Sienna's phone had been buzzing all morning.
Not Alessandro—she'd blocked that number after he'd sent his fifteenth "we need to talk" text in three days. But Jade, who'd seen the photos from the gallery opening that some society blogger had posted online.
Jade: "BITCH. You're dating Dante Moretti??? THE Dante Moretti? And you didn't tell me???"
Jade: "Also you look HOT in that red dress. I'm taking full credit for making you buy it."
Jade: "Also also—Alessandro looks MISERABLE in the background of pic #3. I'm printing it out and framing it."
Sienna smiled at her phone, curled up in the window seat of Dante's office. She'd come by to discuss the Brooklyn project's community engagement strategy, but they'd gotten derailed talking about his favorite books and her terrible cooking skills and somehow an hour had passed with zero work accomplished.
"Your friend seems enthusiastic," Dante said from his desk, where he was pretending to review contracts while actually watching her.
"Jade's been my cheerleader since college. She takes her job very seriously." Sienna typed back a quick response, then set her phone aside. "She also wants to meet you. Fair warning—she'll interrogate you like you're applying for the FBI."
"I can handle interrogation. I did two years of business school. Same thing, really."
"Liar. Business school doesn't ask if your intentions are honorable."
"Are we talking about your intentions or mine?" Dante closed his laptop, gave her his full attention. "Because I should warn you—my intentions are only about sixty percent honorable at any given time."
Sienna felt heat creep up her neck. They'd been dating for three weeks now, and Dante had been almost frustratingly respectful. Goodnight kisses. Hand-holding. Nothing more. She appreciated it—mostly—but there was a part of her that wondered if he was holding back because he was being a gentleman or because he wasn't actually that attracted to her.
"What's the other forty percent?" she asked, testing.
"Thoughts that would probably get me sued by HR if I said them out loud in my office."
"We're the only ones here."
"Technicality." But his eyes darkened slightly. "You're dangerous, Sienna Morales. You know that?"
"How am I dangerous?"
"Because you make me want things I haven't wanted in years. Lazy Sunday mornings. Someone to cook for. A reason to leave the office before midnight." He stood, crossed to the window seat, sat down beside her. Close but not touching. "You make me want a life outside of work. And that's terrifying."
"Why terrifying?"
"Because I'm very good at work. I'm not sure I'm good at anything else."
Sienna studied his profile—the slight crook in his nose from a childhood soccer injury, the gray threading through his hair at the temples, the way he held tension in his jaw even when he was supposedly relaxed. Dante Moretti was thirty-six years old and successful and handsome, and he was sitting here telling her he was scared of having a real relationship.
She understood that better than he probably realized.
"Can I tell you something?" she said.
"Always."
"I'm not sure I'm good at this either. At dating, at trusting someone, at believing I deserve to be someone's first choice instead of their secret." She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them. "I keep waiting for you to show me who you really are. The version of you that's going to disappoint me."
"That's bleak."
"That's realistic." She rested her chin on her knees. "Alessandro spent three years showing me exactly who he was. I just kept refusing to believe it. Kept thinking if I was patient enough, understanding enough, easy enough, he'd choose me. And he never did."
"I'm not him."
"I know. Intellectually, I know that. But emotionally?" She shrugged. "There's this voice in my head that sounds like my therapist, and she keeps saying 'actions over words, Sienna. Watch what he does, not what he says.'"
"Smart therapist."
"The best. Jade found her." Sienna turned to face him. "So I'm watching, Dante. I'm watching how you introduce me to people. How you make time for me even when you're slammed with work. How you remember that I'm lactose intolerant and I hate cilantro and I have a weird thing about movies where dogs die."
"Everyone has a thing about movies where dogs die. That's just being human."
She smiled. "My point is—you're doing everything right. You're kind and respectful and you actually listen when I talk. You're everything Alessandro wasn't."
"I sense a 'but' coming."
"But I'm scared I'm just rebounding. That I'm with you because you're the opposite of him, not because you're actually right for me." The words hurt to say out loud, but they'd been sitting in her chest for days. "And I'm scared you're with me because I'm connected to Alessandro, not because you actually want me."
There it was. The fear she'd been avoiding since the night he'd told her about Alessandro destroying his business deal. The question that kept her up at night: were they using each other, or were they building something real?
Dante was quiet for a long moment. Outside his window, Manhattan spread out below them—all steel and glass and endless ambition. The city that never stopped wanting more.
"Okay," he said finally. "I'm going to be really honest with you, and you're probably not going to like it."
Sienna's stomach dropped. "Okay."
"When I first approached you at the Hartwell gala, I didn't know you were connected to Alessandro. I genuinely just thought you were brilliant and beautiful and I wanted to talk to you." He paused. "But after I found out? After I realized you were the woman he'd kept hidden for three years? Yeah, there was a part of me that liked that symmetry. That enjoyed the idea of dating his ex. Of rubbing it in his face."
The honesty hurt, but Sienna appreciated it more than she would've appreciated a comfortable lie.
"But here's the thing," Dante continued. "That part gets smaller every day. At first, maybe forty percent of why I was excited to see you was because of Alessandro. Now? It's maybe five percent. And that five percent isn't 'I want to hurt him.' It's more like... satisfaction that you chose me over him. That you saw what he couldn't offer and decided you deserved better."
"And the other ninety-five percent?"
"The other ninety-five percent is you." He reached for her hand, laced their fingers together. "It's the way you challenge my ideas and make them better. It's how you laugh at my terrible jokes even when they bomb. It's the fact that you fell asleep on my couch last Tuesday during our planning session, and watching you sleep was the most peaceful I've felt in months."
Sienna remembered that. She'd been exhausted from back-to-back client meetings, and Dante's couch had been so comfortable, and the next thing she knew he was gently shaking her awake two hours later with Thai takeout and an apology for having such a boring voice during presentations.
"I didn't think you noticed," she said.
"I notice everything about you." His thumb traced circles on the back of her hand. "And yeah, maybe we started for the wrong reasons. Maybe there's some mutual benefit in making Alessandro uncomfortable. But I don't think that makes what we have fake. I think it makes us human."
"My therapist would probably agree with you."
"See? I like her already." Dante smiled. "Here's what I know—I look forward to seeing you. Not because of who your ex is, but because you make me laugh and you call me out when I'm being an idiot and you're the smartest person I know. That's real, Sienna. Whatever else this is, that part is real."
She wanted to believe him. God, she wanted to believe him so badly.
"I'm still scared," she admitted.
"Me too."
"Of what?"
"Of screwing this up. Of being so focused on not being Alessandro that I end up being someone equally wrong for you, just in a different way." He squeezed her hand. "Of falling for you and then losing you because you decide I'm just a rebound after all."
"Are you? Falling for me?"
Dante looked at her for a long moment. "Yeah. I think I am."
The admission hung between them, fragile and honest.
Sienna's heart did something complicated in her chest. She wasn't ready to say it back—wasn't ready to love anyone yet, maybe wouldn't be ready for months or years. But hearing it? Knowing that Dante was willing to be vulnerable enough to admit it?
That meant something.
"I can't promise I'm ready to feel the same way," she said carefully. "Not yet. Maybe not for a while."
"I know."
"But I want to try. I want to see where this goes without overthinking every moment or waiting for you to disappoint me."
"I'll probably disappoint you eventually," Dante said. "I'm human. I'll mess up. Say the wrong thing. Work too much. Forget important dates."
"As long as you don't keep me as a secret while marrying someone else, I think I can handle normal human mistakes."
"That's a pretty low bar."
"Welcome to dating someone with trust issues." She smiled. "We come with low bars and high anxiety."
Dante laughed, pulled her closer. She let herself lean into him, rest her head on his shoulder. It felt good. Easy. Like maybe they could actually build something that wasn't just about revenge or rebounds or proving points to ex-lovers.
"So," Dante said after a moment. "Want to meet my sister?"
Sienna pulled back to look at him. "Your sister?"
"Isabella. She's in town next weekend. I usually grab brunch with her when she visits." He looked suddenly uncertain. "No pressure. But I thought... if you wanted to meet her, I'd like that. She's important to me. You're becoming important to me. It feels like something I should do."
Meeting family. That was a step. A real step. The kind of step Alessandro had never taken, never even suggested.
"I'd love to," Sienna said.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." She kissed him, soft and sweet. "Thank you for asking."
"Thank you for saying yes." He kissed her back, a little longer this time. When they pulled apart, he was smiling. "Fair warning—Isabella's going to grill you worse than your friend Jade. Italian mothers train their daughters well in the art of interrogation."
"I can handle it."
"Good. Because she's been on me for years about settling down. If I show up with an actual girlfriend, she might cry from joy."
They spent the rest of the afternoon actually working—Sienna walking Dante through the community engagement strategy she'd developed, Dante asking smart questions and pushing back on ideas that needed refining. It was professional. Productive. But every so often, their eyes would meet across his desk, and Sienna would remember the weight of his admission: I think I'm falling for you.
By the time she left his office, the sun was setting over Manhattan, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold. Sienna walked to the subway feeling something she hadn't felt in years.
Hope.
Maybe this could work. Maybe she could be with someone who actually valued her, who didn't hide her away, who introduced her to his family because he was proud to be with her.
Maybe she deserved that.
Her phone buzzed. Not Jade this time. A number she didn't recognize.
Unknown: "This is Vanessa Castellano. We should talk. Coffee tomorrow? I promise I don't bite. Much."
Sienna stared at the message, heart pounding.
Alessandro's wife wanted to meet her.
This couldn't be good.
She should ignore it. Delete it. Pretend she never saw it.
Instead, she found herself typing: "When and where?"
The response came immediately: "Café Noir. 10 AM. Come alone."
Sienna pocketed her phone, descended into the subway, and tried not to think about all the ways this could explode in her face.
But even as she told herself to cancel, to avoid whatever drama Vanessa was planning, another part of her was curious. What did Alessandro's wife want? Why now? And why did the message sound less like a threat and more like... an invitation?
She'd spent three years being Alessandro's secret. Maybe it was time to hear from the woman who'd been his public face.
Even if it was a terrible idea.
Especially because it was a terrible idea.
Her phone buzzed again. Dante.
"Already miss you. Is that pathetic?"
She smiled despite her anxiety about tomorrow.
"Little bit. But I miss you too."
"Good. Same time Wednesday?"
"It's a date."
And it was. A real date with a man who wasn't ashamed to be seen with her. Who wanted her to meet his sister. Who was falling for her even though it terrified him.
Sienna tucked her phone away and tried to focus on that—on the good thing happening in her life right now—instead of worrying about whatever mess awaited her tomorrow morning at Café Noir.
But as the subway rattled through the dark tunnels beneath Manhattan, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was standing at a crossroads.
One path led forward with Dante—uncertain but hopeful, scary but real.
The other led back into Alessandro's orbit, even tangentially, even through his wife.
She'd chosen to leave him six months ago.
Tomorrow, she'd have to choose all over again.
And she wasn't entirely sure which choice she'd make.