“Kiss Me So He’ll Panic—I Want to Make Him Jealous.” She Thought He Was a Stranger, But Her Fiancé Knew Exactly Who He Was… Then Came the Hidden Secret of the 60-Year-Old Mafia Boss
PART 1
“Can you kiss me?”
Vivian Blake said it before she saw the man’s face.
She only knew two things in that second: her fiancé was standing across the ballroom with his hand on her sister’s waist, and if Vivian stayed still one more moment, the whole room would watch her break.
So she reached blindly, caught the sleeve of the nearest black suit, and whispered again, harsher this time.
“Please. Kiss me. I want to make him jealous.”
The man did not move.
The Sterling Hotel ballroom glittered around them with champagne towers, white roses, polished silver, and the soft, expensive music of a string quartet paid to make betrayal sound elegant. Two hundred investors, board members, and old Chicago money families had gathered for the Blake-Wexler Foundation Gala, an event Vivian had built from the floor plan up. She had chosen the lighting. She had chosen the wine. She had written the speech Nathan Wexler would deliver in less than an hour.
Nathan Wexler—her fiancé, public darling, millionaire heir to Wexler Vine & Trade—was supposed to be standing beside her.
Instead, he stood near the east archway with Vivian’s younger sister, Maribel, tucked too close against his side.
Maribel’s lipstick was smudged.
Nathan’s collar was crooked.
And both of them wore the same careful, practiced expression people wear when they have just come from somewhere they should not have been.
Vivian knew exactly where they had been.
She had seen them in the service corridor eighteen minutes ago, Maribel’s back pressed against the wall, Nathan’s hands in her hair, both of them breathing like the world had finally given them permission to be cruel.
Now Vivian was in the middle of her own gala, wearing an ivory dress Nathan had approved, a diamond ring Nathan had chosen, and a smile she could no longer keep alive.
The stranger finally turned his head.
Vivian looked up and forgot, for one terrified heartbeat, how to breathe.
He was older than she expected. Sixty, maybe. Tall, broad-shouldered, silver at the temples, with a scar cutting through one eyebrow like a line history had drawn and refused to erase. His suit was black, perfectly cut, and his stillness was not polite. It was dangerous. Not loud-dangerous. Not drunken-dangerous. The deeper kind. The kind that made powerful men check exits without knowing why.
His eyes dropped to her hand on his sleeve.
Vivian should have let go.
She didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she said, even though her fingers tightened. “I know this is insane. I know I don’t know you. But the man standing near that archway has been cheating on me with my sister for eight months, and I need him to see me not fall apart.”
The stranger’s eyes moved past her.
“To the left of the marble column?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“He noticed me before he noticed you.”
Vivian’s stomach went cold. “What?”
“He saw me walk in. He went very still.” The stranger’s gaze did not shift. “That man isn’t jealous yet. He’s afraid.”
Vivian looked back at Nathan.
For the first time all evening, Nathan was not looking at Maribel. He was staring at the man beside Vivian with a face drained of all its charm.
“Who are you?” Vivian whispered.
The stranger looked down at her then, truly looked, as if weighing what kind of woman grabbed a stranger in public and asked to be kissed as revenge against a man who deserved worse.
“Dominic Bellardi,” he said.
The name moved through the room before Vivian understood it.
A man near the champagne bar lowered his glass. A couple who had been laughing near the auction display stopped laughing. One of Nathan’s board members turned away so quickly he nearly stepped into a waiter.
Vivian knew the name, but only the way respectable people knew certain names—through rumor, through warnings, through doors closed before explanations began.
Dominic Bellardi.
The old boss of South Chicago. Real estate king. Private lender. Billionaire collector of vineyards, hotels, and enemies. A man newspapers had called a “retired organized crime figure” because newspapers enjoyed pretending certain men retired.
Vivian’s hand finally loosened.
Dominic caught it before she could pull away. He turned her palm upward briefly, as if reading something written there, then tucked her hand into the crook of his arm.
“Walk with me,” he said.
“I asked you to kiss me.”
“I heard you.”
“You haven’t said yes.”
“I haven’t said no.”
He placed one hand at the small of her back. Not possessive. Not theatrical. Just present enough to steady her. Then he guided her forward across the ballroom, directly toward Nathan and Maribel.
Vivian’s heart struck hard against her ribs.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
