She Begged for a Husband by Morning, Never Knowing the Mafia Boss in the Shadows Had Already Chosen Her

Part 2: “Apologizing for being visible.”

Samantha stared at him.

He walked closer but stopped on the opposite side of the counter, leaving a careful distance between them.

“I thought the diner was empty,” she said.

“It was supposed to be.”

“The door was locked.”

“I have a key.”

Of course he did.

Samantha remembered hearing that Moretti Hospitality had quietly purchased the building two years earlier. She had never imagined its owner would sit in a dark booth at midnight.

“If you’re here because I left the coffee pot on, I’ll pay for it,” she said quickly. “Take it from my check.”

The faintest shadow of amusement crossed his face.

“I am not concerned about twelve cents of coffee.”

“What do you want?”

“I heard your conversation.”

Shame rushed through her. “That was private.”

“Then you should not have conducted it beside a man who was drinking coffee fifteen feet away.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“Most people don’t see what they are not expecting.”

He placed the cigar in a glass ashtray, then rested both hands on the counter. They were large hands, scarred across the knuckles, the hands of a man whose tailored suit had not always protected him from the rougher parts of life.

“You require evidence of a stable household by morning,” he said. “I require a wife.”

Samantha gave a small, disbelieving laugh.

Nothing about his face suggested a joke.

“You’re serious.”

“Painfully.”

“You expect me to believe that Vincent Moretti walked into a diner looking for a wife and happened to overhear a waitress begging for a husband?”

“I did not walk into the diner looking for a wife.”

“Then why do you need one?”

Vincent studied her for several seconds, appearing to decide how much truth she could bear.

“My legitimate companies are being pulled into a federal financial investigation,” he said. “The government believes that because some of my relatives have committed crimes, every business bearing my name must be criminal as well. They intend to freeze accounts that pay thousands of employees and hold rent deposits for hundreds of tenants.”

“And marriage fixes that?”

“Not by itself. My family trust permits me to appoint a spouse as an independent managing beneficiary. A spouse with no criminal history, no business connection to my organization, and no reason to obey my executives. The appointment would not conceal the assets. Everything would be disclosed. But it would prevent one ambitious investigator from paralyzing the businesses before a court reviews the evidence.”

Samantha folded her arms.

“You want a clean civilian to stand between you and the government.”

“I want someone whose loyalty cannot be purchased by the first man who waves a badge or a check.”

“You don’t know me.”

Vincent’s eyes held hers.

“I know enough.”

“No, you heard me crying for five minutes.”

“I know you returned a wallet containing four thousand dollars to a customer who insulted your weight before leaving it behind. I know you used your rent money to pay for Lily’s asthma medication in February. I know you have worked every holiday for three years because the other waitresses have children and you believed their children deserved Christmas mornings.”

Samantha’s arms slowly lowered.

“How do you know those things?”

“I own the diner.”

“That doesn’t explain why you know what I bought in February.”

“No,” he said quietly. “It does not.”

Something passed between them that Samantha did not yet understand.