Chapter 1 - THE BLIND DATE NOBODY EXPECTED
My friends thought sending me on a blind date with one of Boston’s most feared mafia bosses would be hilarious. But when I finally told him, “They sent me here as a joke,” Daniel Brooks didn’t laugh—and within seconds, neither did anyone else watching our table.
The first thing I heard upon entering the Grand Oak was a woman near the bar whispering, “Oh my God. They actually sent her to him.”
I stopped so abruptly the hostess nearly collided with me. Across the chandelier-lit dining room, a man in a charcoal suit slowly rose from a corner table.
Daniel Brooks.
Everyone in Boston seemed to know that name.
At thirty-eight, Daniel controlled nightclubs, private clubs, shipping companies, and enough of the city’s underground business that people lowered their voices when discussing him. Newspapers called him an elusive businessman, but rumors used a much simpler description.
Mafia boss.
And apparently, he was my blind date.
Three hours earlier, I’d been working behind the register at Maple Street Books when my phone buzzed.
Tonight. 7:30. Grand Oak. Blind date. Don’t cancel.
Three laughing emojis followed.
I immediately replied, Absolutely not.
Olivia called thirty seconds later. “Please, Emily. Thirty minutes.”
“You put laughing emojis after ‘blind date.’”
“We laugh at everything.”
“You laughed when Megan got locked outside in a bathrobe.”
“She laughs about it now.”
“She moved to Arizona.”
Still, Olivia knew how to wear down my defenses. Since Jason destroyed our four-year relationship by casually admitting over leftover Chinese food that he loved another woman—whom I later discovered he’d been seeing for almost a year—I had avoided dating entirely.
Solitude couldn’t surprise me.
Eventually, however, I agreed to thirty minutes.
What Olivia conveniently forgot to mention was that my date wasn’t some random man pretending to be dangerous.
Daniel Brooks was actually Daniel Brooks.
Now I caught my reflection in a mirrored column: simple navy dress, silver earrings, six-year-old shoes, and a handbag with an ink stain near the zipper. Nothing about me belonged in a restaurant where dinner probably cost more than my weekly grocery budget.
Daniel watched me approach.
Strangely, he didn’t look annoyed.
“Ms. Carter?” the hostess prompted.
I forced myself forward.
Daniel was taller than photographs suggested, with dark hair and calm gray eyes. No flashy jewelry, no exaggerated swagger—just the unnerving stillness of someone accustomed to entire rooms noticing when he moved.
“Emily?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Daniel.”
“I figured.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “That obvious?”
“People talk about you.”
His eyes held mine. “Hopefully only nice things.”
A nervous laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
He pulled out my chair, and I sat. For seven unbearable seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then I decided humiliation was easier when delivered quickly.
“I should probably tell you something before we order.”
Daniel folded his hands. “That sounds serious.”
“My friends sent me here as a joke.”
His expression changed instantly.
Not anger.
Not embarrassment.
Something colder.
“A joke?”
I swallowed. “They thought it would be funny to send someone like me to someone like you.”
“Someone like you?”
I glanced toward the bar—and froze.
Olivia and two of our friends were sitting at a table half-hidden behind a column.
Watching us.
Laughing.
Daniel followed my gaze.
Their smiles disappeared one by one.
He looked back at me, then slowly reached inside his suit jacket.
Every person at their table stopped laughing.
And Daniel quietly said, “Emily, I think your friends and I need to clarify exactly who tonight’s joke was supposed to be on.”
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