Chapter 4 - SIX MONTHSEmma’s first thought was her family.
Her parents outside Madison.
Her younger sister in Milwaukee.
Matteo read the fear instantly.
“They’ll have protection.”
“No.”
“They won’t know.”
“You don’t get to put armed men around people because you’ve decided it’s useful.”
“I can when somebody may try to kill them.”
She hated that he had a point.
“What do you want?”
“You stay here.”
“No.”
“You maintain the engagement publicly.”
“Absolutely not.”
“My enemies already believe you are connected to me.”
“I’m not.”
“The men inside your office disagreed.”
Emma folded her arms.
“What happened to your two-million-dollar offer?”
“Still available.”
“Keep it.”
He looked genuinely irritated by that.
“If I stay, I choose how.”
Matteo’s eyebrow rose.
“No controlling my phone.”
“Security access may be required.”
“No.”
“Emma—”
“No deciding what I wear. No canceling my work. No locking me inside this glass mausoleum.”
“Reasonable security.”
“My definition.”
“Mine.”
“Then we’re finished.”
They stared at each other.
Matteo eventually exhaled.
“Negotiated security.”
“Better.”
“Six months.”
“Until the threat ends.”
“Six months maximum.”
“Or until I decide I’m done.”
His jaw tightened.
Emma waited.
“Agreed.”
Forced proximity was considerably less romantic than fiction suggested.
The following morning, Emma rejected a designer wardrobe Matteo’s assistant delivered.
She rejected Sophia’s diamond bracelet.
She rejected a chauffeur.
Then walked four blocks before discovering four enormous men following her.
Emma stopped.
All four stopped.
One pretended to study a restaurant menu.
Upside down.
She called Matteo.
“Call off your parade.”
“No.”
“One of them is pretending to read upside down.”
A pause.
Then Emma heard something astonishing.
Matteo laughed.
Barely a second.
But unmistakably.
“Come back to the car.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“No.”
“You laughed.”
“I did not.”
“You absolutely did.”
She turned.
The four guards continued pretending not to exist.
Something strange happened inside Emma.
For the first time, Matteo Romano stopped looking like a name surrounded by rumors.
For one second, he had simply sounded like a man.
Three days later, she attended her first Romano family dinner.
Sophia seated her beside Matteo.
Bianca sat across from them.
Beside Bianca sat Luca Romano.
The man whose name appeared repeatedly on Daniel Vescari’s secret drive.
And before dessert arrived, Emma saw Bianca touch Luca beneath the table.
May you like
Not accidentally.
Intimately.
Related Stories
