Catherine’s POV
A large hand closed around Harold’s raised arm before the bottle could come down.
The force of it stopped him so completely that the glass shook in his grip.
Harold’s face changed as he looked up, and the color slowly drained from it.
The man standing behind him was dressed in a black suit, the top button of his shirt undone.
He was tall enough to make the restaurant lights seem lower, broad enough to block the space between Harold and me.
His dark hair was neatly pushed back, and his face was calm—too calm for a man who had just stopped a bottle with one hand.
The room fell silent.
Even the waiters stopped moving.
No one spoke as the stranger tightened his fingers around Harold’s arm.
He did not raise his voice or make a threat.
He simply looked at him, and that cold, steady gaze carried more force than any shout.
“Put it down,” he said.
Ricci tried to pull away.
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
The man’s expression did not change.
“The person giving you one last chance.”
Ricci’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
His eyes shifted from the stranger’s face to the hand holding his arm.
He seemed to realize, a second too late, that he had made the wrong choice.
The man twisted his arm down.
Another crack rang through the restaurant.
Ricci screamed so loudly that several people flinched.
The wine bottle slipped from his fingers and shattered against the floor, while he collapsed beside the table, clutching his other arm against his chest.
I stood frozen, my pulse pounding as I looked at the man beside me.
I knew him.
The dark suit.
The cold green eyes.
The quiet authority that had silenced Marco on the plane.
It was the man from first class.
“Let go of me!” Harold shrieked, clutching his injured arm.
“You violent thug!
I’ll sue you and everyone in this damn restaurant!”
He tried to pull free, but the stranger’s grip tightened just enough to make him wince.
“Then make sure you remember what happened,” the man said coldly.
Harold’s face twisted with fear and fury.
He looked around the restaurant, but no one stepped forward to help him.
A moment later, he stumbled toward the exit, still shouting about lawsuits and police as he fled.
Only after Harold disappeared through the doors did the man release his arm and turn toward me.
I could not understand how he had appeared here, or why he had found me again.
My voice came out softer than I intended.
“What are you doing here?”
Lorenzo’s POV
“What are you doing here?”
Her question pulled me back to the restaurant.
Romano is my family’s true surname.
For the contract marriage, I adopted the alias Marino for official paperwork.
People usually chose their words carefully around me.
They lowered their voices, avoided my eyes, and never demanded an explanation unless they were prepared to face the consequences.
Catherine Vitale did none of those things.
She stood in front of me with red marks around her wrist, her hair slightly out of place, and anger still shining in her blue eyes.
She was shaken, but she was not crying.
Even after everything that had happened, she held herself straight and waited for an answer as if I were just another man she had no reason to fear.
“I come here often,” I said.
It was true, but it did not explain why I had crossed the restaurant the moment I saw that man raise the bottle.
For the past three days, I had been unable to sleep properly.
Business had never kept me awake before.
I had dealt with betrayals, threats, and bloodshed without allowing any of them to disturb my rest.
Only an hour earlier, I had settled a dispute between two of my crews.
One of my men had been shot, several men from the other side had been taken away, and the matter had been handled before I came here for dinner.
I had not thought about it since.
But whenever my mind became quiet, Catherine’s image would surface.
There was something familiar about her face.
The shape of her brow, the line of her mouth, and the quiet pride in the way she carried herself had stayed with me since the plane.
Every time I looked at her, I remembered Natasha.
Natasha Moretti had been six when she disappeared.
I had been old enough to understand that she needed protection and old enough to know that I had failed to give it to her.
For years, I had told myself there was nothing I could have done, but no explanation had ever changed the truth.
I had not protected her.
Sometimes I wondered what Natasha would look like if she had grown up.
What kind of woman she would have become.
Whether she would still hold her chin high when she was frightened, or carry the same stubborn courage she had shown as a child.
Then Catherine had brushed past my armrest in her cheap cardigan, and I had found myself imagining the answer.
People were usually assets, threats, or obstacles.
I judged them, dealt with them, and moved on.
Catherine was the first person in years who had remained in my mind after she left.
Now she was standing in front of me again, and I had just broken another man’s arm before giving myself time to think.
After settling the dispute between my crews, I had come to this restaurant because it was one of the few places in the city where I could eat without being interrupted.
I had expected a quiet meal and a few hours without family demands or business problems.
Instead, Catherine had appeared at the table across from me.
I did not believe in fate.
Still, it was difficult to ignore the fact that Catherine had crossed my path twice in three days, and both times someone had put their hands on her.
“You could have chosen any restaurant in the city,” she said, still watching me carefully.
“Why this one?”
“Because I like the food.”
Her eyes moved to the man groaning on the floor.
“You broke his arm.”
“I broke the other one,” I said.
“You dislocated his wrist.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you were here.”
“No,” I agreed.
“It doesn’t.”
She frowned at me, and that small show of irritation almost made me smile.
Most people became nervous when I refused to explain myself.
Catherine only became more determined to get an answer.
“Thank you,” she said after a moment.
“For helping me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I should repay you.”
That caught my attention.
“How?”
She glanced at the broken wine bottle near Ricci.
“Dinner, perhaps.
It’s the least I can do.
You’ve helped me twice.”
“You think what I did is worth a plate of food?”
Her chin lifted, and the same quiet stubbornness I had noticed on the plane returned to her face.
“If you want something else, you can say so.”
Natasha would have asked the same question.
I should have left.
Instead, I pulled out the chair across from her and sat down.
Catherine hesitated before taking her seat, keeping her purse close to her side as if she still had not decided whether I was more dangerous than the man on the floor.
She was right to be cautious.
Up close, I could see the faint tension in her shoulders and the red marks around her wrist.
I could also see the details I had missed on the plane: the soft curve of her mouth, the clear blue of her eyes, and the way anger made her look even more beautiful.
I had spent years training myself not to want anything I could not control.
Catherine made that discipline feel useless.
My father had been pressuring me for weeks to marry Valentina.
He called it duty and reminded me of the alliance between the Moretti and Romano families, the power it would bring, and the problems that would follow if the two families drifted apart.
I had refused every time.
Natasha had been the only woman I had ever agreed to marry, and she was gone.
I had no intention of allowing my family to replace her with another woman simply because they needed an alliance and a wedding photograph.
After tonight’s argument, however, my father had pushed harder.
He warned me that the agreement between the families was weakening and that I could not avoid my responsibilities forever.
So I had agreed to attend a few introductions.
I had never intended to choose anyone.
Marriage had always been a business arrangement to me—a tool to protect the family, lock down alliances, or end an argument.
Catherine had just given me a much better solution to two separate problems.
She needed a way out of the Vitale family, and I needed a wife who would stop my father from arranging one for me.
“Marry me,” I said.