Chapter 1 - The Manhattan Summons
The digital clock on my bedside table read 11:42 PM when the first vibration hit. It was followed immediately by a second, more violent buzz that caused my phone to nearly shimmy its way right off the marble vanity and into the basin of the bathroom sink. With soapy water dripping down my forehead and shampoo stinging my eyes, I grabbed the device.
The screen illuminated the dark, cramped bathroom of my Astoria apartment.
Marco Ricci.
My heart plummeted straight into my stomach, executing a dizzying, sickening freefall. For two years, I had stared at that name on spreadsheets, scheduling briefs, and late-night emergency logistics emails. For two years, I had memorized the exact cadence of his deep, gravelly voice, listening to him bark orders about import manifests, restaurant licenses, and high-profile security details. But getting a personal call at midnight on a Friday? That was uncharted territory.
I wiped my hand hastily on a hand towel, tapped the screen, and pressed the phone to my ear.
“Mr. Ricci?”
“Emily. I need you in my office. Now.”
The line went dead with a sharp click before I could even draw breath to ask a question.
Now? I stared at the phone in disbelief. It was almost midnight. I was standing in a cloud of cheap lavender shampoo, wearing an oversized collegiate sweatshirt and fuzzy socks with holes in the toes. But Marco Ricci didn’t do requests; he issued edicts. When Manhattan’s most enigmatic, untouchable kingpin summoned his top operations coordinator at midnight, you didn't ask about your hair. You ran.
Twenty minutes later, I stepped out of the private, keycard-only elevator on the top floor of the Ricci Tower and walked straight into a nightmare of high-end panic.
I looked like a disaster. Mismatched sneakers—one black, one navy blue—faded mom jeans, and a gray zip-up hoodie that had seen better days. My damp hair was still clinging stubbornly to the back of my neck in a frizzy knot. I hated myself the second I realized I had instinctively swiped a layer of strawberry lip balm across my mouth while the elevator was in motion. As if he cares, I scolded myself, smoothing down my hoodie with shaking hands.
Before I could even raise a fist to knock on the heavy mahogany door of his private office, it swung open.
Marco Ricci stood in the doorway, looking like trouble packaged in a custom-tailored Italian suit.
He had discarded his suit jacket somewhere along the line. A crisp black dress shirt was buttoned halfway down his chest, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms to reveal tanned skin and taut, corded muscles. His thick, dark hair was artfully disheveled, falling slightly across a forehead that bore the faint creases of exhaustion. But it was his eyes—those piercing, predatory green eyes—that made me freeze. They were sharp enough to slice through steel, the kind of gaze that made multi-million-dollar investors and ruthless syndicate bosses reconsider their life choices within seconds.
“Come in, Emily,” he murmured, stepping back to let me pass.
The office was a massive, glass-walled sanctuary overlooking the glittering, sleepless expanse of Manhattan. Below us, the yellow cabs looked like scattered ants crawling across a circuit board of concrete and neon.
People whispered terrifying things about Marco Ricci. They said his sprawling empire—spanning high-end restaurants, exclusive nightclubs, luxury real estate, and shadowy import logistics—was built on a foundation of blood and leverage. They said nobody crossed Marco Ricci and lived to tell the tale. The tabloids loved painting him as a modern-day Don, cold, calculating, and utterly devoid of human warmth.
I knew a completely different man.
I knew the Marco who quietly had his driver deliver fresh orchids to his aging mother’s apartment every single Sunday without fail. I knew the boss who personally audited the payroll every month to ensure that overworked line cooks and front-desk attendants received double-time bonuses during holiday crunches. I knew the man who had once physically thrown a sneering Wall Street millionaire out of his flagship restaurant for snapping his fingers at a college-student waiter.
That was the Marco I had fallen for. Not the mobster. Not the billionaire tycoon. Just the broken, brilliant, fiercely loyal man who hid behind a fortress of ice. And I had spent two agonizing years hiding that secret deep in my chest, praying to whatever gods were listening that he would never, ever find out.
“I have a problem,” Marco said abruptly, breaking the heavy silence.
He didn't sit behind his massive, minimalist obsidian desk. Instead, he leaned back against the edge of it, crossing his long legs at the ankles, his arms folded across his broad chest.
“What kind of problem, Mr. Ricci?” I asked, keeping my voice carefully neutral, desperately hoping my cheeks weren't flushed from the damp air or the sheer proximity of him.
“My mother turns seventy next weekend,” he said, rubbing his jaw with a calloused thumb. “The whole family—sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, and the endless parade of socialite bloodsuckers they associate with—is spending the entire week at our estate in the Hamptons. A full seven days of catered dinners, yacht trips, and forced familial harmony.”
I nodded slowly, keeping my hands jammed deep into the pockets of my hoodie to hide my trembling fingers. “I know. I organized the catering logistics and security clearances myself. Everything is scheduled to arrive by Thursday morning.”
Marco let out a long, frustrated sigh, running a hand through his dark hair.
“Last month, during Sunday dinner, she cornered me about my personal life. Asked if I was seeing anyone special.”
My stomach tightened into a hard, painful knot. The air in the room suddenly felt thin, suffocating.
“And?” I managed to choke out.
“And I told her yes.”
Of course he had told her yes. Marco Ricci was constantly photographed by paparazzi stepping out of exclusive clubs with leggy supermodels, international heiresses, and high-society women who looked like they had never worn mismatched sneakers or a faded hoodie in their entire lives. Women who belonged in magazines, not behind spreadsheets in basement offices.
I forced a tight, professional smile onto my face, blinking rapidly against the sting behind my eyes. “Do you need me to adjust the guest list? Or perhaps coordinate a gift delivery from one of the European designers?”
“No,” Marco said.
He pushed off the desk. He took two slow, deliberate steps toward me, closing the distance until the subtle, intoxicating scent of sandalwood and expensive bourbon wrapped around me like a physical embrace.
His eyes locked onto mine, burning with a desperate intensity that made my breath catch in my throat.
“I need you to be her.”
I stared at him. The words hovered in the air between us, refusing to make sense.
“Be... who?” I whispered.
“My girlfriend.”
A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in my chest, and before I could stop it, a sharp, breathless laugh escaped my lips. I actually giggled—a nervous, high-pitched sound. Because surely, surely this was some bizarre, sleep-deprived hazing ritual.
Marco didn't crack a smile. His expression remained carved from granite.
“You’re joking,” I breathed, looking frantically around the office for hidden cameras. “You want me to pretend we’re dating?”
“For seven days.”
“In front of your entire family?”
“My mother, my three overly nosy sisters, half a dozen critical aunts, and probably every rival businessman in the tri-state area who will be gunning for an invitation.”
My heart began hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Seven days.
Seven days of standing beside him. Seven days of holding his hand, sitting across from him at candlelit dinners, letting his family analyze every lingering glance, every shared smile, every touch.
And then, when the sun set on the seventh day, packing my bags, returning to my cramped Astoria apartment, and pretending that none of it had ever happened. That he was still just the boss, and I was still just the girl who managed his schedules.
“Why me?” I whispered, the words trembling on the edge of tears. “Out of all the women in your orbit—models, actresses, women who actually fit into your world—why on earth would you ask me?”
Marco went strangely still.
For a long, agonizing moment, he looked away from me, turning his gaze toward the glittering, indifferent lights of the Manhattan skyline outside the floor-to-ceiling glass. His jaw clenched tightly, a muscle ticking in his cheek.
Then, slowly, he turned back to face me.
And something in his guarded, impenetrable expression shifted. A crack in the armor.
“Because, Emily,” he said quietly, his voice dropping into a register so raw and low it vibrated straight down to my toes, “you’re the only woman my family might actually believe I could love.”
May you like
I forgot how to breathe entirely.
The world outside the glass seemed to stop spinning. Because the terrible, beautiful lie Marco Ricci was asking me to tell his family for seven days was already the exact truth I had spent two agonizing years hiding in the dark.
