”
“And I could have said no.”
“Yes.”
My mother seemed almost disappointed that nobody was fighting.
Sophia reached for my arm.
“Will you come with me for a second?”
I nodded.
She led me toward the terrace doors.
We stepped outside into warm night air.
The city spread beneath us.
Sophia wrapped both arms around me.
I stiffened from surprise.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You didn’t do anything.”
“I did. I let Sandra handle the seating because I was overwhelmed, and I didn’t check. And I should have fought harder about Lily.”
“It’s your wedding.”
“She’s my niece.”
Her voice cracked slightly.
I hugged her back.
“I promised her cake.”
Sophia pulled away.
“Take the whole top tier.”
“I think that violates some wedding law.”
“I’m the bride. I am the law.”
I smiled.
She wiped beneath one eye carefully to protect her makeup.
“Are you okay?”
I looked through the glass.
Giovanni stood where I had left him, listening while Elena spoke. Tyler was across the room with Vanessa.
For the first time all evening, Tyler seemed very far away.
“I think I will be.”
Sophia followed my gaze.
“That man is Giovanni Fierro.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
“He bought the old Westlake building for seventy million dollars.”
“That information is not making him less strange.”
“He never comes to anything.”
“Apparently he comes to weddings.”
“Only because his aunt is friends with Daniel’s mother.”
I looked at my sister.
“How do you know so much about him?”
“I designed part of the restoration project his company funded last year.”
That explained Elena knowing her.
Sophia hesitated.
Then she said, “There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Giovanni asked me about you before dinner.”
My stomach dropped.
“What do you mean?”
“He saw you during the ceremony.”
“And?”
“He asked your name.”
“Before Tyler spoke to me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I thought maybe he recognized you.”
I looked through the glass again.
Giovanni happened to glance toward the terrace.
Our eyes met.
Something shifted uneasily inside me.
Twenty minutes later, I was standing near the elevators holding a white bakery box Sophia had personally filled with enough wedding cake to keep Lily delighted for a week.
My mother had hugged me before I left.
It had been awkward, unfinished, but sincere.
Tyler had made no attempt to speak to me again.
I was grateful for that.
Giovanni appeared as the elevator doors opened.
“Leaving?”
“Yes.”
“May I ride down?”
“It’s your hotel.”
“It isn’t.”
“Your company owns half of Chicago.”
“Considerably less than half.”
I stepped into the elevator.
He joined me.
For several floors, neither of us spoke.
Finally I said, “You knew who I was before Tyler came to my table.”
“Yes.”
“Sophia told me.”
He nodded.
“Why?”
The elevator descended.
Twenty-seven.
Twenty-six.
Twenty-five.
Giovanni looked at the changing numbers.
“I was trying to decide whether telling you would make tonight better or worse.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
“Try again.”
He turned toward me.
“Three years ago, my niece Mia was taken to St. Catherine’s Children’s Hospital after an asthma attack.”
I froze.
St. Catherine’s was where I worked.
“She was six,” he continued. “Terrified. My sister was out of town. I was the only family member nearby.”
A memory surfaced slowly.
A little girl with dark curls.
Purple sneakers.
A stuffed rabbit clutched so tightly its ear had folded in half.
And a tall man who looked completely helpless beside her hospital bed.
“You were wearing glasses,” I whispered.
Giovanni smiled faintly.
“I still do sometimes.”
“You had a gray sweater.”
“I don’t remember the sweater.”
“I do.”
The elevator stopped at eighteen.
Nobody entered.
Doors closed again.
“You stayed with Mia after your shift ended,” he said. “She wouldn’t let anyone remove the nebulizer mask unless you were in the room.”
“That happens.”
“You told her your daughter Lily was almost three and hated masks too.”
The memory returned completely.
I had shown Mia a photograph on my phone of Lily wearing a toy doctor’s mask upside down.
Mia had laughed.
“You remember that?”
“I remember you.”
Something warm and frightening moved beneath my ribs.
He continued quietly.
“At the wedding today, I saw you during the ceremony. I couldn’t place you at first. Then I heard Sophia call you Jessica.”
“And you asked about me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you just come say hello?”
“I intended to.”
“But?”
“I saw your ex-husband reach you first.”
The elevator arrived in the lobby.
The doors opened.
Neither of us moved.
“You heard what he said?” I asked.
“Enough.”
Heat climbed into my face.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Because it was embarrassing.”
“No.”
He said the word so simply that I looked at him.
“What he said belonged to him,” Giovanni continued. “Not to you.”
The elevator doors began closing.
He reached out and stopped them.
Then he stepped back, giving me room to leave first.
I walked into the marble lobby.
Giovanni followed.
At the entrance, he handed me a business card.
No flourish.
No pressure.
Just his name and number.
“I won’t ask you to pretend again,” he said.
“Good.”
“But I would like to buy you coffee.”
I looked at the card.
“Why?”
“Because three years ago, when Mia was frightened, you made her feel safe. Tonight, when you were hurting, I made you lie to my aunt.”
“You didn’t make me.”
“I still owe you a better second impression.”
I smiled despite myself.
“I already had a first impression.”
“That worries me.”
“It should.”
He opened the hotel door.
Warm summer air swept in.
My rideshare was waiting at the curb.
I started toward it, then stopped.
“Giovanni?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you remember Lily’s name after three years?”
For the first time all evening, his composure slipped.
Only slightly.
Enough.
“Because Mia still has the paper heart you drew for her that night,” he said. “You wrote two names on the back.”
I remembered.
For Mia, from Jessica and Lily.
Something tightened in my throat.
Giovanni glanced toward the waiting car.
“Goodnight, Jessica.”
“Goodnight.”
I climbed inside.
On the ride home, I told myself I would throw away the business card.
Instead, I tucked it carefully into the side pocket of my purse.
When I opened my apartment door twenty-five minutes later, my best friend Carmen was asleep on the sofa beneath a blanket.
Lily came padding out of her room in strawberry pajamas.
“Mommy?”
“Hey, bug.”
Her eyes immediately found the box.
“Is that cake?”
“It might be.”
Her whole face lit up.
“At night?”
“Special circumstances.”
I cut us two tiny pieces and we sat at the kitchen table under the yellow light above the stove.
Lily took one bite and sighed happily.
“Did Aunt Sophia look like a princess?”
“She did.”
“Did you dance?”
I looked down at my cake.
“Yes.”
“With Grandpa?”
“No.”
“Uncle Daniel?”
“No.”
She narrowed her eyes in five-year-old suspicion.
“With a boy?”
I laughed.
“With a man.”
“Was he nice?”
I thought of amber eyes.
A remembered paper heart.
A business card in my purse.
“I’m not sure yet.”
Lily considered this with great seriousness.
Then she pushed the frosting rose toward me.
“You can have this part.”
And somehow that small kindness almost undid me.
Much later, after Lily was asleep and Carmen had gone home, I stood by my bedroom window holding Giovanni’s card.
I entered the number into my phone.
I did not call.
I did not text.
Not that night.
But before I went to sleep, I noticed something printed beneath his company title that I had missed before.
**Board Chair — Fierro Family Foundation.**
The name sounded familiar.
I opened my laptop.
One search later, I understood why.
The Fierro Family Foundation funded the pediatric graduate fellowship I had applied for four months earlier.
The fellowship that could pay my tuition.
The fellowship that could change Lily’s and my future.
The fellowship whose selection committee had told applicants that final decisions would be announced any day.
I stared at Giovanni’s card.
Then at the application confirmation still sitting in my email.
And one thought refused to leave me.
May you like
Giovanni Fierro had known my name before he walked across that ballroom.
Now I had to wonder exactly how much else he already knew.
