VIVIAN
“Hey, Vivian. The usual?”
“Yes, please. Make it four,” I said as the barista rang me up. I frequented the coffee shop near my office so often they’d memorized my order. “Thanks, Jen.”
“No problem.” She smiled. “See you tomorrow.”
I paid and moved to the pickup area, only half looking at where I was going. I was too distracted by the flood of new messages scrolling across my screen.
My phone had been blowing up all weekend. Friends, acquaintances, society reporters, everyone wanted to congratulate or talk to me after the smashing success of the Legacy Ball.
Mode de Vie had deemed it “one of the most exquisite balls in the institution’s history” in their Sunday style roundup, which meant I woke up that morning with even more messages crowding my inbox.
It was only Monday, and I already had twenty-two new client inquiries, five interview requests, and countless invitations to balls, screenings, and private parties.
The whispers about Lau Jewels’ troubles were still circulating, but they weren’t enough to override the prestige of hosting the Legacy Ball.
It was equal parts thrilling and exhausting.
I opened a new email from a prospective client right as I bumped into another patron. Coffee splashed over the side of their open cup and onto their shoes.
Horror streaked through me. “I’m so sorry!” I looked up, the email forgotten. “I didn’t mean…” My apology died a quick death when my eyes landed on a familiar head of dark hair and bronzed skin.
My lips remained parted, but my words had fled to some far-off island for an unplanned vacation.
“That’s all right,” Dante said easily. “We’ve all been there. It was my fault for leaving my cup open when it’s so crowded.”
I watched, stunned, as he plucked a lid from the counter and fitted it over his coffee.
It was the middle of the workday, but instead of a suit, he wore black dress pants and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up. No tie.
“What are you doing here?” I found my voice somewhere between the rapid thumps of my heart and the dryness in my throat.
It was the second time I’d asked him the question in twice as many days.
His office was a few blocks away, but there were at least half a dozen coffee shops between here and there.
A small, playful hitch of his brow. “Getting coffee, like you.”
He placed a hand on my arm and gently moved me to the side before a harried twenty-something blonde blitzed past us with a full tray of coffee.
If I hadn’t moved, I’d be wearing Americano and cold brew with my Diane von Furstenberg.
Dante’s hand lingered a beat on my arm before he removed it and held it out. “I’m Dante, by the way.”
The imprint of his touch burned into my skin.
I stared at his outstretched hand, wondering if he’d bumped his head and developed a sudden case of amnesia over the weekend.
I couldn’t work out how else to respond, so I slid my hand into his with a wary, “I’m Vivian.”
“Nice to meet you, Vivian.” His palm was warm, rough.
My stomach fluttered at hazy memories of that roughness mapping my body before I shoved them aside.
They belonged in the past, not here in my favorite coffee shop, where I was having the world’s most bizarre conversation with my (amnesia-ridden?) ex-fiancé.
“So, do you come here often?” he asked casually.
The cheesiness of the pickup line pulled me out of my shock.
“Seriously?” I said, my tone dubious.
His eyes crinkled at the corners. I hated how endearing it was. “It’s an honest question.”
“Yes, I do. You know I do.” I pulled my hand away and glanced at the counter. The barista hadn’t called my order yet. “What are you doing, Dante? And I don’t mean the coffee.”
His good humor slipped. “You said our relationship had a rocky start, and you were right,” he said quietly. “So here I am, trying for a fresh start.
No business, no bullshit. Just us, meeting normally like any two people would.”
The admission reached into my chest and squeezed.
If only.
The tense beat passed, and Dante’s smile returned, slow and devastating. I regretted all the times I told him to scowl less. A scowling Dante was much easier to resist than a smiling one.
“I don’t want to come off as too forward, since we just met,” he said.
“But would you like to go out sometime?”
I squashed a reluctant bloom of amusement at the absurd situation and shook my head. “Sorry. I’m not interested in dating right now.”
“So it won’t be a date,” he said without missing a beat. “It’ll be dinner between two people getting to know each other better.”
My gaze narrowed. He stared back at me, his expression innocent but his eyes alive with mischief.
The barista finally called my name.
I broke eye contact and picked up my coffee. “It was nice to meet you, Dante,” I said pointedly. “But I have to get back to work.”
He followed me to the door and held it open. “If not a date, then your number. I promise I won’t prank call you or send you inappropriate photos.”
A wicked slant of his lips. “Unless you want them, of course.”
I suppressed another smile and arched a skeptical brow instead. “Are you always this persistent with women you meet in a coffee shop?”
“Only those I can’t stop thinking about,” he said, his eyes steady on mine.
The air turned humid. A breeze swept past, doing nothing to alleviate the sudden heaviness of my dress or the warmth unspooling in my stomach.
We were tangled in such a complicated web, but for a moment, I let myself get swept away by the fantasy of us as a normal couple.
Normal first meet, normal dates, normal relationship. Just a woman wanting a man who wanted her back.
“If I give you my number, will you stop following me?”
A faint curve of his mouth. “We were both leaving, so I don’t know if that counts as following, but yes.”
I gave him my number. He already had it, of course, but he typed it into his phone like he didn’t.
“Dante.” I stopped him when he was halfway down the sidewalk.
He looked back at me.
“How did you know I would be here at this time?”
“I didn’t. But I know it’s your favorite coffee shop, and you always come here around lunchtime.” His parting words drifted toward me on the breeze.
“It was nice meeting you, Vivian.”
DANTE
One ring. Two. Three.
I paced my room, my stomach twisted with nerves as I waited for her to answer.
It was ten-thirty, which meant she was getting ready for bed. She usually took an hour to wind down with a shower or a bath, depending on how stressed she was; a bafflingly intricate ten-step skincare routine, and some reading, if she wasn’t too tired.
I’d timed my call so I’d catch her after she got out of the shower.
Four rings. Five.
Assuming, of course, she picked up my call.
My nerves pulled tighter.
Vivian gave me her number that afternoon, which meant she wanted me to call, right? If she didn’t, she would’ve simply left. Hell, a part of me had expected her to.
I’d lingered in that damn coffee shop for almost two hours on the off chance I’d see her. She went there every day, but her timing varied depending on her workload.
It wasn’t the world’s greatest plan, but it’d worked, even if it’d meant skipping a lunch meeting.
Six rings. Sev—
“Hello?” Her voice flowed over the line. Clear and sweet, like the first gasp of air after surfacing from a frigid lake.
The breath released from my lungs. “Hi. This is Dante.”
“Dante…” she mused, like she was trying to remember who I was.
At least she was playing along. Progress.
“We met at the coffee shop this afternoon,” I reminded her with a touch of amusement.
“Ah, right. You’re supposed to wait three days,” Vivian said. “Calling a woman the same day you get her number could be considered desperate.”
I paused in front of the window and stared out at the dark sprawl of Central Park below. The image blended with the room reflected behind me —the half-empty perfume bottles lining the dresser, the perfectly made bed where her scent still lingered, the armchair where she liked to curl up and read at night.
She hadn’t picked up the rest of her belongings yet, and I didn’t know whether it was a blessing or a curse.
A blessing, because it gave me hope she would return.
A curse, because everywhere I turned, there she was. A beautiful, haunting presence I felt but couldn’t touch.
A familiar ache worked its way into my chest.
“Not could, mia cara,” I said, my voice low. My reflection stared back at me, taut with exhaustion and self-loathing. I hadn’t slept properly in a week, and my appearance suffered for it. “I am desperate.”
Silence followed, so deep and profound it swallowed everything except the painful thuds of my heart.
Admitting weakness, much less desperation, was unheard of for a Russo. Hell, I didn’t even admit when I had a cold. But denying my feelings had landed me in my current hell, and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.
Not when it came to Vivian.
My hand strangled my phone while I waited for her answer. None came.
She was quiet for so long I double-checked whether she’d hung up. She hadn’t.
“I’ve never…” I cleared my throat, wishing I was more eloquent at expressing my emotions. It was one of the few skills my grandfather hadn’t drilled into me since I was young. “I’ve never had to…pursue someone before, so perhaps I’m not doing this right. But I wanted to hear your voice.’ Without pretty words, all I had was the truth.
More silence.
The ache bled from my chest into my voice. “The apartment isn’t the same without you, mia cara.”
Despite the bustle of staff and deliveries, the smell of Greta’s cooking, and the millions of dollars’ worth of art and furniture, it’d turned into a shell of itself in her absence.
A sky without stars, a home without heart.
“Don’t,” Vivian whispered.
The air shifted, our earlier playfulness vanishing beneath the weight of our emotion.
“It’s the truth,” I said. “Your clothes are here. Your memories are here.
But you’re not here, and I…” I dragged in a shaky breath and pushed my hand through my hair. “Fuck, Vivian, I didn’t think I was capable of missing someone so much. But I am, and I do.”
I had all the money in the world, but it couldn’t buy me the only thing I wanted.
Her, back by my side.
It was what I’d wanted since I came home and found her packing. Hell, it was what I’d wanted since we returned from Paris and I pulled away like an idiot, but my head had been so far up my ass about Francis and revenge I couldn’t see anything except my own bullshit.
It took my brother, of all people, to make me see the light.
I loved Vivian. I’d been falling in love with her, bit by bit, since she crashed my exhibition and stared me down with defiance in her eyes.
“Say something, sweetheart,” I said softly when she went quiet again.
“You say you miss me now, but the feeling will pass. You’re Dante Russo. You can have anyone.” A waver rippled beneath her voice. “You don’t need me.”
The tiny crack on the word me hit me like a punch in the gut.
You never wanted to get married, and you never wanted me.
One of her six reasons, and one I took a fair share of the blame for. But I wasn’t the only one. Her parents had a hand in making her feel like she was dispensable other than what she could do for them, and I’d never forgive them for it.
It was hypocritical, but I didn’t care.
“I don’t want anyone,” I said fiercely. “I want you. Your wit and intelligence, your kindness and charm. The way your eyes crinkle when you laugh and how your smile makes the world tilt just a little bit. I even want the disgusting food combinations you put together and somehow make taste good.”
A half laugh, half sob bled over the line.
“But that’s the thing about you, Vivian.” My voice softened into something rawer. “You take the most ordinary or unexpected things and make them extraordinary. You see the silver lining in every situation and the good in everyone, even if they don’t deserve it. And I’m selfish enough to hope you’ll see how much I don’t just want but need you. Today, tomorrow, and all the days that come after that.”
Another sob, this one quieter but no less powerful.
Fuck, I wished I could see her. Hold her. Comfort her. And look into her eyes so she knew I meant every damn word I said.
“I know it took me a while to get here, sweetheart, and I’m not the best with expressing my emotions, but…” A ragged breath. “Give me a chance to prove it to you. Go on a date with me. Just one.”
The first silence had been long. This one was torturous.
My heart slammed, fast and hard enough to bruise, then stopped altogether when Vivian finally replied. Soft and hesitant, yet thick with emotion.
“Okay. Just one.”
