Beauty and the don

Chapter Four: The Invitation

Isabella couldn’t escape the feeling that she was standing on the edge of something she couldn’t control. Alessio Moretti’s words lingered in her mind, even as she tried to distract herself with mundane thoughts. She went through the motions of her evening—unpacking her things, organizing her apartment—but there was no escaping the memory of him. His gaze. His touch.

The elevator. The way he had claimed the space between them without even trying.

She ran her fingers through her hair, staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She barely recognized the woman staring back. Gone was the confident designer who had managed to carve out a life for herself, far away from the world of violence and shadows. In her place was someone uncertain, someone caught between the life she’d chosen and the life that was now being thrust upon her by a man she barely knew.

Alessio Moretti.

The Don.

The very thought made her chest tighten. She couldn’t understand why she was still thinking about him, why the tension between them pulled at her in ways she couldn’t ignore. He was dangerous. He was everything she had run from. So why was she even considering his invitation to dinner?

Her phone buzzed on the counter, snapping her from her thoughts. She reached for it, hoping it was a distraction. A text from a friend. A client. Anything but a reminder of Alessio.

But the message on the screen was from an unknown number:

“I’ll be waiting for you. 8 PM, the penthouse. Don’t be late.”

Her heart skipped a beat.

It wasn’t a request.

Isabella’s breath hitched. There was no mistaking who it was from.

She stared at the screen for several long moments, her mind whirling with conflicting thoughts. Part of her wanted to delete the message, forget this entire encounter ever happened, but the other part—the part that had burned with an insatiable curiosity when Alessio’s eyes had locked with hers—wanted to go. She wanted to know more. To understand why he had chosen her.

But she was no fool. She knew what this was. He wasn’t inviting her to dinner. He was marking her, claiming her in his own way. And once she stepped into that penthouse, there would be no going back.

But could she walk away?

A knock at the door startled her. She jumped, nearly dropping the phone. For a second, her mind went blank, and she froze in place. She hadn’t ordered anything.

The knock came again, louder this time.

Slowly, she approached the door, her pulse quickening. Who could it be?

When she opened it, standing before her was a tall man dressed in black, his demeanor calm but serious. He held a single rose in his hand, the petals a deep crimson.

“From the Don,” he said, his voice low. “He asks that you join him tonight.”

Isabella blinked, her hand hovering over the door handle.

“I—I didn’t say I was going,” she stammered, though the man’s unwavering presence seemed to answer her question.

“He’s expecting you,” the man said simply, offering the rose to her.

Her stomach churned, but despite herself, she took it. It felt like a strange mark of ownership, a symbol of something she didn’t fully understand but couldn’t seem to resist.

The man nodded, turning to leave without another word.

Isabella stood in the doorway for a moment, holding the rose in her hands. She felt it then—this undeniable pull, the weight of her decision hanging in the air. She could walk away, but something inside her knew that if she did, she would only be running from what was already inevitable.

Her fingers tightened around the stem.

She had to go.

With a sigh, she closed the door behind her, stepping out into the unknown.