Chapter 2

Sophia's hands shook as she fumbled with the locks to their cramped Queens apartment, the borrowed clutch heavy with stolen hors d'oeuvres and a business card that felt like it was burning a hole through the leather.

"Ethan Cross. CEO, Cross Industries."

As if she could forget.

"Mija, is that you?" Her mother's voice drifted from the bedroom, weak but warm with relief.

"Yes, Mami. I'm home." Sophia kicked off the torture devices masquerading as designer heels and padded across the threadbare carpet in her stockings. The apartment seemed even smaller after the opulent grandeur of the Met, the peeling wallpaper and water stained ceiling a harsh reminder of reality.

Elena Martinez was propped up against a mountain of pillows, her once-lustrous black hair now thin and silver, her face gaunt from months of chemotherapy. But her dark eyes so like Sophia's own still held the sharp intelligence that had made her one of New York's most sought after immigration lawyers before the cancer.

"How was the networking event?" Elena asked, though they both knew it hadn't been a networking event. It had been a desperate gamble that had somehow turned into... what? A dinner invitation? A business proposition? A potential disaster?

"Interesting." Sophia perched on the edge of the bed and began unpacking the bounty from her clutch. Smoked salmon canapés, tiny quiches, chocolate dipped strawberries that probably cost more per piece than most people's hourly wage. "I brought you some real food for once."

Elena's laugh turned into a cough that made Sophia's chest tighten. "Stolen food tastes sweeter, doesn't it?"

"I prefer to think of it as aggressive sampling." Sophia arranged the food on a paper plate, trying to make it look less like evidence of a crime. "Besides, they had enough to feed a small country. I was practically doing them a public service."

"And did you meet anyone useful at this aggressive sampling expedition?"

Sophia's fingers stilled on a strawberry. How could she explain that she'd met the one person she'd spent five years avoiding? That he'd recognized her despite her careful disguises and strategic positioning? That he'd looked at her like she was a puzzle he intended to solve?

"I might have a job opportunity," she said carefully.

Elena's eyebrows rose. "What kind of job?"

"I don't know yet. I have a... meeting tomorrow night to discuss it."

"A meeting." Elena's voice carried the tone she'd once used in courtrooms, the one that could make hardened criminals confess their sins. "With who?"

Sophia stood abruptly, busying herself with straightening the medications on the nightstand. Bottles and bottles of pills that cost W amore than most people's rent, each one a small fortune they couldn't afford. "Just a potential client."

"Sophia Elena Martinez." The full name. Elena only used the full name when she meant business. "Look at me."

Reluctantly, Sophia turned to meet her mother's gaze. Elena might be dying, but she was still the sharpest person Sophia knew.

"Who did you meet tonight?"

The lie died on Sophia's lips under her mother's steady stare. "Ethan Cross."

Elena went very still. "Ethan Cross. As in"

"As in the son of the man Papa destroyed, yes." Sophia sank back onto the bed, suddenly exhausted. "He recognized me, Mami. Somehow, after all these years, he knew exactly who I was."

"What did he want?"

"I don't know. He asked me to dinner tomorrow night. Said he had a proposition."

Elena was quiet for a long moment, studying her daughter's face with the intensity of a woman who'd spent decades reading people's secrets. "And you said yes."

It wasn't a question.

"I said I'd think about it."

"But you're going."

Sophia's shoulders sagged. "I have to. Do you know what our medical bills are going to be next month? The new treatment protocol alone is going to cost"

"I know what it costs." Elena's voice was gentle but firm. "I also know that desperation makes people do dangerous things."

"It's just dinner."

"Nothing is ever just dinner with men like Ethan Cross." Elena reached for Sophia's hand, her fingers thin and cold but still strong. "I knew his father, you know. Before... before everything went wrong."

Sophia blinked in surprise. "You did?"

"David Cross was a good man. Honorable. The kind of businessman who still believed in handshake deals and treating people fairly." Elena's eyes grew distant. "When your father first partnered with him, I thought it was the best thing that could have happened to our family. David was going to help stabilize your father's more... impulsive tendencies."

"What went wrong?"

Elena sighed, suddenly looking every one of her fifty eight years. "Your father got greedy. And when Marcus Reid offered him a chance to make ten times what he was making with David, he took it. He took it and he betrayed one of the few truly good men I've ever known."

"Mami..." Sophia had never heard this version of the story. Her father had always painted it as a simple business decision, a calculated move to secure their family's future.

"David Cross lost everything. His company, his reputation, his marriage. The stress triggered a heart attack that left him an invalid for the last three years of his life." Elena's grip tightened on Sophia's hand. "And his son watched it all happen. Watched his father waste away while the men who destroyed him prospered."

A chill ran down Sophia's spine. "You think Ethan wants revenge."

"I think Ethan Cross is a man who's had five years to plan for this moment. The question is: what does revenge look like to him?"

They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of the past pressing down on them like a physical thing. Finally, Elena spoke again.

"But I also think you're going to dinner with him anyway."

Sophia met her mother's eyes. "I have to try, Mami. The doctors said the new treatment could give you another five years, maybe ten. But if we can't pay for it..."

"I'm not afraid of dying, mija."

"Well, I'm afraid of losing you." The words came out fiercer than Sophia intended. "You're all I have left. I'm not giving up on you, even if it means having dinner with the devil himself."

Elena smiled, the expression transforming her gaunt face into something beautiful again. "The devil, hmm? And what does the devil look like these days?"

Despite everything, Sophia felt heat rise in her cheeks. "Like trouble."

"Ah." Elena's smile widened. "The dangerous kind of trouble, I assume."

"Mami."

"What? I may be dying, but I'm not dead. And I've seen the business magazines you think you're hiding from me. Ethan Cross is a very attractive man."

"That's not This isn't about" Sophia sputtered, then gave up. Her mother had always been able to read her like an open book. "It doesn't matter what he looks like. This is strictly business."

"Of course it is." Elena's tone was perfectly innocent, but her eyes danced with mischief. "Just promise me you'll be careful. Revenge is a dish best served cold, but sometimes it comes with a side of seduction."

"You're being dramatic."

"I'm being realistic. Men like Ethan Cross don't invite the daughters of their enemies to dinner at Le Bernardin without an agenda. The question is whether you're prepared for whatever that agenda might be."

Sophia thought about the way he'd looked at her in the ballroom, the calculated interest in his storm gray eyes, the way her pulse had jumped when he'd smiled at her.

"I can handle Ethan Cross."

Elena squeezed her hand. "I hope so, mija. Because something tells me that handling him is going to be a lot more complicated than you think."

As if on cue, Sophia's phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.

*Car will pick you up at 7:30 tomorrow. Wear the blue dress from your interview at the Ritz last month. It brings out your eyes.

Sophia stared at the message, her blood running cold. He'd been watching her for months. He knew where she lived, what she wore, probably what she ate for breakfast.

Elena read the message over her shoulder and whistled low. "Definitely more complicated than you think."

"How does he know about the blue dress?"

"The same way he knows everything else about you, apparently." Elena settled back against her pillows, but her expression was troubled. "Be very careful tomorrow night, Sophia. I have a feeling your life is about to change in ways you can't imagine."

Sophia looked at the message again, then at her mother's concerned face, then at the bottles of medication that represented hope and bankruptcy in equal measure.

"Maybe that's not such a bad thing," she said quietly.

But even as she said it, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was about to make a deal with the devil.

And the devil, apparently, had very good taste in dresses.