The entire restaurant was laughing at my expense when my cruel ex asked who could ever love a woman like me. Seconds later, the most feared man in the city rose from his table, crossed the room, and kissed me in front of everyone—and what I discovered afterward made that kiss even more shocking.

Then, he leaned down and pressed his lips to mine.

The kiss was not violent, nor was it the crude, possessive display of a man asserting dominance over a room. It was slow, agonizingly deep, and breathtakingly tender. His mouth moved over mine with a deliberate, agonizing reverence that robbed me of what little oxygen remained in my lungs. One of his large hands moved to the small of my back, holding me firmly against him, pulling me into his heat until I could feel the steady, rhythmic thud of his heart against my ribs.

For three seconds, the world completely ceased to exist. There were no cameras, no cruel ex-boyfriends, no high-society sneers. There was only the heat of Vincent DeLuca’s lips and the absolute, dizzying safety of his arm around my waist.

When he finally pulled back, he didn’t immediately let go of my waist. His gray eyes searched my face, scanning every inch of my flushed skin as if checking for damage.

The restaurant was dead silent. A glass of water somewhere near the kitchen dropped, shattering loudly, but no one turned to look.

“What… what the hell is this?!” Tyler’s voice cracked, breaking the spell. He had taken a step forward, his face flushed red with a mix of shock and utter disbelief. “Do you know who that is? She’s a nobody! She’s a damn waitress!”

Vincent slowly turned his head. He didn’t turn his body—just his head, looking at Tyler over his shoulder with an expression of such icy, absolute indifference that Tyler instinctively took a half-step back.

Vincent reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket. He pulled out a thick leather money clip, slid a stack of hundred-dollar bills out without counting them, and dropped them casually onto the table in front of Tyler.

“For the noise,” Vincent said softly.

He didn’t offer another word. He didn’t justify himself, he didn’t threaten Tyler, and he didn’t acknowledge Vanessa’s wide-eyed stare. He simply turned, adjusted his cuffs, and began walking toward the private elevator at the back of the dining room.

My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. My lips were still tingling from the pressure of his mouth. My mind was a chaotic storm of confusion, humiliation, and an electric shock of something I had never felt before in my life.

He pitied me.

The realization hit me like a splash of ice water. He saw a pathetic, weeping waitress being dismantled by her ex, and he stepped in out of some twisted, aristocratic charity. He turned me into a spectacle to ruin Tyler’s moment.

Anger, hot and unbidden, surged through the shame.

I didn’t think. I didn’t care about my job, my rent, or the fact that the man I was about to confront had bodyguards who could make people vanish from the census records. I untied my apron, shoved it onto the side table, and marched toward the exit after him.

I burst through the glass doors of L’Aura into the crisp Chicago night air just as the sleek, matte-black Maybach pulled up to the curb. A man in a dark suit was holding the rear door open for Vincent.

“Stop!” I shouted, my voice echoing off the concrete walls of the valet line.

Vincent paused, his hand on the top of the door frame. He turned slowly, watching me stride toward him in my sensible flat shoes and work uniform.

“What was that?” I demanded, stopping three feet away, my chest heaving. “What did you just do back there?”

“I believed I made my point clear,” Vincent said, his voice smooth and untroubled by the crisp wind.

“Your point?” I laughed bitterly, wrapping my arms around myself against the cold. “You didn’t make a point, Mr. DeLuca! You turned my humiliation into a circus! Tomorrow, everyone in that room, everyone on social media, is going to be talking about how the great mob boss took pity on the fat, ugly waitress because he felt sorry for her!”

Vincent’s posture shifted. The casual air vanished, replaced by an intense, brooding darkness that made the valet boy standing nearby step three paces backward.

He closed the car door with a quiet click and stepped toward me.

“Is that what you think happened, Emily?” he asked, his voice dropping into a register that felt like velvet wrapped over steel.

“What else am I supposed to think?” I snapped, holding my ground despite every instinct screaming at me to run. “You don’t know me! You’ve ordered black coffee from me twenty times! You don’t know my name, you don’t know my life, and you certainly don’t care about my feelings! You did that to assert power over that idiot Tyler!”