Chapter 1

Tuberoses filled the ballroom, their heavy scent setting off my migraine. No surprise there.

I'd made a point of telling Matteo long ago that I couldn't be around that smell.

The throbbing in my temples kept getting worse, and the charity ball wasn't even half over.

Matteo finally wrapped up his conversation and started toward me.

I thought he'd remembered the second dance he'd promised me. I was about to tell him I wasn't well enough to dance.

Before I could, he raised a hand. The manager stopped chatting with a guest and hurried over.

Tall and commanding, Matteo was looking over at Bianca, who'd pulled a cashmere wrap around her shoulders. There was a rare tenderness in his eyes.

"Turn the heat up a couple of degrees."

The manager nodded and hurried off. When Matteo turned and saw me holding my head, he frowned.

"What's wrong?"

"It's my migraine," I said quietly.

His gaze swept over the huge arrangements of tuberoses in full bloom, and he looked torn.

"We have important guests tonight. Changing the decorations now would be rude. I'll have a waiter take you upstairs to lie down."

He was about to put an arm around me when Bianca cried out.

A drunk young member of the extended family stumbled and fell, knocking into her left shoulder.

Bianca had an old injury in that shoulder, and it flared up in the cold.

She'd put on the cashmere wrap early in the evening. Maybe her shoulder had already been acting up.

The impact sent her crumpling to the floor, clutching her shoulder in pain.

Matteo's face darkened. He crossed the room in a few long strides, then gathered her gently into his arms.

Every eye was on the two of them, locked in an embrace, but my vision suddenly blurred. I couldn't tell if it was from the pain or the tears.

When had he started being so much gentler with Bianca?

After my father died in that ambush, I hadn't wanted to see anyone for a long time. I'd spent every day in the records room, sorting through what he'd left behind.

My father had always been so careful. I couldn't accept that he was really gone, and I became obsessed with finding something more, any clue at all.

That was when Matteo suddenly started pursuing me. He sent so many flowers that they filled the whole records room, and I sent every last one back.

"Don... I'm sorry, but strong-smelling flowers give me migraines. Please don't send me any more."

I hid behind the door as I spoke, fumbling over my words. His gesture touched me, but I wasn't ready to let him in.

Matteo agreed and had the room cleared of every flower.

Now and then he'd come keep me company in the records room, a few freshly picked daisies tucked into the lapel of his coat.

"I just finished dealing with some rivals. These were blooming everywhere, and I thought they suited you."

Often he'd just lean back on the couch without a word, watching me, lost in thought. The smell of gunpowder on him mixed with the clean scent of daisies.

That was my very first memory of love.

Between my grief and Matteo's silence, our relationship went nowhere for a long time. In the end, Bianca stepped in and played matchmaker.

"Your dad would want you to start a new life. Don't let someone who's good to you slip away."

She kept telling me to give Matteo a chance, and she set up our dates.

I envied how effortlessly Bianca worked a room and how easily she handled matters of the heart.

Back then she often kept me company. I'd never been good with words, so she taught me how to flirt. And she taught Matteo, who was cold and hard with everyone else, how to act like a gentleman.

As Matteo and I grew closer, he went out of his way to thank her.

At first, he only thanked her for bringing us together and asked what I liked. Gradually, though, they started having long conversations of their own, even about things that had nothing to do with me.

I thought they just got along well. It never once occurred to me that anything was off.

Looking back, I'd been so slow to see it.

If Matteo could fall for the version of me Bianca had helped create, of course he'd fall even harder for Bianca herself.

Matteo's anger put the whole room on edge.

The drunk lay on the floor, so far gone he barely knew where he was. Matteo looked at him like he was something he'd scraped off his shoe.

A few of the guards understood without being told. They stepped in and dragged him out without mercy.

I stood at the edge of the crowd, breaking out in a cold sweat from the pain in my temples. I had to hold on to a table to stay on my feet.

But watching Matteo fuss over Bianca, my migraine suddenly didn't seem so painful anymore.

Matteo wouldn't take down the decorations for me, but for Bianca, he didn't care if he made a spectacle of himself in front of everyone.

I should have seen it coming.