Chapter 3 - The Red Paint and the Invitation
Meline stared at the red paint dripping down her storefront window like fresh blood. The cold wind blowing off the harbor whipped through her hair, but she couldn't move. Her fingers gripped the wooden broom handle so tightly her knuckles turned white. Someone had left a message, and it wasn't a warning about business taxes or rent hikes. It was a direct threat. Stay out of it. But stay out of what? The gala? Lorenzo’s wedding? Or the dark, dangerous underworld her father had left behind—a world she had carefully avoided her entire life? The bell above the door chimed softly, breaking her trance. Meline spun around, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird, expecting the scarred man from the sedan to step through the threshold.
Instead, it was Nina, holding a steaming paper cup of coffee and looking pale. “Meline... oh my god. I just came back because I left my phone charger, and I saw... what is that on the glass?” Meline exhaled slowly, forcing her shoulders to drop. She leaned the broom against the wall and wiped her palms on her apron. “It’s paint, Nina.” “Paint? Meline, that looks like a threat! Who would do something like that?” “I don’t know,” Meline lied smoothly, though her mind was racing. The only person who had been anywhere near her shop in connection to high-stakes danger was Lorenzo Moretti. But why would his enemies target her? Unless... unless someone had seen him spending hours in her shop twice a week. Unless they thought she was more than just a dressmaker. Unless they believed she was a confidante, a safehouse, or a liability that needed to be eliminated.
“We need to call the police,” Nina insisted, reaching into her coat pocket for her phone. “No,” Meline said sharply, perhaps a bit too fast. She couldn't involve the police. If the police got involved, they would start digging into Lorenzo’s business, his family, and by extension, the quiet little life she had built over the last thirteen years. The last thing she wanted was a squad car parked outside Hayes Bespoke, drawing the very attention she had spent a decade avoiding. “We clean it up. Right now. Grab the solvent from the utility closet.” Working in grim silence, the two women scrubbed the red paint off the glass until the window was clear again, though the chill in the air remained. By midnight, Nina had gone home, and Meline was left alone in the empty, quiet shop. She walked over to the cutting table and picked up the heavy brass measuring tape she had thrown down the day before. Her gaze drifted to the green velvet chair near the window where Lorenzo usually sat.
On the seat cushion rested a small, cream-colored envelope sealed with heavy gold wax. Meline’s breath caught in her throat. She hadn't seen anyone come in. There had been no chime, no footsteps. Had it been there the whole time? She approached the chair slowly, as if approaching a sleeping animal, and reached down to pick up the envelope. Her name was written across the front in sharp, elegant handwriting: Meline Hayes. No stamp. No postmark. Hand-delivered. With trembling fingers, she cracked the gold wax seal and pulled out a heavy cardstock invitation embossed with silver lettering.
The Moretti and Romano families request the honor of your presence at the engagement celebration of Isabella Romano and Lorenzo Moretti.
May you like
Meline stared at the words until they blurred together. Saturday night. Tomorrow night. At the historic Moretti estate overlooking the harbor. At the bottom of the invitation, scrawled in ink that matched the handwriting on the envelope, was a single handwritten postscript: I need you there. Come. A cold fury replaced the ache in her chest. He was getting engaged to an heiress, sealing a billion-dollar corporate dynasty, and yet he had the unmitigated gall to send a private invitation to his dressmaker with a note demanding she show up? Did he think she was his toy? Some kind of lower-class side project to amuse him while he played the dutiful corporate heir?
“No,” Meline whispered to the empty room, her jaw setting into a hard, stubborn line. “I am not your prop, Lorenzo. And I am certainly not your entertainment.” She threw the invitation onto the cutting table, turned off the lights, and walked back to her small apartment upstairs. She didn’t sleep a wink. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the red paint dripping down her window, the scarred man in the black sedan, and Lorenzo’s dark, exhausted eyes looking at her as if she were the only real thing in his entire artificial world. By Saturday afternoon, the anger had hardened into something unyielding. She looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror—her dark hair pulled back into a tight bun, her full figure draped in a sharp, impeccably tailored black pantsuit she had stayed up half the night altering for herself. She wasn't going to the gala as a helpless victim or a whimpering outcast. If Lorenzo Moretti wanted her there, she would walk through those double doors on her own terms, look him dead in the eye, and return his precious invitation right to his lap.
