Chapter 1 - THE BOYFRIEND SHE NEEDED BY TOMORROW
“I need a boyfriend by tomorrow.”
Sadi Miller whispered the sentence to a sink full of dirty pans at two in the morning.
She believed she was alone.
She wasn't.
Roman Rossi sat at the far end of the enormous kitchen island, half hidden in darkness, a glass of amber liquor resting between his fingers.
“What time is the event?”
Sadi nearly dropped the skillet.
Roman Rossi did not merely own the mansion where she worked.
Depending on which newspaper one believed, he owned half of Chicago.
At thirty-eight, Roman ran hotels, freight companies, restaurants, property holdings, and several businesses respectable people discussed only after checking who was listening.
Sadi's job in his house was much simpler.
Clean.
Cook when necessary.
Ask nothing.
Notice nothing.
Especially not the occasional blood on expensive shirt cuffs.
Her phone lay facedown beside the sink.
Three messages from her mother still burned in her mind.
Her younger sister Chloe's rehearsal dinner was tomorrow.
Her ex-boyfriend Derek would be there with his new fiancée.
Sadi had been assigned table twelve.
Near the kitchen.
“So you don't feel awkward,” her mother had written.
Sadi knew what that meant.
Hide the plus-size older sister somewhere she wouldn't interfere with the photographs.
Roman stood.
“What time?”
“You weren't supposed to hear that.”
“You said it aloud.”
“I was talking to myself.”
“You should choose a less populated room.”
She looked around the empty kitchen.
Roman raised one eyebrow.
Fair.
“Six thirty.”
“And you need a boyfriend.”
“I need to finish this pan.”
Roman stepped closer.
“You make my coffee every morning.”
“That is literally my job.”
“You remembered I hate cinnamon after hearing it once.”
“So?”
“You continued sweeping when federal agents searched the east wing last month.”
“I charge by the hour.”
Something almost like amusement appeared in his eyes.
Then Roman said:
“I'll go.”
Sadi stopped scrubbing.
“What?”
“To the dinner.”
“With me?”
“As your boyfriend.”
She laughed.
Roman didn't.
“Oh.”
The laugh died.
“Why?”
Roman took a drink.
“Because tomorrow night I am expected at a meeting with the Moretti family.”
Sadi knew the name.
Everyone in Chicago did.
Roman continued:
“If I attend, the night becomes complicated.”
“How complicated?”
“Enough that having fifty civilians confirm I spent the evening eating overcooked chicken in Naperville would be useful.”
Sadi stared.
“You need an alibi.”
“Yes.”
“And I need…”
She couldn't even say it.
Roman did.
“Someone convincing enough that the ex-boyfriend at table four stops pitying you.”
Her cheeks burned.
“You saw the messages.”
“The screen lit up.”
“That's private.”
Roman's expression did not change.
“You're right.”
That surprised her.
He placed the phone closer to her.
“I shouldn't have read them.”
Sadi looked at him differently.
Roman Rossi apologizing was somehow more unnerving than Roman Rossi threatening someone.
She crossed her arms.
“If you come, there are rules.”
“Of course there are.”
“No guns.”
His eyebrows rose.
“No threatening caterers.”
“Unreasonable.”
“No making anyone disappear.”
“That phrase is becoming increasingly prejudicial.”
“And you have to act like you actually like me.”
Roman's gaze rested on her for one second too long.
“I can manage that.”
Sadi swallowed.
“Six.”
“I'll arrive at five forty-five.”
“Why?”
“Because arriving at six means you're late.”
He turned.
“And Sadi?”
“Yes?”
“Tell your mother to move us to table four.”
The following evening, Sadi stood before the cheap mirror in her apartment wearing an emerald-green dress she had bought months earlier.
She had purchased it while promising herself she would lose weight before wearing it.
She hadn't.
Tonight, she realized something embarrassing.
The dress had never been the problem.
It followed her curves elegantly.
Her dark hair fell loose around her shoulders.
For once, she didn't look smaller.
She looked like herself.
At exactly 5:43, a matte-black SUV stopped outside.
Roman stepped onto the cracked pavement.
Dark navy suit.
White shirt.
No tie.
He looked less like a gangster than generational wealth with excellent posture.
Then he saw her.
And stopped.
Sadi's confidence immediately collapsed.
“What?”
Roman said nothing.
“What?”
His gaze moved over the dress, then returned to her eyes.
“You look beautiful.”
No joke.
No calculation she could detect.
Sadi grabbed her clutch.
“You're supposed to say that.”
“Yes.”
He opened the passenger door.
“I was still going to.”
The rehearsal dinner was being held at Hawthorne Country Club.
The instant Roman walked inside beside her, the room changed.
People recognized him.
Her mother's champagne glass stopped halfway to her lips.
Chloe stared.
Derek went completely silent.
His fiancée, Madison, whispered something.
Roman placed one hand lightly against Sadi's back.
Not possessive.
Just convincing.
Her mother approached.
“Sadi.”
“Mom.”
Her eyes moved toward Roman.
“You didn't say you were bringing…”
“A boyfriend?”
Roman extended his hand.
“Roman Rossi.”
Her mother nearly forgot her own name.
Derek approached fifteen minutes later.
He looked Sadi over, then Roman.
“Sadi.”
“Derek.”
“I didn't know you were dating.”
Roman answered:
“You didn't ask.”
Sadi almost laughed.
Derek's fiancée appeared.
Madison Price.
Pilates instructor.
Thin.
Blond.
Beautiful.
And, to Sadi's surprise, perfectly pleasant.
“I love your dress.”
“Thank you.”
That immediately ruined months of imagined rivalry.
Then Madison's father arrived.
Arthur Price.
Owner of Price & Vale Galleries.
Sadi knew the name.
Her unused art-history degree knew it better.
Price & Vale had been involved in several high-profile private collections.
Arthur shook Roman's hand.
Their expressions changed.
Recognition.
Not friendly.
Sadi noticed.
Then her attention moved beyond them.
A painting hung above the fireplace.
Small.
Dark.
Madonna and Child.
Seventeenth century.
Supposedly.
Sadi stared.
Something was wrong.
Roman noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You stopped breathing.”
She stepped closer to the painting.
The label beneath it read:
SCHOOL OF CARAVAGGIO
C. 1612
PRIVATE COLLECTION OF THE PRICE FAMILY
Sadi's stomach tightened.
She had written her graduate thesis on Lombard devotional painting.
She knew this image.
Not the exact painting.
The composition.
The crack pattern.
The unusual blue pigment in Mary's sleeve.
Because eight years earlier, an almost identical work had disappeared from a small church collection in Sicily.
The theft had never been solved.
Sadi leaned closer.
Roman whispered:
“What do you see?”
“I might be wrong.”
“About?”
She looked at Arthur Price laughing twenty feet away.
Then at Roman.
“That painting may be stolen.”
Roman's face did not change.
But his hand left her back.
“Which means?”
Sadi looked around the ballroom.
At Arthur.
At Derek.
At her family.
At the painting.
Then Roman quietly said:
“The Moretti meeting tonight was about art.”
Sadi turned.
“What?”
May you like
Roman's eyes hardened.
“And now I think your sister's rehearsal dinner is sitting in the middle of it.”
