“I NEED A BOYFRIEND BY TOMORROW!” — THE MAFIA BOSS OVERHEARD HIS MAID, AND HIS NEXT WORDS CHANGED EVERYTHING

Roman answered on the first ring.

“Claire's in trouble,” I said. “She called from home. Someone was at the back door, and then the line went dead.”

“Where are you?”

“Nina's office.”

“Stay there. Call the police. I'm sending a driver, not an armed escort. You decide whether to use him.”

Nina was already dialing emergency services. I gave the dispatcher Claire's address and repeated everything I knew. My hands shook, but I made myself speak slowly. The dispatcher told me officers were on their way.

Ten minutes later, Claire called back. I nearly dropped the phone.

“I'm okay,” she said breathlessly. “It was a delivery man. He went to the wrong entrance. Ethan's here.”

I sagged against the desk. Relief came so quickly it made me dizzy.

“Why did the call cut off?”

“My phone died. I'm sorry.”

“Don't apologize. Just stay with Ethan. Officers may still come by.”

When I hung up, Nina looked at me carefully. “This is what fear does when people have been keeping secrets. Every ordinary thing begins to look like danger.”

I nodded. “I don't know how to stop being afraid.”

“By separating what we know from what we suspect. One fact at a time.”

Roman arrived twenty minutes later despite my telling him the emergency was over. He waited in the lobby rather than coming upstairs. I found him standing by the window in a black overcoat, looking more tired than I'd ever seen him.

“She's safe,” I said.

“I heard.”

“Thank you for coming.”

He studied my face. “You don't need to thank me for answering the phone.”

We stood in silence. Then I surprised us both by asking, “Can we walk?”

He nodded. We stepped into the late afternoon air and followed the riverwalk where office workers hurried past with coffee cups and tourists posed for photographs. Nobody seemed to notice the dangerous man beside me. Or perhaps he looked less dangerous when he was listening to me talk about my father.

“I keep thinking about the last morning I saw him,” I said. “He was late for work. I was angry because he forgot to sign a permission slip for a class trip. I told him he never listened.”

Roman walked quietly.

“He kissed the top of my head anyway. I didn't kiss him back.”

“You were twenty-one,” he said. “You thought you'd have another morning.”

I looked at him. “You knew him. Did he ever talk about being afraid?”

“Not often. But he worried about the warehouse. He believed someone had approved materials that didn't meet safety standards.”

“Was Whitcomb involved?”

“He was an investor. That doesn't establish what he knew.”

I exhaled. “You sound like Nina.”

“She's good at her job.”

I smiled faintly. “She'd like that.”

We stopped beneath a bridge. The river moved dark and slow beneath us.

“Roman, I need to ask you something.”

“Ask.”

“Was any part of the dinner real?”

His eyes met mine. “Which part?”

“The part where you looked at me like I mattered.”

He took a long breath. “That was real before the dinner. I just hadn't earned the right to say it.”

My heart beat painfully. “And the rest?”

“The meeting was real. My reasons were mixed. I wanted to protect a business position. I also wanted to be beside you when you faced people who'd hurt you. I should have told you both things.”

“I don't know if I can trust you.”

“I know.”

“Sometimes I want to.”

His expression softened. “Then take your time.”

He didn't touch me. The space between us felt like a promise neither of us was ready to make.

The following week brought the first genuine progress. Nina obtained a temporary freeze on disputed withdrawals while the bank investigated the identity fraud. A forensic document examiner found substantial differences between my authentic signature and the one on the authorization. The bank's fraud department opened a formal review. Nothing was resolved yet, but for the first time the machinery of the world seemed to be moving in my direction.

Claire and Ethan came to see me at a café near the mansion. Ethan looked exhausted. He had confronted his father and learned that the development project was in financial trouble. Leonard admitted that Daniel had arranged short-term financing but denied knowing the collateral had been unauthorized.

“Do you believe him?” I asked.

Ethan rubbed his forehead. “I don't know. I don't want to make excuses for him just because he's my father.”

Claire reached for my hand. “We want to help.”

“Then tell Nina everything. Even if it hurts your families.”

“We will,” Ethan said.

I looked at my sister. “And what about Mom?”

Claire swallowed. “She went to stay with Aunt Ruth. She says she's too ashamed to talk to you.”

“Shame isn't an apology.”

“No,” Claire said. “It isn't.”

I didn't forgive her that day. But when she asked whether she could call me the next week, I said yes.

Two days later, Nina received a response from the bank. The suspicious deposit into Daniel's account had come from a construction subcontractor after Dad's death. The payment description referred to a consulting fee, not the accident. It was troubling, but not proof of violence. Nina asked an investigator to trace the underlying contract.

Meanwhile, Roman's attorneys provided the archived warehouse report. Dad's notes described faulty support beams and pressure to approve work before inspection. The last page contained a sentence underlined twice: If they won't stop, I will take this to the city.

I cried when I saw his handwriting. Then I asked Nina to send the records to the appropriate investigators. If my father had tried to protect workers, his effort deserved to be heard even if it didn't explain his death.

The next evening, Roman invited me to the greenhouse. I almost said no. Then I remembered the orange trees and the way he spoke about his mother.

He had set two mugs of tea on a small iron table. No candles. No violinist. No extravagant gesture designed to make me feel indebted.

“I wanted to tell you something before you hear it elsewhere,” he said.

I sat. “That sounds ominous.”

“I've decided to withdraw my companies from Whitcomb's development project. My legal team is reviewing whether our involvement exposed workers or investors to risk.”

“Because of me?”

“Because the records raise serious concerns. You made me look at them again.”

I considered that. “Does this put you in danger?”

“It puts me in conflict with people who dislike losing money.”

“That's not a comforting answer.”

“It's an honest one.”

We drank tea as rain began tapping against the glass roof. For a while we talked about harmless things: the worst meals we'd ever eaten, his mother's disastrous attempt to grow peaches indoors, the fact that I had once applied to culinary school but couldn't afford tuition.

“Do you still want to go?” he asked.

“Yes. Maybe someday.”

“You should.”

I shook my head. “Don't offer to pay.”

“I wasn't going to.”

I raised an eyebrow.

He sighed. “I was thinking about it. But I won't.”

I laughed, and his smile made something warm unfold in my chest.

Then my phone rang. Nina.

“We've identified the consultant,” she said. “The woman who impersonated you has agreed to speak through counsel. She says Daniel hired her to present the documents. She also claims someone in your family supplied the personal information.”

My hand tightened around the phone. “Who?”

“Your mother.”

I closed my eyes. I had suspected it, but hearing it said aloud still felt like falling.

Nina continued, “There is more. The consultant says she kept copies of the instructions. If they're authentic, they may establish who knew what and when.”

I looked across the table at Roman. He watched me without interrupting.

For once, I didn't ask him to solve it.

I told Nina to proceed. Then I hung up and let myself cry.

Roman stayed seated until I reached across the table and took his hand.

“I don't need you to rescue me,” I whispered.

“I know.”

“But I'd like you to stay.”

His fingers closed gently around mine. “I can do that.”

Outside the greenhouse, the rain intensified. Inside, the orange trees held their bright fruit under the warm lamps. For the first time since the rehearsal dinner, I imagined a future that wasn't simply a reaction to the past.

Then Roman's phone lit up with a message from an unknown number. He showed it to me rather than hiding it.

It contained a photograph of my father's unfinished warehouse report, taken on a desk I didn't recognize. Beneath it were six words:

YOU FOUND THE WRONG PART OF IT.

Roman set down his tea.