Chapter 4 - Trial by Dinner Party
For a terrifying second, the universe seemed to hold its breath.
Elena Ricci’s gaze felt like an industrial laser, stripping away my Zara sundress, my carefully rehearsed smile, and every ounce of my professional confidence. She looked at me the way a museum curator might look at a counterfeit painting smuggled into the Louvre.
Marco didn't flinch. If anything, his arm tightened around my waist, pulling me a fraction of an inch closer until my shoulder pressed firmly against his chest. The solid, unyielding heat of him was my only anchor in the storm.
“Mother,” Marco said, his voice smooth, calm, and utterly unreadable. “This is Emily Hale. The woman I told you about.”
A pin dropping on the marble foyer floor would have sounded like a gunshot.
Elena’s sharp eyebrows arched slowly toward her hairline. She looked me up and down one more time—lingering disapprovingly on my minimalist silver necklace before meeting my eyes with a chilling, evaluative stare.
“Emily,” Elena repeated, rolling the name around on her tongue as if testing it for poison. “How fascinating. My son has spent five years avoiding serious attachments like the plague, and suddenly, out of nowhere, he drags a... corporate coordinator?”
My cheeks burned hot enough to fry an egg. She knows, my panicked brain screamed. She knows I work for him. She knows I’m a commoner.
Before I could stutter out a polite greeting, Marco stepped smoothly into the breach, his tone dropping into a charming, disarming register that I had never heard him use in the office.
“Not just a coordinator, Mother. Emily runs half my operations in the city. She’s brilliant, fiercely independent, and she refused to give me the time of day for six months until I finally wore her down.” He glanced down at me, a brilliant, thoroughly convincing flash of warmth in his green eyes. “Right, sweetheart?”
Sweetheart.
The word nearly caused my knees to buckle. I swallowed hard, forcing my lips into what I hoped looked like a radiant, head-over-heels smile.
“It’s true,” I managed to say, my voice steady despite the seismic trembling in my chest. “He was remarkably persistent. Though I’m still not entirely convinced letting him take me out was a good idea.”
Elena stared at us for three agonizing seconds. Then, slowly, the corners of her thin lips twitched upward into a thin, enigmatic smile.
“Well,” Elena said dryly, stepping aside and gesturing into the grand foyer. “Come in out of the heat, then. Let’s see if your cooking skills match your persistence, dear. We’re about to have lunch on the terrace.”
That afternoon was a masterclass in psychological torture.
The sprawling stone terrace overlooking the Atlantic Ocean was set with a long mahogany table overflowing with crystal champagne flutes, fresh seafood, and expensive salads. Around the table sat Marco’s three sisters— Isabella, Chiara, and Sofia—along with a collection of bored-looking cousins and wealthy uncles.
Every single one of them watched us like hawks.
“So, Emily,” Isabella, the eldest sister, purred over her glass of white wine as she sliced into a piece of grilled salmon. “Where did you and Marco meet? He’s notoriously tight-lipped about his personal life.”
I froze, fork hovering over my salad.
Marco smoothly slid his left hand across the white tablecloth, his fingers intertwining with mine. His thumb stroked the back of my hand in a slow, hypnotic rhythm.
“We met at a charity auction for the Metropolitan Museum downtown six months ago,” Marco lied without missing a single beat, his tone completely natural. “Emily was managing the logistics for the exhibit. I spent half the evening trying to get her to look away from her clipboard and talk to me.”
“And you fell for him just like that?” Chiara asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically.
“Hardly,” I said, finding my footing as the adrenaline kicked in. I offered a sweet, slightly dry smile that earned a low, genuine chuckle from Marco beside me. “He was arrogant, overly demanding, and insisted on micromanaging the seating chart. It took him three weeks just to convince me to go out for coffee.”
A collective gasp rippled around the table. Nobody—literally nobody—spoke to Marco Ricci like that.
For a second, I thought I had gone too far. But then Marco turned his head, looking down at me with an expression so devastatingly tender, so impossibly warm, that my breath caught in my throat.
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“She’s brutal, isn't she?” Marco murmured to the table, his green eyes locked onto mine. “Keeps me on my toes every single day.”
Across the table, Elena watched the exchange with narrowed eyes, sipping her champagne in thoughtful silence.
