All Chapters of Chosen By The Don: Chapter 1 - Chapter 6

Chapter 1 — The Knock"I can't do this!"The words were already climbing up my throat before he'd even finished talking — before the offer was fully out of his mouth, before I understood I was standing in a stranger's study being asked to trade the rest of my life for a number I couldn't even picture. I didn't say it out loud. Not yet. I just stood there with my heart slamming against my ribs, thinking it on a loop, I can't do this, I can't do this! I can't do this! While a man I'd known for exactly four minutes waited for my answer like he already knew what it would be.But that was still hours away from where this actually started.The eviction notice sat on the kitchen table, face up, where I'd dropped it three hours ago and not touched it since.I was at the sink when I heard the car — a low growl that didn't belong on a street where half the porch lights had been out since spring and nobody had filed a complaint, because what was the point? My hands were pruned from the dishwa

I didn't sleep after that text. I lay there with the phone face-down on my chest, the glow of it gone but the words still burned into the back of my eyes — ask about Sofia — until the sky outside went from black to the dull gray that passed for dawn in my neighborhood.The papers arrived by courier at nine, delivered by a man who didn't introduce himself and didn't wait for a signature on the spot — just handed over a leather folder and said someone would collect it, signed, by five that evening.I sat at the kitchen table with my coffee going cold and read through forty pages of legal language built, as far as I could tell, to make absolutely sure I understood I was getting nothing I wasn't explicitly given. A prenuptial agreement that protected every Rosetti asset down to the silverware. A confidentiality clause with penalties steep enough to make my hands sweat reading them. A minimum term — three years — and the narrow list of conditions under which either of us could ask out ear

I woke up on my wedding morning in a guest suite the size of my entire childhood home, in a bed with sheets that probably cost more than my last paycheck, and stared at the ceiling for a long time before I let myself get up.My mother had stayed the night — a small mercy Damiano had arranged without being asked, a car sent for her the evening before so she wouldn't have to make the drive alone. I hadn't expected the gesture. I wasn't sure what to do with the fact that it had moved me."You look pale," she said, sitting on the edge of the bed, still in her robe, watching me with the particular sharpness only a mother could manage. "Are you sure about this? Even now. It's not too late.""It is, actually." I tried to smile. "The debt's already gone, Mom. He cleared it the day I signed. There's no version of today where I back out and we're not in exactly the trouble we were in three weeks ago, except worse, because now he knows we tried to use him.""That's not what I asked."I looked do