Chapter 3 - “All of them?”
Roman looked at Emily.
“All of them.”
That was the moment Emily understood.
Roman was not changing for her.
He was choosing who he wanted to be while she was watching.
There was a difference.
It mattered.
3 months later, the Bellini Grand held the first employee appreciation dinner in its 70-year history.
Roman hated the name.
Emily told him to survive it.
Samuel Price received a retirement package large enough to make him sit down when he saw the number.
Walter Green became supervisor of guest services.
Luis Ortega received paid language classes.
Henry Coleman retired on his own terms.
Margaret Ellis’s grandson received a scholarship funded from recovered retirement money.
Every stolen dollar uncovered through Vascari’s scheme was restored to the employees.
The workforce restructuring plan was eliminated.
Roman created an employee council.
Emily refused to lead it.
Naturally, everyone elected her.
Near midnight, after the ballroom emptied, Emily found Roman alone on the roof of the Bellini Grand.
Chicago glittered below.
Snow had begun falling.
Roman wore no overcoat.
“You’ll freeze.”
“I’ve survived worse.”
“Another unhelpful statement.”
Emily stopped beside him.
The wound beneath Roman’s shoulder was still healing.
Adrien Vascari was awaiting trial.
Several old Bellini associates had disappeared from Chicago.
Roman’s world remained dangerous.
It always would.
Emily understood that now.
“What happens next?”
“With the hotel?”
“With you.”
Roman was quiet for a long time.
“I spent 20 years building something nobody could take from me.”
He looked at the city.
“Then you walked into my office in a housekeeping uniform and proved I had built something I couldn’t see.”
Emily looked toward the skyline.
“You’re terrible at romance.”
“I’m not attempting romance.”
She raised an eyebrow.
Roman moved closer.
Snow collected in his dark hair.
“I’m attempting honesty.”
“That sounds more dangerous.”
“It is.”
His hand rose.
This time, he did not stop.
His fingers touched her cheek.
Gently.
Emily closed her eyes for half a second.
When she opened them, Roman Bellini, the man feared across half the city, looked almost uncertain.
Only with her.
Never with anyone else.
“I don’t need you to save me.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“I know.”
“I will disagree with you.”
“I am painfully aware.”
“And if you ever start deciding what people are worth from a spreadsheet again—”
“You’ll remind me.”
“No.”
Emily smiled faintly.
“I’ll leave.”
Fear crossed Roman’s face immediately.
Real.
Uncontrolled.
There it was.
The one threat all his power could not eliminate.
Losing her.
His hand moved behind her neck.
Not possessive.
Careful.
“I believe you.”
“Good.”
Roman rested his forehead against hers.
They remained like that beneath the falling snow.
No security interruption.
No bullets.
No cameras.
No employees waiting.
Only 2 people above a hotel that had changed because someone had bothered to stop and listen.
Then Emily whispered, “Do you know what Samuel told me?”
Roman kept his eyes closed.
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“He said you’ve started eating in the employee cafeteria when I’m not there.”
Roman opened his eyes.
“Samuel talks too much.”
“He trusts me.”
“Everyone trusts you.”
Emily smiled.
“Does that bother you?”
Roman studied her with the same dark intensity that once frightened her.
Now Emily understood what existed beneath it.
Obsession.
Fear.
Devotion.
And something more dangerous than any weapon Roman carried.
Need.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I would prefer to be the person you trust most.”
Emily’s expression softened.
“That takes time.”
“I have time.”
She touched the lapel of his black coat.
“You’re arrogant.”
“I can learn.”
“You’re controlling.”
“I’m working on it.”
“You had 4 SUVs follow me to the grocery store.”
“3.”
“Roman.”
He paused.
“Fine.”
Another beat.
“4.”
Emily laughed.
Roman stared at her as though the sound had struck some undefended part of him.
Then she rose slightly onto her toes.
She kissed him.
Not dramatically.
Not desperately.
Only enough to finish every incomplete moment between them.
Roman stayed motionless for half a heartbeat.
Then 1 arm went around her waist.
He kissed her back slowly.
Restrained even then.
As though all the power he possessed meant nothing compared with permission.
When they separated, snow drifted between them.
37 floors below, through the illuminated windows of the Bellini Grand, employees moved across the lobby preparing for another morning.
People Roman once knew only as payroll entries.
Now he knew names.
Families.
Fears.
Histories.
Emily looked toward the hotel.
“Do you ever think about that first night?”
“When you insulted me in my own office?”
“When you were going to fire 47 people.”
Roman’s expression became serious.
“Every day.”
“What would you have done if you never checked the cameras?”
Roman watched snow move across Chicago.
“I would have signed the papers.”
Emily slipped her hand into his.
Roman looked down at their joined fingers.
“And I would have spent the rest of my life believing I made the right decision.”
The hotel lights reflected in his eyes.
Emily squeezed his hand.
Roman turned toward her.
“But I checked.”
“Yes.”
His voice lowered.
“And I saw you.”
Emily smiled.
“No, Roman.”
She looked toward the glowing hotel below.
“You finally saw them.”
For once, Roman Bellini had no answer.
He only pulled Emily closer while snow settled over the city.
Far beneath them, the people who had nearly become numbers continued working under warm lights.
In the silent security room, dozens of cameras kept recording.
Roman no longer needed those cameras to understand what mattered.
The Bellini Grand did not become a different hotel overnight.
Roman Bellini did not become a different man overnight either.
The employee dinner, restored retirement funds, wage adjustments, and the new council were visible changes. What followed was quieter and, in many ways, more difficult.
Roman had spent most of his life learning to make decisions quickly.
He had inherited a world in which hesitation invited weakness and weakness invited predators.
In that world, numbers were useful because numbers did not argue.
They did not cry.
They did not grow old.
They did not ask whether a person who had given 43 years to one building deserved more than a line in a cost-reduction plan.
Emily made that kind of distance increasingly impossible.
The employee council met twice a month.
Roman attended the first meeting.
He regretted it within 10 minutes.
Walter Green objected to a new uniform supplier.
Luis Ortega wanted translated benefits documents.
A kitchen employee wanted changes to overnight transportation.
Engineering complained about broken equipment that management had postponed replacing for 3 years.
Samuel Price, technically retired by then, arrived anyway and sat near the back.
Roman listened.
Emily watched him become progressively less comfortable.
After 47 minutes, he leaned toward her.
“This is inefficient.”
Emily kept looking at the employee speaking.
“Yes.”
“There are 19 separate issues.”
“Yes.”
“Some of them could be handled by department managers.”
“They could.”
“Then why are we here?”
Emily turned toward him.
“Because the department managers were the people who didn’t handle them.”
Roman said nothing.
The meeting continued.
He remained until the end.
At the next council meeting, Roman arrived with notes.
Emily noticed.
She said nothing.
That was how many of the changes happened.
Not through announcements.
Through repetition.
Through Roman beginning to ask names before approving budgets.
Through department heads learning that “optimization” was no longer enough explanation by itself.
Through managers discovering that Roman might appear in a service corridor without warning and ask an employee whether the new schedule actually worked.
The fear around him did not disappear.
Roman remained Roman.
When necessary, 1 look from him could still silence a room.
But the direction of that fear changed.
Employees became less afraid of him.
Managers became more afraid of being careless with employees.
Emily considered that imperfect progress.
She was willing to accept it.
Her relationship with Roman developed with similar imperfection.
He was controlling.
He knew it.
Emily reminded him when he forgot.
The first serious argument happened 2 months after their kiss on the rooftop.
Emily finished a council meeting at 7:40 p.m. and walked toward the employee entrance.
2 black SUVs waited outside.
She stopped.
Roman stood near the lobby desk speaking to security.
Emily turned toward him.
“No.”
Roman looked over.
“No what?”
“I am taking the train home.”
“No.”
“That was not a question.”
“Neither was my answer.”
Several employees found urgent reasons to look elsewhere.
Emily crossed the lobby.
“You cannot put security vehicles around me every time I leave this building.”
“I can.”
“I know you can.”
She stopped directly in front of him.
“That is not the same as having permission.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“There are still people outside Chicago who benefited from Vascari.”
“I know.”
“Some of them know who you are.”
“I know.”
“Then this conversation is irrational.”
“No.”
Emily lowered her voice.
“This conversation is about whether you think fear allows you to make decisions for me.”
Roman went still.
Emily touched the silver chain at her throat.
He noticed.
Of course he did.
Finally he said, “1 vehicle.”
“None.”
“1.”
“I take the train.”
“Emily.”
“Roman.”
A long silence.
Then Samuel Price’s voice came from behind the concierge desk.
“Take the 1 car, Miss Hayes.”
They both turned.
Samuel shrugged.
“It’s cold.”
Emily stared at him.
“You’re supposed to be retired.”
“I am.”
“Then why are you here?”
Samuel smiled.
“I like the lobby.”
Roman almost looked satisfied.
Emily pointed at him.
“Do not recruit Samuel.”
“I said nothing.”
“You were thinking loudly.”
Eventually, they compromised.
1 car.
At a distance.
Emily could send it away whenever she wanted.
Roman considered this unreasonable.
Emily considered that encouraging.
Roman’s criminal inheritance remained more complicated.
The federal investigation into Vascari opened old Bellini accounts and old alliances.
Some men disappeared before subpoenas arrived.
Others cooperated.
Roman’s attorneys spent months separating legal holdings from structures his father had created decades earlier.
Emily never asked Roman for details he did not volunteer.
She did not want to become part of that world by pretending curiosity was innocence.
Roman respected that.
He also understood that the existence of his past could not simply be excluded from her future.
One evening, they sat inside the penthouse library while rain moved across the city.
May you like
The same room where Roman had once admitted he was afraid of her.
He handed Emily a folder.
