The Mafia Boss Pretended I Was His Lover for Three Days

By noon, Miller Floral Events looked less like a flower warehouse and more like a military checkpoint.

Massimo's men controlled both entrances. Two technicians removed the office computer system and replaced it with temporary equipment. Every delivery was searched. Every employee was questioned.

Sophie hated all of it.

She especially hated the fact that part of her was relieved.

Her three employees arrived separately.

Nina Morales came first, took one look at the men in black suits, and asked whether Sophie had accidentally started decorating funerals for dictators.

Sophie pulled her aside.

"I need you to go home."

Nina stared at her.

"We have the Romano installation in thirty hours."

"I know."

"And four thousand roses."

"Three thousand eight hundred and twelve."

"You counted?"

"I always count."

Nina crossed her arms.

"You're not sending me home."

Sophie lowered her voice.

"Someone broke in."

That changed everything.

Within minutes, Sophie had told Nina, Jared, and Mia only what they needed to know: the warehouse had been searched, business information might have been compromised, and security would remain until the Romano event was complete.

She did not mention the card.

She did not mention Adriana.

She definitely did not mention that the feared head of the Romano family had slept three doors away from her guest room after insisting she remain inside his estate.

Nina, unfortunately, noticed Massimo watching from across the room.

"Why is he staring at you?"

"He isn't."

"He absolutely is."

"Please count the cream peonies."

Nina smiled slowly.

"Oh my God."

"Don't."

"Did you sleep with a mafia boss?"

Sophie nearly dropped the clipboard.

"No."

"That was too fast."

"Nina."

"Fine. But if you suddenly become engaged, I want health insurance."

Sophie walked away before her friend could continue.

Massimo was speaking to a man Sophie had not met.

He was in his early forties, broad-shouldered, with a scar near his left eyebrow and the quiet posture of someone who had learned to observe before speaking.

"This is Dante Russo," Massimo said. "My security chief."

Dante nodded.

"We found no usable prints in your office."

"That sounds convenient."

"It is."

Sophie looked at Massimo.

"And my computer?"

"Recovered."

Her eyes widened.

"Where?"

Dante answered.

"Dumpster behind a closed restaurant six blocks away."

"Why take it just to throw it away?"

"To copy the drive somewhere else."

Sophie thought of the access plans.

"What was opened?"

"We're checking."

Massimo held out the black-threaded rose.

It had been sealed inside a plastic evidence bag.

"Do you recognize the thread?"

Sophie did.

"It's not thread. It's waxed floral binding cord."

"Common?"

"In my industry, yes. But this type is imported from the Netherlands."

Dante asked, "Do you use it?"

"Not anymore. It's expensive."

"Who does?"

Sophie considered.

"Luxury wedding designers. High-end hotels. Some private estate florists."

Massimo's eyes narrowed.

"What about the Vitale family?"

Sophie almost dismissed the question.

Then she remembered something.

"Adriana's foundation."

Massimo went still.

"Explain."

"Last spring, her foundation hosted a botanical fundraiser at the Drake. I supplied part of the installation. Their primary florist used black imported binding cord because the event theme was black and white."

"Name."

"Bellini Botanical."

Dante already had his phone out.

Sophie shook her head.

"That doesn't prove anything."

"No," Massimo said. "It gives us a direction."

His phone rang.

He glanced at the screen.

"Speak."

The color left his face almost imperceptibly.

Sophie noticed anyway.

"When?"

A pause.

"Keep him alive."

He ended the call.

"What happened?"

Massimo looked at Dante.

"Matteo's been shot."

Dante's expression changed.

Sophie remembered the name.

Massimo had said someone was secretly obtaining information from one of his trusted captains. He had never told her which captain.

"Is Matteo your source?"

Massimo ignored the question and headed toward the door.

She followed.

"Massimo."

He stopped.

For three seconds, neither moved.

Then he said, "Matteo Greco is one of my captains. He sent me the first warning about the Vitale alliance."

"And someone just shot him."

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Parking garage near his apartment."

"Then go."

His eyes dropped briefly to her.

"Dante stays."

"I don't need a babysitter."

"Today you do."

"I have an event to finish."

"Then finish it."

There was anger in his voice.

Not at her.

At the fact that danger was spreading beyond his control.

Sophie softened despite herself.

"Is he your friend?"

Massimo looked toward the open warehouse door.

"We grew up together."

Then he left.

For the next three hours, Sophie buried herself in work.

It was easier to think about archways, table garlands, ceiling installations, refrigeration temperatures, and the exact number of white roses than it was to think about gunshots.

At four-thirty, the first truck left for the Romano estate.

Sophie traveled in the second.

Dante followed in another vehicle.

The sky had darkened with an incoming storm.

At the estate, dozens of workers moved through the ballroom under Sophie's direction.

White roses climbed twelve-foot structures around the columns. Gardenias floated in shallow glass bowls. Thousands of tiny lights were threaded through suspended branches.

Isabella had requested something "elegant enough to make my enemies jealous and warm enough to make my friends stay."

Sophie had designed exactly that.

At six-fifteen, one of the workers called down from a ladder.

"Ms. Miller, this cable looks wrong."

Sophie walked beneath the suspended floral canopy.

"What cable?"

"The support line."

She looked up.

One of the steel wires holding a three-hundred-pound installation had been partially cut.

Her heart stopped.

"Everybody move!"

The words had barely left her mouth when the line snapped.

The structure dropped.

Someone hit Sophie from the side.

She crashed onto the floor.

Glass shattered.

Metal slammed into marble less than three feet from her head.

For several seconds, there was only noise.

Then silence.

Sophie opened her eyes.

Dante was lying across her legs.

Blood ran from a cut on his temple.

"You okay?" he asked.

She nodded.

Hands lifted the twisted frame.

Workers shouted.

Security rushed in.

Sophie looked up at the broken wire.

It had not failed.

It had been sliced almost completely through.

Massimo entered the ballroom less than eight minutes later.

He crossed the room with such speed that people moved out of his path without being told.

His eyes found Sophie.

He did not ask about the flowers.

He did not ask about the damage.

He put both hands on her shoulders.

"Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine."

"Where?"

"Nowhere."

"Sophie."

"Dante knocked me out of the way."

Massimo looked at his security chief.

Dante wiped blood from his face.

"She's fine."

Only then did Massimo release a breath.

Sophie looked at him closely.

"Matteo?"

"Alive."

"Did he say who shot him?"

"No."

Massimo turned toward the collapsed installation.

His face changed.

"Who touched that cable?"

Sophie answered.

"Anyone with access to the ballroom."

"That's half the estate."

"Then start with the other half."

His eyes returned to her.

There was something almost reckless in them now.

"You were standing under it."

"I noticed."

"If Dante hadn't—"

"But he did."

"You could have died."

The ballroom had gone quiet again.

Workers were pretending not to listen.

Sophie lowered her voice.

"I am still here."

Massimo stared at her.

Then he cupped the back of her neck and pulled her against him.

It was not romantic.

Not at first.

It was the grip of a man who had imagined a body under twisted metal and needed physical proof that his imagination was wrong.

Sophie felt his heart pounding beneath his shirt.

Her own breath caught.

For one dangerous second, she forgot that they were pretending.

Then she heard Caterina's voice behind them.

"This has gone too far."

Massimo released Sophie slowly.

His mother stood beneath the ballroom doors.

Adriana was beside her.

Both women had seen everything.

Adriana looked at the broken canopy, then at Sophie's face.

"That wasn't meant to scare you," she said.

Massimo turned toward her.

"What do you know?"

Adriana's face drained.

"I know enough to tell you that whoever did this is no longer protecting an alliance."

"Who?"

She shook her head.

"My father would kill me."

Massimo stepped forward.

"If your father ordered this—"

"He didn't."

"How do you know?"

"Because if Vittorio wanted Sophie dead, there would not be a cut wire and a warning. There would be a funeral."

No one spoke.

Adriana looked at Sophie.

"You need to understand something. My family isn't the only family with something to lose if this engagement disappears."

Massimo's voice was quiet.

"Whose?"

Adriana looked toward Caterina.

Sophie followed her gaze.

Caterina's face had become pale.

And in that moment, Sophie realized Massimo's mother knew exactly what Adriana meant.

Before Massimo returned to the estate, Sophie was forced to sit through a medical examination in one of the downstairs sitting rooms.

A private physician checked the bruise spreading along her hip and the red scrape across her shoulder where Dante had knocked her to the marble.

"You were lucky," the doctor said.

Sophie looked toward the broken ballroom doors.

"Lucky is becoming a very flexible word around here."

Dante sat nearby while a nurse closed the cut above his eyebrow.

He caught Sophie's glance.

"You should thank me with better coffee at your warehouse."

"You should stop tackling your employer's fake girlfriend into furniture."

"Noted."

The exchange helped, but only briefly.

Massimo returned twenty minutes later from the hospital and found Sophie fastening the sleeve of her dress.

For once, he did not issue an order immediately.

He simply looked at the bruise.

"Matteo is stable," he said.

Sophie nodded.

"Good."

"He was shot twice."

Her expression changed.

"Can he talk?"

"Not yet."

Massimo moved toward the damaged floral frame.

His hand closed around the severed support wire.

The cut was so clean that only a thin strand of metal had remained.

"Whoever did this timed it," Sophie said. "They waited until I was under it."

"I know."

"Then stop pretending this is collateral damage."

His gaze returned to her.

"I am not pretending."

"You keep saying I can leave. I don't think that's true anymore."

Massimo was silent.

Sophie continued, quieter now.

"If I walk out of your gate tonight, they don't stop knowing my name."

"No."

"If I cancel the event, they know they frightened us."

"Yes."

"If I stay, they may try again."

"Yes."

She folded her arms.

"That's an impressive collection of terrible options."

Massimo stepped closer.

"There is another."

"What?"

"I end the lie publicly. I tell everyone I used you as an excuse. I take responsibility."

"And Adriana's family decides I'm still the woman who humiliated them. Lorenzo—or whoever this is—still knows I saw too much. And your family starts asking why you suddenly changed the story."

Massimo said nothing.

Sophie looked at him.

"You hate that I'm right."

"I hate that you are in a position to be right."

His honesty surprised her.

Then he added, "I should have let you walk out of my room."

Sophie almost laughed.

"You had a gun pointed at me."

"That is not the part I regret."

She studied him.

Behind the reputation, the commands, the security, and the cold control, Massimo looked tired.

Not physically.