Chapter 1 - “That is your correction?”
“No.”
Enzo ran a hand over his face.
He could negotiate million-dollar disputes without raising his pulse. Somehow apologizing to one five-foot-four woman in a hotel hallway made him feel like he was crossing a minefield barefoot.
“I behaved badly.”
Elena blinked.
He almost never admitted mistakes.
He continued before pride could intervene.
“I saw something. I assumed something else. My reaction was unacceptable.”
“Why did you react at all?”
There it was.
The question he had been refusing to answer.
Enzo glanced toward Marco, silently willing him to discover an armed intruder, a fire, perhaps an earthquake—anything that would provide a respectable interruption.
Marco did not cooperate.
Elena waited.
Enzo lowered his voice.
“This isn’t the place.”
“Convenient.”
“There may be surveillance in your room.”
“Also convenient.”
“Elena.”
“What?”
She stepped closer.
“Five minutes ago you were willing to publicly interrogate me because another man touched my shoulder. Now suddenly privacy matters?”
He stared at her.
She stared back.
Then Marco returned.
“We have another problem.”
Enzo turned immediately.
“What?”
“The tracker wasn’t the only device.”
Marco held up a plastic bag containing something that looked like a charger plug.
“Microphone. Possibly transmitting since yesterday.”
Elena’s anger disappeared.
“Yesterday?”
Marco nodded.
Enzo calculated rapidly.
Yesterday Elena had sat in that room reviewing financial schedules, shipment agreements, donor lists, travel itineraries.
And Enzo had visited her at nine thirty to discuss the Caldera negotiations.
They had spoken freely.
Too freely.
“What did we discuss?” he asked.
Elena understood immediately.
“Routes. Meeting locations. Departure times.”
“Anything about New York?”
Her face changed.
“The warehouse audit.”
Marco swore under his breath.
Enzo felt the old familiar machinery inside his mind begin turning.
Threat.
Exposure.
Response.
“Cancel the four o’clock meeting.”
Marco nodded.
“Move our people.”
“Already started.”
“Call Dominic. Nobody uses the planned departure route.”
Another nod.
Then Enzo looked at Elena.
“Pack nothing.”
“My passport—”
“We’ll replace anything you need.”
“I am not leaving everything I own in there.”
“You are if I say you are.”
The words landed badly.
Her expression froze.
Enzo immediately knew why.
Less than an hour earlier, he had accused her of inappropriate behavior without evidence.
Now fear had pushed him toward command again.
Elena crossed her arms.
“You don’t own me.”
“I didn’t say I did.”
“You keep talking as though you do.”
“I am trying to keep you alive.”
“And I’m standing directly in front of you. You can speak to me like a human being.”
Marco suddenly became intensely interested in the opposite wall.
Enzo drew a slow breath.
She was right.
That made it worse.
He changed his tone.
“Someone targeted your room because you work for me. Until I know who and why, I need you somewhere secure. Will you please come with us?”
Elena’s anger softened by one degree.
“That sounded painful.”
“You have no idea.”
“I’ll go.”
Relief hit him embarrassingly hard.
Marco cleared his throat.
“The service elevator.”
They began moving.
Elena walked beside Enzo but did not touch him.
That small distance irritated him more than it should have.
They reached the private garage beneath the hotel. A black sedan waited between concrete pillars. Marco opened the rear door.
Before Elena got inside, she turned.
“One question.”
Enzo already knew.
“Not now.”
“You don’t even know the question.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then answer it.”
Marco looked away again.
Elena lowered her voice.
“Were you jealous?”
Enzo stared at her.
Some men feared prison.
Some feared bullets.
Enzo Moretti discovered that afternoon that he feared one intelligent woman demanding emotional honesty more than either.
“Yes.”
Elena’s lips parted.
He continued before he could reconsider.
“I was.”
Then he got into the car.
For once, Elena was the one left speechless.
They returned to New York under changed arrangements.
The microphone in Elena’s room had captured enough information to force Enzo to alter several business plans, but the greater concern was what the placement of the devices suggested.
Someone knew Elena mattered.
That fact changed everything.
Enzo doubled her security.
Elena protested.
He reduced it slightly.
She protested again.
They eventually settled on one driver, one discreet guard when she worked late, and an agreement that Enzo was not allowed to change her schedule without discussing it with her unless there was an immediate threat.
The negotiation lasted forty-seven minutes.
Marco later called it the most difficult peace agreement of Enzo’s career.
Enzo threatened to fire him.
Marco laughed.
Things between Elena and Enzo became stranger rather than simpler.
Before Monaco, they had possessed boundaries.
After Monaco, both knew the boundaries were artificial.
Enzo began appearing at her desk with coffee he claimed he had purchased accidentally.
Elena stopped pretending not to notice when he watched her across conference rooms.
Sometimes their hands touched while exchanging files.
Neither moved immediately.
Yet nothing happened.
Weeks passed.
Then two months.
Elena began to wonder whether Monaco had simply exposed an attraction Enzo intended to bury beneath work.
Part of her was relieved.
Another part hated that relief.
One cold October night, Elena left the Midtown office shortly after eight.
Marco waited beside the sedan.
“I’m walking.”
He sighed.
“Miss Russo.”
“Ten blocks.”
“The boss prefers—”
“The boss prefers many things.”
“True.”
“Tonight I prefer air.”
Marco glanced toward the building.
Elena recognized the look.
“Don’t.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“You’re deciding whether to call him.”
“I’m deciding whether losing my job would be less painful than arguing with either of you.”
“Walk with me, then.”
That surprised him.
“As security?”
“As a friend who happens to be irritatingly difficult to injure.”
He smiled.
They had made it half a block when the revolving doors behind them opened.
“Elena.”
She closed her eyes.
Marco muttered, “And there goes my evening.”
Enzo approached in a charcoal overcoat, tie loosened, expression displeased.
“Where is the car?”
“Exactly where we left it.”
“Why aren’t you in it?”
“I’m walking home.”
“No.”
Elena stopped.
Marco quietly retreated several feet.
She looked at Enzo.
“What did we discuss about commands?”
“This is different.”
“It’s always different when you want something.”
“It’s forty degrees.”
“I own a coat.”
“You have confidential files.”
“I own arms.”
“You worked twelve hours.”
“I also own legs.”
Marco coughed suspiciously.
Enzo glared at him.
“Do you find this amusing?”
“Not remotely.”
“Go get the car.”
Marco escaped.
Elena turned to continue walking.
Enzo followed.
“You are the most exhausting employee I have ever had.”
“Then fire me.”
He stopped.
She took three more steps before realizing.
When she turned, something about his face had changed.
“Don’t say that.”
The quietness surprised her.
“It was a joke.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you look like that?”
He began walking again.
She fell beside him.
For a block, neither spoke.
Then Enzo said, “Because the idea of you not being there tomorrow bothers me more than it should.”
Elena’s heart stumbled.
Traffic hissed over wet pavement beside them.
“Enzo.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t know what I was going to say.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You do that constantly.”
“What?”
“Decide what everyone else thinks before they’re allowed to tell you.”
He looked at her.
She continued.
“You did it in Monaco. You saw Marco’s hand and invented an entire betrayal in your head. You decide I need protection before asking how I feel. You decide what’s too dangerous for me to know. You decide when conversations begin and when they end.”
His face became unreadable.
Elena expected anger.
Instead, he said, “I don’t know how to do this.”
The sentence stopped her.
Neither the cold nor the traffic seemed real for a moment.
“Do what?”
His laugh held no humor.
“Care about someone I cannot command into safety.”
Elena’s anger weakened.
Enzo looked toward the passing cars.
“My father believed affection created weaknesses. He wasn’t entirely wrong. Everybody he loved eventually became leverage somebody tried to use against him.”
“That doesn’t make control the same as love.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
“Are you?”
His eyes returned to hers.
“I’m walking ten blocks in weather I hate because you refused my car.”
Despite herself, she smiled.
“That is impressive personal growth.”
“Mock me carefully.”
“There he is.”
A reluctant smile touched his mouth.
They began walking again.
Halfway to her building, a young man approached Elena asking whether she knew a nearby coffee shop.
He was attractive.
Friendly.
And clearly more interested in Elena than caffeine.
Enzo lasted approximately twelve seconds.
“The café on Lexington closes at nine,” Elena said.
“Perfect. Maybe you could—”
“She’s busy.”
Elena slowly turned her head.
Enzo stood beside her with the rigid posture of a man fighting ancestral instincts.
The stranger looked between them.
“Oh. Sorry. Are you two together?”
Elena waited.
So did Enzo.
The question suddenly felt enormous.
“No,” Elena said.
Enzo’s jaw tightened.
The stranger smiled again. “Then maybe—”
“But,” Elena continued, looking directly at Enzo, “that situation appears to be under review.”
The young man wisely excused himself.
Enzo stared at her.
“Under review?”
“You like business language.”
“Elena.”
“Walk me home.”
He did.
At her building, she took her briefcase from him.
May you like
“Good night.”
He didn’t release the handle.
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