She’d started telling the truth.
The next morning, Emma woke to find an envelope slipped under her door.
Inside was a single piece of paper.
Dinner tonight. Formal. Family friends. Teresa expects us both.
Beneath that, in Luca’s precise handwriting:
Wear something that makes Camille regret every word she said.
Emma stared at the note for a full minute.
Then she smiled.
If Luca Moretti wanted a performance, she’d give him one he’d never forget.
The dress arrived at noon.
Emma opened the box to find deep emerald silk that shimmered when she lifted it into the light. The neckline was elegant. The cut was tailored perfectly to her body. The designer label made her hands shake.
A second note was tucked inside.
You deserve to be looked at the way I’ve been looking at you for three months.
Emma sat down hard on her bed.
This was insane.
She barely knew Luca outside of late-night conversations and shared exhaustion and the odd, electric tension that had been building since the first time she’d walked into his office and refused to be intimidated.
But he’d saved Sophie.
And he’d looked at Camille like she was nothing the moment she’d tried to make Emma feel small.
And now he’d sent a dress that made her feel like someone who belonged in rooms she’d only ever cleaned.
Emma put it on.
When she walked downstairs that evening, the house felt different. Brighter. Louder. Guests had already arrived, filling the main rooms with laughter and conversation and the particular brand of elegance that came with old money and older power.
Teresa saw her first.
Her face transformed.
“Emma.”
Every head in the room turned.
Emma forced herself to breathe.
And then Luca appeared at the top of the stairs.
He stopped.
His expression went carefully blank in the way that meant he was feeling too much to show safely.
He descended the stairs without looking away from her once.
