Chapter 2

"The girl from Switzerland." The voice on the other end was flat, faintly impatient. "What do you want?"

"Your sister just took a dress out of my hands and had the associate throw me out," I said. "I thought you should know."

A short laugh. Nothing warm in it.

"A dress. You're calling me over a dress."

"I'm calling you because she used your name to do it. I want to know if that's something you signed off on."

"Ilaria's been with our family since we were kids." His tone shifted—not angry, just done. The way people sound when they're explaining something obvious. "Whatever happened, I'm sure you made it worse. Just give her the dress."

"She took it out of my hands."

"So find another one." A pause, and when he spoke again there was something almost pitying in it. "You're coming into this family with nothing. No name anyone here recognizes, no history, nothing. You should be focused on making a good impression, not picking fights over clothes. Marrying into the Ferrante name is the best thing that will ever happen to you—don't make me regret this before we've even met."

My grip tightened on the phone. Just slightly.

"Don't call this number again unless it's actually important."

He hung up.

I stood there for a moment, phone still in my hand, the dial tone gone.

Good, I thought. That makes this easier.

I'd come back to New York prepared to give this a real chance. An open mind about a man I'd never met, because Mother had arranged it and I trusted her. I'd been willing to try.

Now I wasn't.

I put my phone away and turned around. Ilaria had gone into the fitting rooms with the dress. The boutique had settled back into its usual rhythm—soft music, careful lighting, associates drifting between displays like nothing had happened. I found a seat near the window and waited.

She came out twenty minutes later, still wearing the velvet gown, champagne in hand, radiating the specific satisfaction of someone who had won and wanted everyone to notice. She saw me and stopped.

"Still here?"

"Still here," I said.

She looked at me for a moment—recalculating—and then she smiled and started walking toward me. And then, about two feet away, she stumbled.

Beautiful execution. The champagne glass tilted, and the pale gold liquid came down in a slow, perfect arc directly across my white shirt. Ice cold, corner to corner.

"Oh—" She pressed her free hand to her mouth. "I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there, I just—"

"You walked straight at me," I said.

Her expression shifted. The apology dropped away like a coat she'd decided she didn't need.

"My ring." She grabbed her own hand, eyes going wide. "Nico's ring—the one he gave me for my birthday—it was right here, it's gone—" She looked at the nearest associate, voice climbing. "She took it. When she bumped into me, she took it. It's worth five hundred thousand dollars, it has to be on her somewhere—"

"I didn't touch you."

"Search her." Ilaria's voice had gone hard and flat. "Right now."

Two of the guards near the door started moving toward me.

The first one reached for my arm. I turned into it, got his wrist, used his own momentum and sent him hard into the display behind him. He hit the floor and took half a shelf with him.

It felt good for about two seconds.

Because then there were four more, and the angles were all wrong, and I hadn't slept on a plane, and the math stopped working in my favor very quickly. Someone caught my left arm. Someone else got behind me. I got an elbow into one of them before they had both arms pinned and pushed me back against the far wall.

The shutter came down over the entrance. Loud, final, metal on concrete.

I could have ended this in ten seconds, I thought, both arms held, back against the wall. Said the name, made one call, walked out.

But I wanted to see what they actually were.

Ilaria crossed the room toward me, unhurried. Someone had handed her a pair of scissors from the gift-wrapping station. The performance was gone now—the stumble, the shocked face, all of it dropped. What was underneath was quieter and worse.

She stopped a few feet away and tilted her head.

"You're not running anymore." A slow smile. "What happened to all that confidence?"