Buy armor, not a costume.
Below it was a card with my name embossed on the front.
I called Lorenzo immediately.
“You can’t just send me a card,” I said when he answered.
“I can.”
“I won’t be bought.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
“Because you were going to wear something designed to make them comfortable.”
I looked toward my closet.
He was right.
My first instinct had been navy. Safe. Modest. Forgettable.
Something that said, I’m fine, please don’t look too closely.
Lorenzo’s voice lowered. “Do not dress like an apology, Hazel.”
I closed my eyes.
No one had ever said that to me before.
By Thursday afternoon, I was standing in a private fitting room at a designer studio in SoHo, surrounded by mirrors, silk, pins, and women who looked at my body like it was architecture instead of a problem.
The gown was emerald green.
Not dark enough to hide.
Not bright enough to beg.
It hugged my waist, celebrated my hips, lifted my chest, and fell in a clean, devastating line to the floor with a slit that revealed one leg when I walked.
I stared at myself and waited for the familiar voice in my head.
Too big.
Too loud.
Too much.
But the voice didn’t come.
Instead, I heard Lorenzo from the night before.
Do not dress like an apology.
When I stepped out of the fitting room, the seamstress smiled.
“There,” she said softly. “That’s the woman they’re afraid of.”
On Friday, Lorenzo took me to dinner.
Not somewhere flashy. Not somewhere he could parade me like proof.
A quiet Italian restaurant in the West Village where the owner hugged him, called him “Mr. Moretti,” and gave us a table near the back with a view of the kitchen.
“You’re not what I expected,” I said over handmade pasta.
“What did you expect?”
“A villain.”
He considered that. “I am, to some people.”
“That’s honest.”
“I try not to lie to women I respect.”
The word respect landed heavier than flirtation.
“Do you respect me,” I asked, “or do you just find my situation useful?”
His expression did not change, but something in his eyes shifted.
“Both can be true,” he said. “At first, I saw an opportunity. Liam Carter stole from accounts connected to my family. Your wedding invitation gave me a stage. But then you told me what he did to you.”
“And?”
“And I decided the stage belonged to you.”
I picked up my wine, mostly so my hands had something to do.
“Lorenzo, I need to know something.”
“Ask.”
“If this gets ugly, how ugly?”
His gaze sharpened.
“No one touches you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No one dies at your sister’s wedding, if that is what you mean.”
I stared at him.
He almost smiled.
“You look disappointed.”
“I look concerned.”
“As you should.” He leaned forward. “Listen to me, Hazel. I am not a good man because I say charming things in restaurants. I have done things you would not forgive easily.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
“Because you deserve a choice.”
Outside, rain blurred the windows. For a moment, I saw something behind his controlled face. Not softness exactly. More like restraint, learned the hard way.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
His jaw tightened.
“A long time ago, someone I loved was humiliated in a room full of people who called themselves family. She never recovered from it.”
“Who?”
“My mother.”
The answer surprised me.
“She raised me alone,” he continued. “My father’s people treated her like dirt because she was a waitress from Queens. Too curvy. Too loud. Too foreign. Too poor. They laughed when she walked into rooms.”
His eyes went cold.
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