Chapter 2

Dominic Cavallo's office occupied the top three floors of the Cavallo Tower — a black glass monolith that split the Chicago skyline like a blade. I'd walked past it a thousand times on my way to the diner where I waitressed. I'd never imagined I'd be standing inside it, wearing a borrowed dress and shoes that pinched, waiting to propose a business arrangement to the most intimidating man in the city.

The receptionist — a stunning woman who looked like she'd been hired from a runway — scanned me from head to toe with barely concealed disdain.

"You're the eleven o'clock?" She said it like a question and an insult simultaneously.

"Olivia Ashford," I confirmed.

Her eyebrow twitched at the last name, but she recovered quickly. "Mr. Cavallo will see you now. Thirty-second floor. Don't touch anything."

The elevator ride felt like ascending to a sentencing. When the doors opened, I stepped into a space that was more cathedral than office — soaring ceilings, dark wood, floor-to-ceiling windows framing the city like a painting. Everything was meticulously ordered, obsessively controlled. Like its owner.

He stood with his back to me, phone pressed to his ear, speaking rapid Italian in a voice that was low, commanding, and utterly devoid of warmth.

"Sì. Finiscila. Non mi interessa."

Yes. End it. I don't care.

He hung up without saying goodbye and turned.

The photos didn't do him justice — or maybe they did, and I simply wasn't prepared. Dominic Cavallo was not handsome in the way Ryan was handsome, all boyish charm and easy smiles. He was handsome the way a storm is beautiful — dark hair pushed back from a face of sharp angles and sharper eyes, a jaw that could have been cut from marble, and a mouth set in a line that suggested smiling was a weakness he'd eliminated long ago.

His eyes — grey, cold, assessing — landed on me and stayed.

"You're smaller than I expected," he said.

"You're ruder than I expected," I replied before I could stop myself. "And I expected quite rude."

Something flickered in those grey eyes. Not amusement, exactly. More like... recognition. As if I'd passed a test he hadn't told me about.

"Sit," he said, gesturing to the chair across from his desk.

"I'd prefer to stand."

"It wasn't a suggestion."

I sat. Not because he told me to, but because my pinching shoes were killing me and I refused to let him see me wince.

He settled into his own chair — a throne of black leather — and opened a file I recognized immediately. My file. My entire life reduced to paper: birth certificate, school records, employment history, even my medical records.

"Waitress at Rosie's Diner," he read aloud. "GPA of 3.9 at Northwestern — scholarship, impressive — degree in computational mathematics never used. Current bank balance: four hundred and twelve dollars." He looked up. "You're Richard Ashford's hidden daughter, and you have four hundred dollars to your name."

"Four hundred and twelve," I corrected. "Don't shortchange me."

That flicker again. He closed the file.

"Your father and I had an arrangement. He helped me acquire Meridian Shipping when no bank would back me. In return, I owed him a debt." His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "He chose to collect it posthumously. By asking me to marry you."

"You don't have to," I said. "I won't force a man into—"

"I pay my debts, Ms. Ashford." He cut me off with the precision of a scalpel. "The question isn't whether I'll marry you. The question is whether you can survive being married to me."

The air between us crackled with something electric and dangerous.

"I've survived worse than you, Mr. Cavallo," I said quietly.

He studied me for a long moment, those grey eyes searching for something I couldn't name. Then he pressed a button on his desk.

"Margaret. Draw up a marriage contract. Standard prenuptial with the Ashford inheritance clause." He paused, his eyes still locked on mine. "The wedding will be in two weeks."

"Your father's will said thirty days—"

"I don't do things on other people's timelines." He stood, buttoning his jacket — a signal that our meeting was over. "You'll move into my residence this weekend. Separate bedrooms. No press, no public affection, no complications."

No complications. My hand almost moved to my stomach. Almost.

"One more thing," he said as I reached the door.

I turned.

"Whatever secrets you're keeping, Ms. Ashford — and you are keeping them, I can see it — I will find out. I always do."

I held his gaze, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Then I suppose we'll both have to be careful, Mr. Cavallo."

I walked out of his office on steady legs, but the moment the elevator doors closed, I sagged against the wall, my hand pressing flat against my abdomen.

Two weeks. Two weeks to marry a stranger who could read lies like headlines. Two weeks to hide a pregnancy that would change everything.

And somewhere across the city, Ryan and Emma had no idea that the woman they'd discarded was about to become one of the most powerful people in Chicago.