Chapter 1 - THE WRONG BRASS KEYAt 7:03 on Sunday morning, Emma Collins woke with a stranger’s arm locked around her waist.
Her black heels sat neatly beside a pair of expensive men’s shoes.
An elegant older woman stood in the bedroom doorway with tears of joy in her eyes.
For three seconds, Emma’s exhausted brain refused to understand any of it.
Then the arm around her tightened.
She turned.
Matteo Romano opened his eyes.
Emma forgot how to breathe.
Twelve hours earlier, she had been coordinating the Romano Foundation’s annual banquet at Matteo’s lakefront estate.
A storm stranded half the vendors.
One caterer quit.
An ice sculpture nearly collapsed onto a senator.
By 2:40 a.m., Emma had been awake almost twenty-two hours.
When the last shuttle was canceled, an estate employee told her she could sleep in an unused guest suite.
He handed her an old brass key marked WEST 3.
The estate had lost power in one corridor, leaving only emergency lights.
Emma turned left where she should have turned right.
The key worked because event supervisors had been issued old master keys during the foundation weekend.
She opened a dark bedroom.
Saw a bed.
Removed her heels.
And collapsed fully dressed.
Matteo returned less than forty minutes later after dealing with a security problem near the gates.
He entered through his private sitting room.
The bedroom was completely dark.
He saw the outline of someone beneath the blankets but, half asleep and assuming his mother had sent one of the family dogs into his room again, pushed the blankets aside and fell onto the opposite side of the enormous bed.
At some point during the night, Emma rolled toward him.
At some point, Matteo’s arm found her waist.
Neither woke.
Until now.
“Oh,” the woman in the doorway whispered.
“Oh, Matteo.”
Emma shot upright.
Matteo did the same.
“Mother.”
His mother.
Wonderful.
Emma looked down.
Black cocktail dress.
Wrinkled.
Still fully dressed.
Matteo wore dark trousers and a black undershirt.
Nothing had happened.
Unfortunately, the room had arranged itself into extremely persuasive evidence that everything had.
“I can explain,” Emma said.
Matteo’s mother looked at the shoes.
Her eyes filled.
“You don’t have to.”
“No, ma’am.”
Emma grabbed the blanket.
“I desperately do.”
Then Matteo looked toward his mother.
May you like
And Emma saw calculation enter his eyes.
She knew immediately that her morning was about to become much worse.
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