Chapter 2 - The Care Log
Three hours later, the estate was silent. The guests had been ushered out, and Sienna had been sent home in a fury, her engagement ring still sitting in Dante’s pocket. Elena stood in the center of Dante’s massive mahogany-paneled study, her injured thumb wrapped in a stark white bandage. She was waiting to be fired. She was waiting for the demand that she pack her bags and return to the crushing weight of her medical debt.
Dante sat behind his desk, illuminated only by a single brass reading lamp. In front of him was a small, worn leather notebook. Elena’s breath hitched. It was her private care log. She had left it on the kitchen counter in the chaos.
“Two sugars when it rains, because the damp makes her joints ache and she needs the comfort,” Dante read aloud from the pages. He turned the leaf. “Do not argue when she asks for Marcus. Tell her he is managing the southern docks and will be late. It calms her heart rate.”
Dante closed the notebook and looked up. The dangerous, icy exterior that the city feared was fractured. He looked like a man who had been carrying the weight of a crumbling mountain on his shoulders.
“My mother has three private neurologists,” Dante said, his voice dangerously quiet. “She has a team of registered nurses who cost me forty thousand dollars a month. And yet, a maid with a hundred and ninety thousand dollars in debt is the only one who realized that classical music triggers her panic attacks because it was playing when my father had his fatal stroke.”
Elena swallowed hard, keeping her eyes level despite her fear. “I was a nursing student, Mr. Ferraro. Before my mother got sick. I know how to watch people. Your mother isn't a problem to be medicated. She’s just lost in her own timeline. She needs someone to hold her hand while she walks through it.”
Dante stood up, moving around the desk with the grace of a predator. He stopped inches from her. The sheer size of him, the scent of expensive cedar and cold rain, was intoxicating.
“Sienna demanded I fire you tonight,” Dante said softly. “She told me you were manipulating a sick old woman to extort money from this family.”
“I have never asked your mother for a dime,” Elena fired back, her pride finally overriding her fear. “I work for my keep. Fire me if you want, but don't insult me.”
Dante didn't blink. “I am not going to fire you, Elena. I am going to pay off your debt. Every single cent of it. By tomorrow morning.”
May you like
Elena froze. “Why?”
“Because,” Dante said, his dark eyes locking onto hers, “tomorrow morning, you are going to put on a ring. You are going to move into the master wing. And you are going to pretend to be my fiancée.”
