Chapter 15 - He Seems Sweet to MeBelladonna still had crystal glasses.
Olivia had considered replacing them with something less dramatic.
Maya refused.
“History requires props.”
Five years after the night everything began, Olivia stood near the kitchen entrance checking reservations.
She was thirty-one now.
Her hair was shorter.
Her confidence no longer depended on pretending she was not afraid.
Belladonna was no longer a Moretti restaurant.
Olivia and two partners had purchased it from Moretti Hospitality eighteen months earlier.
With ordinary financing.
Ordinary investors.
Ordinary paperwork.
Maya had called the transaction gloriously boring.
Table twelve remained in the same place.
Orion slept beside it.
His black fur had silver around the muzzle.
His amber eyes remained sharp.
A new waitress named Hannah approached with a tray.
She was twenty-three and terrified of the enormous dog.
Olivia smiled.
“He won’t hurt you.”
Hannah whispered, “Are you sure?”
“No.”
Hannah stared.
Olivia laughed.
“I’m kidding.”
Hannah hesitantly reached down.
Orion sniffed her fingers.
Then looked away.
Hannah frowned.
“He doesn’t like me.”
“He doesn’t dislike you.”
“That sounded diplomatic.”
“He’s old. He’s earned it.”
The front door opened.
Olivia did not look immediately.
She was reading a reservation note.
Then Orion stood.
Slowly.
His ears lifted.
The room seemed to change.
Olivia froze.
She knew before she turned.
Dante Moretti stood inside the entrance.
Forty-seven now.
A little leaner.
A little gray near the temples.
No bodyguards.
No charcoal overcoat that cost more than her first car.
Just a dark jacket, white shirt and a small travel bag in one hand.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then Orion ran.
Not fast.
He was too old.
But with everything he had.
Dante dropped the bag.
He knelt.
Orion collided with him.
Dante buried both hands in the dog’s fur.
His face broke.
Not with the controlled emotion Olivia remembered.
With tears.
“You got old.”
Orion whined.
Dante laughed.
“So did I.”
Olivia stood beside table twelve.
Her vision blurred.
Dante looked up.
Their eyes met.
Five years disappeared.
And did not disappear at all.
Every mistake remained.
Every consequence.
Every letter.
Every visit.
Every silence.
Every choice.
Dante stood.
He approached slowly.
Olivia folded her arms because otherwise her hands would shake.
“You’re late.”
He looked at the clock.
“By three minutes.”
“I have standards.”
“I remember.”
They stopped several feet apart.
Dante looked around the restaurant.
“You kept table twelve.”
“Bad business decision.”
“Sentimental.”
“Don’t spread rumors.”
He smiled.
Then his expression softened.
“You look happy.”
“I am.”
That answer mattered.
Dante nodded.
“I’m glad.”
Olivia looked at him.
“And you?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Good answer.
No performance.
No claim that prison had transformed him into someone perfect.
Just truth.
Hannah passed behind them carrying glasses.
One slipped.
It hit the marble floor.
CRACK.
The crystal shattered.
The sound froze Olivia.
For one instant, she was twenty-six again.
Rocco’s hand around her arm.
Samuel reaching beneath his jacket.
Dante slamming his palm against the table.
Stop.
Orion pressing against her leg.
She looked down.
The old dog now stood between her and Dante.
Not protecting either.
Connecting them.
Dante looked at the broken glass.
Then at Olivia.
He remembered too.
Hannah panicked.
“I’m so sorry!”
Olivia laughed.
“It’s fine.”
The entire restaurant resumed breathing.
Dante glanced at Orion.
“He still doesn’t let strangers touch him?”
“Some things never change.”
Orion returned to Olivia and leaned against her leg.
Dante raised an eyebrow.
“Traitor.”
Olivia scratched behind Orion’s ears.
Then she looked at Dante.
“He seems sweet to me.”
The exact words struck both of them.
Dante laughed.
Really laughed.
Olivia’s chest tightened.
Five years earlier, that sentence had frightened him.
Now it sounded like forgiveness.
Not complete forgiveness.
Maybe that was not real.
But enough.
Dante looked at table twelve.
“Is that seat taken?”
Olivia considered him.
“For dinner?”
“For whatever you’re willing to give me.”
She liked that answer too.
“No promises?”
“None.”
“No secrets?”
“I’m trying something new.”
“No armed men frightening my staff?”
“Rocco retired.”
Olivia blinked.
“He did?”
“Bought a house in New Jersey.”
“That is terrifying.”
“He has tomatoes.”
“Even worse.”
Dante smiled.
Olivia pulled out the chair opposite hers.
“Sit.”
He did.
Orion settled between them.
A server brought water.
Dante looked at the menu.
“I haven’t had decent Italian food in four years.”
Olivia frowned.
“Belladonna is contemporary American.”
Dante stared.
“You changed the menu?”
“I own the restaurant.”
“This may be our first serious problem.”
“Leave.”
“No.”
There he was.
Not the feared Mafia boss.
Not the man who could command a room with one word.
Just Dante.
A flawed man who had done terrible things, paid for some of them and would spend the rest of his life deciding what to do with the freedom he had been given back.
Olivia did not know whether they would marry.
She did not know whether love could survive ordinary life after surviving extraordinary danger.
She did not need to know tonight.
Outside, Manhattan moved around them.
Taxis.
Sirens.
Rain beginning against the windows.
Inside, Orion slept beneath table twelve.
Dante reached across the table.
He stopped before touching her hand.
Even after all these years.
Still asking without words.
Olivia looked at his hand.
Then placed hers inside it.
Dante exhaled.
“Permission?”
“For dinner.”
He smiled.
“I’ll take it.”
Olivia squeezed his fingers.
Across the room, another crystal glass caught the golden light.
Five years earlier, one had shattered and announced the beginning of danger.
Tonight, nothing shattered.
Nothing exploded.
No one ran.
No one threatened anyone.
And Olivia realized that was the ending her father had wanted for her all along.
Not money.
Not power.
Not revenge.
A life ordinary enough that she could choose whom to trust.
She looked down at Orion.
The old dog opened one amber eye.
Olivia smiled.
“You knew first, didn’t you?”
Orion closed his eye again.
Dante asked, “What?”
“Nothing.”
She looked back at him.
Then, because there were no bodyguards rushing toward her and no dead man’s secrets waiting beneath the floor, Olivia Marshall leaned across table twelve and kissed Dante Moretti.
May you like
This time, nobody told them to stop.
THE END
