Chapter 2 - Dinner With the Devil
By six forty-five the next evening, I had changed my mind eleven times.
My mother made it twelve.
“Go.”
She lay propped against hospital pillows, looking impossibly small beneath a pale blue blanket.
“Mom, he had someone investigate me.”
“And then paid my medical bills.”
“That does not make the first part less creepy.”
“No. It makes him a rich creep.”
I stared at her.
She smiled.
Cancer had taken her hair, her appetite, and twenty-seven pounds.
It had not taken her sense of humor.
“I raised you to have standards,” she continued. “I did not raise you to turn down free steak.”
I laughed despite myself.
Then her expression softened.
“Go find out why.”
So I went.
At precisely seven, a black Bentley waited outside my apartment.
Salvatore was inside.
That surprised me.
Men like him sent drivers.
Apparently, Salvatore Constantino collected women personally.
His gaze traveled over the dark green dress I had borrowed from Marcus’s sister.
“You look beautiful.”
No performance.
No exaggerated stare.
Just a statement.
“You look expensive.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
“I am.”
That was the first time I saw him smile.
Dinner wasn’t at a restaurant.
It was on the roof of a private building overlooking Manhattan.
One table.
Two chairs.
Candles protected inside glass cylinders.
No orchestra.
No photographers.
No army of servants.
Salvatore poured sparkling water.
“I don’t drink anymore.”
I glanced at him.
“Religious?”
“No.”
“Health?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“My wife died because of a drunk driver.”
The question died in my throat.
He looked toward the skyline.
“Her name was Elena. She was thirty-eight. I was forty-one.”
Twenty-three years ago.
The hospital bed.
Suddenly I understood.
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then I asked the question that had been eating at me.
“What does that have to do with me?”
He reached inside his jacket.
I tensed.
He noticed.
Slowly, deliberately, he removed a folded piece of paper.
An old newspaper clipping.
The photograph showed a younger Salvatore outside a hospital.
Beside him stood a nurse.
My mother.
I stared.
“She treated Elena?”
“She held my wife’s hand when the doctors could no longer stop the bleeding.”
My eyes burned.
“Your mother stayed three hours after her shift ended. Elena was terrified. Your mother made sure she wasn’t alone.”
“Did Mom know who you were?”
“No.”
“Does she now?”
“No.”
He leaned back.
“Years later, I established a foundation. Quietly. When your mother’s treatment request crossed a hospital administrator’s desk, her name reached me.”
“And you investigated her daughter.”
“Yes.”
“That’s still creepy.”
“Yes.”
I blinked.
“You’re not even going to defend yourself?”
“I’m sixty-four, Lily. I’ve learned not to waste time defending indefensible habits.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Salvatore added, “But discovering you existed was not part of my original intention.”
Something in his voice changed.
“Then what was?”
“Repaying a debt.”
“And now?”
His gaze settled on me.
“Now I would like to know you.”
I looked down at my hands.
“You realize you’re almost forty years older than me.”
“Thirty-eight.”
“You calculated it?”
“Immediately.”
That made me laugh.
Actually laugh.
And Salvatore watched me as if the sound surprised him.
Dinner lasted three hours.
He asked about books.
My mother.
My abandoned plan to attend graduate school.
He never asked why I was single.
Never touched me without permission.
When he took me home, he walked me to the apartment door.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For dinner?”
“For my mother.”
His expression became serious.
“You owe me nothing for that.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
He started to leave.
“Salvatore?”
He turned.
“If I wanted another dinner…”
His eyebrow lifted.
“…would you investigate the menu first?”
His laugh was low and unexpectedly warm.
“Friday?”
“Friday.”
For six weeks, that was all we did.
Dinner.
Coffee.
Walks through Central Park before sunrise because apparently powerful men with enemies disliked predictable schedules.
Salvatore never rushed me.
That was what got me.
Men my age had spent years telling me they were “seeing where things went.”
Salvatore knew exactly where he stood.
When he wanted to see me, he said so.
When he missed me, he said so.
When I disagreed with him, he listened.
Not always happily.
But he listened.
The first time he kissed me, my mother was undergoing treatment.
I had spent nine hours beside her.
Salvatore found me outside the hospital in the rain.
No umbrella.
No bodyguards within sight.
Just him.
“She’s getting worse,” I whispered.
He took off his coat and put it around me.
“I know.”
“I can’t fix it.”
“I know.”
“I hate when you say that.”
“I know.”
I shoved his chest.
He caught my wrists gently.
And something broke inside me.
I cried.
Not gracefully.
Salvatore simply held me.
When I finally looked up, his face was inches from mine.
His thumb brushed one tear away.
“May I kiss you?”
Nobody had ever asked me like that.
I nodded.
His kiss was slow.
Careful.
Almost restrained.
Until I gripped his coat.
Then restraint disappeared.
For ten seconds, I forgot hospitals existed.
When we separated, Salvatore rested his forehead against mine.
“I’ve wanted to do that for forty-three days.”
“You counted?”
“I count everything.”
That should have frightened me.
Instead, I smiled.
Three months later, my mother went into remission.
Six months later, I moved into Salvatore’s penthouse.
And one year after Table Twelve, Salvatore Constantino stood before me inside a quiet chapel and placed a diamond ring on my finger.
“You understand,” he said, “that everyone will have something to say.”
“About the age difference?”
“About everything.”
I smiled.
“Then they’ll have plenty to talk about.”
His eyes warmed.
“Marry me.”
“Yes.”
The tabloids exploded.
MAFIA KING, 65, TO WED 27-YEAR-OLD WAITRESS.
Gold digger.
Midlife crisis.
Sugar baby.
Old fool.
Salvatore read exactly one article.
Then threw the newspaper into the fireplace.
But three weeks before our wedding, another man walked into our engagement party.
A man I had not seen in four years.
Ethan Cole.
My ex-fiancé.
He stared at my ring.
Then at Salvatore.
And smiled.
“Lily.”
Salvatore’s hand settled calmly against my lower back.
Ethan looked directly at him.
“You must be the replacement.”
Salvatore’s face remained perfectly composed.
But his hand stopped moving.
May you like
And I knew enough about my future husband by then to understand something important.
Salvatore Constantino was jealous.
