2:Get Her In Front Of Me

Nico's POV

I walked into the boardroom and felt something was wrong.

The room was too quiet. Twelve men who never shut up. Not one of them looked at me.

Silvano Greco stared right at me. That told me everything.

I sat down and straightened my cuffs. “Let’s begin.”

Papers shuffled. Someone cleared his throat. Mattia stood by the door with his tablet. His face said he could not speak here.

We started the first item. Silvano slid his phone across the table. It stopped in front of me.

I did not look down. “Something you want to say, Silvano?”

He leaned back with a big smile. “We should talk about the more pressing matter first. The one trending across every platform in Italy.”

Nobody moved.

That is weird, what is trending in my city without me knowing? I have not checked the news since I woke up and came straight here from the hotel.

“Go on,” I said.

“There are photographs. Of you. Going into Palazzo Notte with a woman last night, after you attended the gala. A very specific woman.” He paused like he was on stage. “Reva Aldridge.”

The name dropped like a rock.

I looked at him. Then I looked at the phone.

The photo was grainy. Me. Her. The girl who had already left when I woke up. I had not even known she was the one until now.

Reva Aldridge. Twenty-six. Architect. Petra’s younger sister.

I set the phone down. “Is that all?”

Silvano blinked. “Is that all? Nico, the Aldridge girl is all over the news. Your engagement is effectively…”

“My engagement,” I said coldly, “is my business. Not yours. Not this board’s. Mine.” I let the words sit for three seconds. “But since you made it your business, let us talk. You have been on this board for eleven years, Silvano. In those eleven years you have never once been early. Today you were here forty minutes before anyone else.”

His smile started to die.

“My secretary, who has worked for me for six years, did not call me this morning. Did not send one message. Did not warn me before I walked into this room. Forty minutes is enough time to make a phone call to someone who answers to me.”

The room went dead quiet.

“I am not a stupid man,” I said. “Do not sit at my table and act like I am.”

Silvano opened his mouth.

“I am not finished.” My voice stayed low. “You will not speak again in this meeting. You will sit there and listen. When this meeting is over, you will go home and think very carefully about whether this board is still a place you want to be. Because I promise you, Silvano, the answer matters more to you than it does to me.”

He closed his mouth.

I looked around the table. “Anyone else?”

Silence.

“Good. Meeting adjourned.”

I stood up and walked out.

My secretary waited outside my office. Hands folded. She already knew.

“Signor Castellano,” she said fast, “if you would just let me explain…”

“Your things will be packed and waiting at reception,” I said without stopping. “Security will walk you out.”

“Please.” She followed me. “I have worked for you for six years. I have a family. I made a mistake, I know that, but if you would just…”

I stopped and turned. “You made a choice. There is a difference.” I looked at her one last time. “Goodbye.”

I walked into my office and shut the door.

Mattia was already inside, tablet ready.

“Talk,” I said.

The story is everywhere,” Mattia said. “We have maybe twelve hours before we cannot shape it. I have three options.”

“First one.”

“Full denial. We release a statement, challenge the photos, question the source.”

“Next.”

“Controlled narrative. We get ahead of it. Frame it as a misunderstanding. Petra releases a statement saying mutual agreement to end the engagement quietly.”

“Next.”

Mattia paused. “Contract arrangement. You formalize something with the Aldridge girl. Quickly and publicly. Engagement or marriage. You stop the story by becoming the story.”

I walked to the window. Milan looked the same. Loud. Busy. But the people who mattered did not forget.

Petra had wanted out for months. I knew it. I let it run because the Aldridge alliance was useful. But this was not quiet. This was a fire.

Fires needed to be redirected.

“The Aldridge girl,” I said. “Reva.”

“Yes.”

“Get her in front of me.”

Mattia nodded once. “When?”

“Today.”

I turned from the window. “And Mattia. Find out everything Silvano Greco has ever done that he would not want me to know about.”

Mattia almost smiled. “Already started.”

I sat down at my desk. The phone in my pocket felt heavy. One message from my driver this morning: the girl had left the suite before I woke. No note. No sound. Just gone.

Now the whole city knew her name.

I leaned back. “Mattia, one more thing.”

He waited.

“Make sure the car that picks her up is on time. I do not want her to wait. Not even one minute.”

Mattia typed on the tablet. “Understood.”

I looked at the city again. “She does not know it yet, but her life just changed. Mine too. Let us make this clean.”

Mattia closed the tablet. “I will handle it personally.”

“Good. Go.”

He left.

I stayed at the desk. The photo from Silvano’s phone still burned in my head. Reva Aldridge. Quiet. Careful. Nothing like her sister.

Petra had wanted out. Fine. But she had chosen the wrong way to do it.

Now I would choose the right way.

I picked up my phone and sent one message to Mattia.

“Tell the lawyers to start drafting the contract. Marriage. Heir clause. Full terms. Make it iron tight.”

I set the phone down.

The board thought they had me.

They were dead wrong.

Reva Aldridge was about to walk into my world.

And she was never walking out.