Chapter 7 - Lorenzo Gave Up His Empire for the Woman Who Once Asked Him for Milk
Lorenzo sold the illegal businesses.
Closed the clubs.
Shut down the warehouses.
Transferred legitimate companies into independent ownership.
It took months.
People called him weak.
Others called him foolish.
He didn't care.
One evening, we sat on the balcony of his apartment.
“You lost everything,” I said.
He smiled.
“No.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I lost the things that made me afraid.”
He looked at me.
“I kept the things that made me human.”
I reached for his hand.
“What happens now?”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“I become a boring businessman.”
I laughed.
“You?”
“I can try.”
“You'll fail.”
“Probably.”
His grandmother moved into a quiet home outside the city.
My mother recovered.
Noah graduated high school.
The family that had once been trapped by fear began living differently.
I returned to nursing full-time.
Lorenzo opened several restaurants.
Not fronts.
Real restaurants.
Legal businesses.
He named one of them Emily's Table.
I protested.
“You can't name a restaurant after me.”
“Too late.”
“You're impossible.”
“I know.”
Our relationship became public.
People were shocked.
The feared Moretti heir had fallen in love with a nurse.
Not a socialite.
Not a wealthy heiress.
A woman who had once stood in a freezing kitchen begging a stranger for twenty dollars.
A year later, Lorenzo proposed.
He didn't do it at a gala.
He didn't hire musicians.
He didn't fill the room with diamonds.
He took me to the grocery store where his driver had once bought milk for Noah.
He stood beside the refrigerator aisle.
“You remember this?”
I laughed.
“I was twelve.”
“I know.”
He pulled a ring from his pocket.
“I wanted to bring us back here.”
“Why?”
“Because that was the first time I knew I would never forget you.”
My eyes filled with tears.
He took my hand.
“You asked me for twenty dollars.”
“I didn't even mean to text you.”
“I know.”
“You could have ignored me.”
“I could have.”
“But you didn't.”
“No.”
“Why?”
He smiled.
“Because someone once helped me when I had nothing.”
“Who?”
“My brother.”
I waited.
Lorenzo continued.
“He taught me that people don't always need saving. Sometimes they just need someone to stop walking past them.”
I cried.
He knelt.
“Emily Carter.”
“Yes?”
“Will you spend the rest of your life annoying me?”
I laughed.
“Absolutely.”
He grinned.
“Then marry me.”
May you like
I said yes.
But our wedding would reveal one final secret.
