“This is incredible.”
Willow asked if he was just being nice.
“I’m never just nice.”
He sat with her in the corner, choosing a table with a view of the door. Even relaxed, Giovanni was always alert.
Then he asked her to tell him about herself.
Not the version her family told.
The real one.
And somehow, Willow did.
She told him about her mother dying when she was ten, about her father bringing Patricia and Celeste into their lives when she was twelve, about how Patricia was sweet in front of Marcus and cruel when he wasn’t watching. She told him how, after her father died, Patricia kept the mansion and the accounts, while Willow kept only the coffee shop.
“She treats me like a maid,” Willow admitted. “Celeste humiliates me. I live in that house, but it isn’t home.”
Giovanni listened without interruption, but his anger was visible in the tension of his jaw.
Then he offered to help her leave.
Money. Apartment. Immediate exit.
Willow pulled back.
“I don’t accept charity.”
“It’s not charity,” he said. “It’s an investment.”
“In what?”
“In you. In us. In what this could become.”
It was too much, too fast, too dangerous.
But it was also the first time anyone had offered her a way out without making her feel small.
She promised only to think about it.
That night, Giovanni took her to dinner.
Before she left the mansion, she found a black dress waiting in her room with a card.
For tonight. You deserve beautiful things. J.
The dress fit like it had been made for her.
When she came downstairs, Celeste and Patricia stared with open hatred.
“He bought that for you?” Celeste spat.
“He sent it,” Willow said.
Then Giovanni arrived.
He looked at Willow like she was the only person in the world.
“You look beautiful.”
He kissed her hand in front of them, and Willow heard the strangled sound Celeste made behind her.
At dinner, Giovanni asked about her dreams.
No one had ever asked Willow that like her answer mattered.
“I want to be free,” she said. “I want to wake up in a place that’s mine. I want to expand the coffee shop. I want to travel. I want to live, not just survive.”
Giovanni promised she would have all of it.
She told him he couldn’t promise that.
“But I want to,” he said. “I want to know everything about you. What scares you. What makes you happy. What makes you cry. And I want to give you everything you deserve.”
He was honest about his world. Dangerous. Violent. Full of enemies.
Willow should have run.
Instead, she told him the truth.
“You’re dangerous,” she said. “But you’re not cruel. There’s a difference.”
He asked if that didn’t scare her.
“It scares me,” she admitted. “But living my whole life safe and miserable scares me more.”
That night, paparazzi caught them leaving the restaurant. Giovanni shielded her from the cameras and guided her into the car.
By morning, the city was talking.
Giovanni Campone with mysterious woman.
Patricia saw the photos.
So did Celeste.
And the sabotage began.
First came the gossip article.
Willow Hayes gold digger.
It claimed she had a pattern of relationships with wealthy men. It twisted old photos with college classmates and painted Hayes Coffee and Books as a trap for rich targets.
“Family confirms opportunistic behavior since adolescence.”
Family meant Patricia.
Willow panicked. Not because strangers might believe it, but because Giovanni might.
Then he called.
“I saw the article.”
“It’s not true,” she rushed out.
“I know.”
She stopped.
“How?”
“Because I investigated you before the first coffee at your place,” he said. “I don’t go into anything without complete information.”
She should have been upset.
Instead, relief broke through her.
Giovanni promised not to use violence because Willow asked him not to, but he would sue and trace the source.
Then he arrived with silver keys.
An apartment in her name.
