Chapter 1 - I’ve Searched for You for Twenty Years
Victoria Vale ripped the waitress’s dress open in the middle of the luxury restaurant ballroom because she thought nobody important would defend a woman wearing the wrong name tag.
The tearing sound cut through the room.
It was sharp.
Ugly.
Final.
Elena Marquez stumbled backward on the marble floor, one hand flying to her chest as the neckline of her short red waitress uniform split beneath Victoria’s fist.
Her white apron twisted at her waist.
Loose strands of brunette hair fell from her ponytail.
Her name tag, pinned crookedly near her collar, read LILY.
It was not her name.
But no one in that ballroom had cared enough to ask.
Victoria stood inches from her in a sleeveless purple evening gown, blonde hair swept into an elegant updo, diamond earrings flashing under the chandeliers. One hand still held torn red fabric. The other trembled with rage.
“You’re nothing but a servant!” Victoria snapped.
The room fell dead silent.
White tablecloths.
Crystal glasses.
Wealthy guests frozen mid-dinner.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
Elena clutched the torn dress closed, cheeks burning, breath trapped in her throat.
Then something silver swung free from beneath the fabric.
A locket.
Small.
Old.
Oval-shaped.
Its surface caught the chandelier light.
Across the ballroom, Dante Moretti’s chair scraped violently against the marble.
Everyone turned.
He rose so fast the guests near him flinched.
Dante was forty-five, tall, broad-shouldered, black suit open over a white shirt, dark slicked-back hair, visible tattoo at his chest where the collar opened. People at tables had been whispering about him all night.
Powerful.
Dangerous.
Old money with darker rumors.
The kind of man who could make a room nervous by saying nothing.
But now his face had changed.
Cold control vanished.
Stunned disbelief took its place.
His eyes locked on the locket swinging against Elena’s torn uniform.
“Elena…?”
Elena’s fingers closed around the locket.
She knew his voice should not matter to her.
She knew she should look for her manager, cover herself, get out of the ballroom, find a bathroom, breathe.
But the way he said her name made the room tilt.
Not like a stranger.
Like a man hearing a ghost answer back.
Victoria’s smug expression faltered.
Nathan Vale, Victoria’s husband, sat two tables behind her in a tuxedo, face suddenly drained of color.
Dante moved.
Fast.
Decisive.
He cut through the crowd with the force of someone who had been waiting twenty years and had just been given one impossible second.
Guests pulled back without being asked.
Elena lifted the locket with trembling fingers.
The tiny crest on the front turned toward the light.
Dante stopped a few feet away.
His eyes widened.
His jaw tightened.
Then he whispered, rough and broken, “I’ve searched for you for twenty years.”
Victoria took one uncertain step back.
Elena looked from the locket to Dante.
May you like
Her chest shook under her hand.
“What did you just say?”
