Chapter 2 - SCARS AND SILKThe private study on the second floor smelled of old leather, bees-wax polish, and the faint, dry heat of an open brick hearth.
Luca did not deposit me in the servants’ medical station in the basement, nor did he drop me on the kitchen bench. He carried me straight past the gaping mouth of Mrs. Gable, the head housekeeper, down the long wood-paneled hallway, and into his private sanctuary.
He set me down gently on the deep oxblood leather sofa facing the fire.
I sat frozen, my heart battering against my ribs like an owl trapped in an attic. My wet trousers were dripping onto his antique Persian rug, and the muddy heel of my right boot was pressing against the polished brass caster of the sofa.
“Mr. Moretti, the rug—” I stammered, trying to tuck my legs beneath me, only for a fresh jolt of agony in my left ankle to rip a whimpering gasp through my teeth.
“Stop moving,” he said.
He shed his damp coat, tossing it carelessly over the leather wingback chair behind his desk, and knelt directly on the rug in front of me.
Luca Moretti—a man whose nod could shutter shipping yards and whose signature commanded multimillion-dollar construction syndicates—was on his knees on a carpet worth more than my family’s entire home in Bridgeport.
His long, calloused fingers reached out, taking hold of my left boot.
“This is going to hurt,” he said calmly.
“I can do it—”
He didn't argue. He simply worked his fingers around the laces, undoing the damp knots with swift, efficient precision. With one hand supporting my calf—his palm burning through the thin cotton of my sock—he slid the boot off.
I couldn't help it; tears spilled hot over my lower lashes. I bit the inside of my lip until the metallic taste of copper flooded my tongue.
My ankle was twice its normal size, the delicate curve of the bone lost beneath a swollen, mottled mass of dark plum, violet, and sickly yellow bruising.
Luca’s expression darkened. The skin along his jawline pulled taut, his nostrils flaring slightly as he traced the outline of the swelling with the pads of his fingers. His touch was shockingly gentle—clinical, yet possessing an undercurrent of focused intensity that made the breath catch in my chest.
“Ligaments are torn,” he murmured, more to himself than to me. “Possibly a fracture along the fibula.”
“It’s just a sprain,” I lied, wiping the dampness from my cheeks with the back of my trembling hand. “I’ve had worse.”
His eyes flicked up, meeting mine. The coldness was still there, but beneath it lay something deeper—an analytical curiosity that pinned me to the leather cushion.
“Where did you have worse, Emma?” he asked quietly. “In Bridgeport? Working twenty hours a week in your uncle’s butcher shop while you studied for an accounting degree you never finished?”
My breath caught.
He knew.
When I applied for the domestic position through the agency seven months ago, I had scrubbed my background clean. I had listed myself as a high-school graduate with five years of domestic housekeeping experience. I had never mentioned the three years of forensic auditing coursework at Loyola, nor the debts my uncle had incurred with a southern loan-shark syndicate before he vanished into Lake Michigan.
“You investigated me,” I whispered.
“I investigate every soul that enters my perimeter,” Luca replied, standing up and walking toward the private bar near the library shelves. He poured two fingers of amber bourbon into a crystal tumbler, dropped three cubes of ice into a linen towel from the credenza, and brought both back to the sofa.
He pressed the makeshift ice pack against the swollen joint. The cold was a sharp, burning shock that made me hiss, but within seconds, the throbbing began to numb into a dull ache.
He handed me the tumbler. “Drink.”
“I’m on duty, sir.”
“You are off duty for the next three weeks,” he countered, his voice leaving no room for negotiation. “Drink the bourbon, Emma. The house doctor will be here in twenty minutes.”
I took the glass with trembling hands, taking a tiny sip. The liquor was smoky, rich, and burned a hot path down my esophagus, settling the frantic fluttering in my stomach.
Bruno trotted into the room, his claws clicking softly on the oak flooring. He completely ignored the leather furniture, walking straight to the sofa and resting his massive, heavy chin directly on my good knee. He let out a long, shuddering sigh, his eyes rolling up to watch Luca.
Luca looked down at his dog, a faint, humorless twist touching his lips. “He hasn't let Isabella within three feet of him since she moved her trunks in last month.”
“He’s very perceptive,” I murmured before I could censor myself.
Luca’s pale eyes shifted back to my face. “Is that what you call it?”
“He knows who treats him like an ornament, and who treats him like a companion,” I said, stroking the velvety black fur behind Bruno’s cropped ears. “Miss Rossi kicked him yesterday when he stepped on the fringe of her coat in the foyer. He hasn't forgotten.”
Luca went completely still.
The silence that descended upon the study was not the calm of peace; it was the suffocating drop in atmospheric pressure before a tornado touches down.
“She kicked him?” Luca asked. The words were barely a whisper, yet the crystal decanters on the sideboard seemed to hum in sympathy with the violence vibrating through his frame.
“It was just a tap with her heel,” I said quickly, realizing too late that I had crossed a dangerous line. “She was angry about the mud—”
“No one kicks my dog,” Luca said, his voice flat, final, and lethal. “And no one shoves the people under my protection.”
The heavy mahogany doors of the study burst open without a knock.
Isabella marched in, her face flushed with fury, an antique leather-bound journal clutched tightly in her manicured hand. Behind her, looking pale and sweating through his uniform, stood Marco, Luca’s personal driver and head of residential security.
“Luca!” Isabella shrieked, ignoring Marco’s frantic apologies. “You’ve gone completely insane! My father is on the line right now from the downtown club! He wants to know why his daughter is being threatened with an eviction notice while your little kitchen mouse is sitting on your Italian leather drinking your private reserve!”
Luca did not flinch. He did not rise from his chair.
May you like
He slowly set his own glass on the side table, leaned back against the mahogany arm of the sofa, and looked at his fiancée as if she were a stain on an otherwise clean floor.
“Put your father on speaker,” Luca said.
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