Sienna POV
Evelyn called the next afternoon and asked me to meet her at a private gallery on the west side.
I knew her the moment I stepped into the hall.
Lovelier than her photographs, pale gold hair falling past her shoulders, a cream suit, no jewelry.
She stood in front of an abstract canvas, looking gentle enough to be harmless.
Nobody who grew up in the Moretti family was harmless.
“Miss Hart.”
She didn’t turn.
Dark red and black tangled across the canvas, two forces devouring each other, a few grey-white strokes cutting through the center.
“What do you think it’s saying?”
I went to stand beside her.
“On the surface, conflict. But the white is the interesting part. It looks like breaking out of the darkness, and yet what it leaves behind is closer to a wound.”
Evelyn turned, amusement in her pretty eyes.
“Then tell me, Miss Hart. Do you want to be the white that tears other people open, or stay trapped in the chaos and be swallowed?”
I heard what she meant and chose not to answer.
She read her answer in my silence.
“I thought you wouldn’t give up this easily.”
She meant yesterday.
I had told her what had happened before coming over, deliberately leaving Adrian’s name out.
Her knowing about her cousin would do me no good.
“Miss Moretti, Luca has made it very clear that he doesn’t need me as his assistant. If I keep hunting for ways to stay beside him, it will only put him more on his guard.”
Evelyn crossed to a sofa and sat, legs folded.
“You spent all that time getting back to his side and took enormous risks. I thought that even if Luca threw you out, you would find a way back in. I didn’t imagine one refusal would be enough to put you off.”
”Because what happened five years ago isn’t going to happen again.” I held her eyes.
“Back then he trusted me. That was my way in.”
She turned her ring, then looked up.
“But if Luca really doesn’t care about you at all, why did he keep you close in the first place?”
She let that hang, then smiled.
“It proves one thing, at least. That reaction of his was far too big. He still cares.”
My fingers tightened on my bag strap.
“I genuinely can’t keep going. The risk has passed anything I can carry.”
She opened her handbag, took out a document, and set it on the table.
My face went flat at the agreement.
Evelyn turned to a page and stopped her fingertip on the breach clause, her tone mild.
“Since you’re determined to quit, you can go. I won’t send anyone to drag you back, and I won’t force you to keep working. But we did sign a contract. You remember the penalty terms.”
I stared at the zeros behind the figure.
She closed the file.
“Or you can tell Luca. Tell him someone paid you to get close to him. What he does with you after that is none of my business. You could tell him first, of course. Tell him I hired you.”
Her smile thinned.
“But who do you think he’d believe? The woman he’s engaged to, or the woman who lied to him five years ago?”
I said nothing.
That was her real card.
Evelyn watched my face, then laid her hand over mine.
“Miss Hart, I have no interest in destroying you. I only need you to understand that I need this finished.”
The warmth came back into her voice, but the pressure underneath didn’t lift.
“This engagement has to end. I can’t do it myself, and the Moretti family must never learn that I moved against it. Only you can keep getting close to Luca. Only you have any chance at the evidence I need.”
She added, “Finish the job and I’ll let you go. Enough money to leave New York and start over, and I won’t come after you.”
She knew what I needed most: freedom.
And she knew that if Luca found out this return had been an assignment, everything I used to be would be exposed.
I was silent a long time.
I reached for the agreement.
“I’ll help you with this last thing,” I said.
“Nothing more.”
Evelyn’s mouth lifted.
“There. That’s better.”
A low male voice came from the end of the hall.
“Evelyn.”
I looked up.
Adrian stood in the entrance, dark trousers and a dark shirt, a black coat slung loosely over one arm, less a man on family business than a passerby.
His gaze landed on her.
Her face lit up.
She went to him and hooked her arm through his, as though it were the most natural thing.
“Adrian, what brings you here?”
”Father sent me to find you.” He looked down at her, resignation in his voice.
“He’s already sent people to fetch you several times. If you don’t come back, he’ll come himself.”
Evelyn laughed and leaned into him.
“Then take me back.”
Adrian tapped her forehead with two fingers.
“Cheeky.”
His eyes moved to me and stopped.
“You two know each other?”
”She’s Luca’s assistant,” Evelyn said.
“I asked her to look at the exhibition with me.”
Adrian didn’t press.
He gave me a flat look.
“Miss Hart, then.”
”Mr.
Moretti.”
”Where do you live?”
I hesitated, then shook my head.
“I can get myself home.”
”Let Adrian drive you,” Evelyn said.
“He’s going back that way anyway.”
I had no choice but to nod.
In the car, Evelyn took the passenger seat while I sat in the back.
They went over family business — arrangements, and the Ming-dynasty painting the old man had given Adrian a few days earlier.
“Grandpa actually gave you that painting,” Evelyn said, laughing.
“I thought he’d never bear to part with it.”
”If he wants to give it, I’ll take it.”
”Do you like it?”
”Whether I like it doesn’t matter.” He watched the road, his voice level.
“What matters is that he’s willing to hand things to me.”
I glanced at him in the rearview mirror.
His face gave nothing away.
Adrian’s place in the Moretti family was not as close as it looked.
The car pulled up outside the Moretti estate.
Before getting out, Evelyn hugged Adrian and murmured something in his ear.
He listened, then nodded.
“Go on in.”
She waved through the window and turned toward the house.
The door shut, and the car went quiet.
I remembered the suit.
“Mr. Moretti, I wrecked that suit. I can’t give it back to you. Tell me the price and I’ll pay for it.”
He looked at me in the mirror.
“That one?”
”Yes.”
”Priceless.”
I blinked.
“Priceless?”
His mouth curved, something unreadable in his eyes.
“Money can’t cover it.”
Adrian went on as though it hardly mattered.
“That doesn’t mean there’s no way to settle it.”
He paused, then looked at me through the mirror.
“If money won’t cover it,” he said, “pay me with yourself. What do you say, Miss Hart?”