Dante
The office was quiet except for the ticking of the clock on the wall, the kind of quiet that only came before something broke. I was behind my desk, paperwork spread out, though none of it was registering. Matteo lounged in the leather chair opposite, scrolling his phone with that half-smirk he wore like armor.
Then his brows arched. “Well, shit.”
I didn’t look up. “What now?”
He whistled low, spun the phone, and set it on my desk.
A gossip feed lit the screen. Headline bold, photo bigger.
ROMANO HEIR CAUGHT WITH SOCIALITE CLARISSA ROSSI — NOT HIS FIANCÉE.
The picture hit me like a gunshot. My hand froze on the pen. Clarissa’s laugh, my palm against her hip, her body leaning into mine. Grainy, but damning. Out of context, stripped bare for the world to consume.
For a
