Chapter 10 - The Unseen Portrait
Late that evening, long after the trustees had gone and the Manhattan skyline had melted into a sea of glittering neon, Lena walked through the private corridors of the Varlli estate. She paused outside Dante’s private study—the room his father had built decades ago.
The door was cracked open. Inside, Dante sat at his heavy mahogany desk, holding an old, leather-bound family ledger from nineteen-eighty-five.
Lena pushed the door open and leaned against the doorframe. "Working late, boss?"
Dante looked up, setting the ledger down. He didn't speak; he simply patted his knee.
Lena smiled, crossing the room to straddle his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. As she settled against him, her eyes drifted to the wall behind his desk—the dark, stormy coastline painting by the Dutch master that her grandfather had helped acquire so many years ago.
And right beside it, freshly framed in polished silver, hung a brand-new portrait.
It was a candid photograph taken the night they met in her office: Dante sitting in the chair opposite her desk, staring across at her with a look of terrifying, undeniable recognition, while Lena looked back at him with pen in hand, right on the verge of changing both their lives forever.
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"You had that printed before you even hired me," Lena whispered, tracing the scar along his jawline.
"I knew the second you told me I wasn't allowed to buy a bride," Dante murmured, burying his face in her hair as his arms locked around her waist, pulling her impossibly close. "I just had to wait for you to realize you were the only one I ever wanted to keep."
