All In

Chapter 4

[BIANCA]

The elevator doors close and I finally let myself breathe.

Then I don't breathe at all, because the mirrors show me exactly what I look like right now hair escaping its knot, cheeks flushed, eyes too bright, one hand pressed flat against my sternum like I'm trying to keep my heart inside my chest.

I'm telling you you're going to be my wife.

I replay it on the way down. I replay it past the security desk, past the valet, into the cool desert air that always smells faintly of chlorine and exhaust and other people's luck. I replay it on the bus, sitting in the back with my purse hugged to my chest like a life raft, while a man two rows up mutters to himself and a woman in scrubs falls asleep against the window.

Wife. He said wife.

And the worst part the part that scares me so badly my hands won't stop shaking is the way he said it. Not like a line. Not like a rich man dangling a pretty lie in front of the help. He said it like he was reading the weather. Like it was already true and I was the only one who hadn't caught up.

Dante Moretti. Owner of the Bellissimo. Heir to an empire I don't fully understand and definitely don't want to. A man who looked at me across a casino floor and decided, in the space of one misdealt hand, that I belonged to him.

And the truly insane part?

For one heartbeat, standing in that office with his thumb on my cheekbone and his lips at my jaw, some starved little voice inside me whispered back. Yes.

I nearly run off the bus at my stop.

My apartment is the same as I left it: a two-bedroom that smells like the neighbor's cooking and the faint mildew of a building older than me. The door lock sticks. The window unit rattles. Cannoli my cat is curled on the back of the couch and he lifts his head when I come in, blinks once then goes back to sleep. Some guard cat.

Thanks for the concern," I tell him.

I shower because I can still feel the ghost of his fingers on my jaw. I scrub until my skin stings and it doesn't help. I make tea I don't drink. I lie in bed with the covers pulled to my chin, staring at the water stain on the ceiling and I do not sleep.

How could I sleep? Every time I close my eyes, he's there. Dark eyes, certain eyes. You're mine. You just don't know it yet.

I hate him a little for that. For seeing straight through me. For being right.

At five in the morning, I give up on sleep entirely. I sit at my kitchen table with my phone in my hand, staring at the screen like it might bite me. There's one thing I have to do before I let myself feel any of this and it terrifies me more than the man in the black suit ever did.

I call the clinic.

Pahrump Dialysis Center, this is Marcy.

Hi, Marcy. My voice comes out froggy. It's Bianca Rossi. I'm calling about my mother's account. I—I know we're behind and I wanted to talk about a payment plan. Again. I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing. I can pay something this week. It won't be much, but—"

Honey. Marcy's voice goes soft, the way it does when she's about to deliver bad news. Did nobody call you?

My stomach drops. Call me about what?"

Your account's been cleared. Paid in full. There's a note here six months paid in advance, plus the collection agency was notified. You don't owe us a dime.

The kitchen tilts.

That's not possible," I whisper. I'm two payments behind. I was going to—I mean, I have the money for part of it, but not—not all of it. Not six months. That's thousands and thousands of dollars.

I'm just reading what's on the screen, sweetheart. Marcy sounds genuinely happy for me. An anonymous donor. Wired it through an attorney this morning. Some people get lucky, you know?

I thank her and hang up and then I sit there in the gray dawn light with my phone clutched in both hands, and I cry.

Not graceful tears. Ugly ones. Big, heaving sobs that shake my whole body and scare Cannoli off the couch. Because I know exactly who the anonymous donor is and I don't understand it. The not understanding is the scariest part of all.

Rich men don't pay off your mother's medical bills. Rich men send flowers and expect to be thanked. Rich men make you feel the weight of their generosity every single day so you never forget what you owe.

Dante Moretti said I didn't owe him a goddamn thing.

And the worst part is, some broken part of me almost believes him.

My phone rings. My mother.

"Bianca." Her voice is thick and I know before she says another word that she's been crying too. The clinic called. They said—" She breaks off. Baby, who do we know with that kind of money?

I open my mouth. Close it. I can't say the man who owns the Bellissimo and thinks I'm going to be his wife because that would send her into the hospital on its own.

I don't know, Mama. The lie tastes like ash. But I'll find out. Just—just focus on getting better, okay?

They mentioned a transplant workup. Her voice cracks. Bianca, they said someone wants to pay for a transplant workup. For the list. For everything.

I can't breathe. I can't see. The kitchen swims.

For three years, I've been drowning by inches. Working doubles. Counting pennies. Smiling through exhaustion and Vincent Calder's hands on my arm. And in one night, this stranger this beautiful, terrifying stranger reached down and pulled my whole family out of the water.

Why?

I need to ask him. I need to hear it from his mouth. But before I can work up the nerve, my phone buzzes with a text from a number I don't recognize.

Enzo: Hey sweetheart. Don't come in tonight. You're off the schedule until further notice. HR will call you. I'm sorry.

I stare at it for a full minute and something cold and hard settles in my chest.

Fired.

He fired me.

The man who paid my mother's medical bills and looked at me like I hung the moon fired me from the only job I have left.

I call him. I don't even think about it. My fingers move on their own, because his number is in my phone of course his number is in my phone, he probably put it there himself, the arrogant, impossible—

"Bianca." He answers on the first ring, and his voice is low and warm and absolutely unsurprised, like he's been sitting there waiting for me to call. You're awake early.

You fired me. My voice is shaking, and I hate it. "You paid my mother's bills and then you fired me. What is wrong with you? What kind of game is this?

"No game." He sounds so calm. So sure. You've been working yourself into an early grave for three years, dolcezza. That's over now."

You don't get to decide that!

I already did. A pause and I can hear the smile in it. But I'm not a monster. I have a new job for you.

"I don't want your—"

The position comes with full benefits. Flexible hours. Unpaid except in pastries, which I'm told I'm very good at sourcing." Another pause. It's a one-of-a-kind role. No prior experience required.

I'm gripping the phone so hard my knuckles ache. What job?

"Being mine." His voice drops, dark and velvet. "Being my girl. Letting me take care of you and your family. It's the most important job in the world and you're already perfect for it.

The tears are back, hot and furious and I'm shaking my head like he can see me. You're insane. This is insane. You don't know me. You don't know anything about me.

I know you volunteer at an animal shelter on Tuesdays. His voice goes soft. I know you sleep four hours a night and give the rest of yourself to everyone else. I know you've been carrying a weight that would've crushed most people by now and you never once complained. A breath. I know you, Bianca. I'm just waiting for you to let me prove it.

I hang up on him.

I hang up because I don't have words. He's not fighting fair. I'm crying in my kitchen at five-thirty in the morning, my cat is judging me and my mother might actually live. I'm so angry, so grateful and so completely, terrifyingly undone.

My phone buzzes.

Dante: Mine.

Dante: Eat something. I'll see you soon.

I throw my phone at the couch. It bounces off Cannoli, who yowls and glares at me like I've personally betrayed him.

"Sorry," I mutter, scrubbing at my face. Your mother's having a crisis.

Cannoli flicks his tail and turns his back on me.

And somewhere outside, beyond the thin walls and the rattling window unit, the first light of dawn is climbing over the desert, and I can feel it coming the thing I've been running from my whole life, the thing that scares me more than poverty, loneliness or Vincent Calder's hands.

Someone is about to show up and refuse to leave.

And the truly awful, wonderful, impossible truth is this: I don't want him to.