CHAPTER ONE
Troy Moretti was the kind of man whose presence filled a room before he spoke. The youngest billionaire CEO in Bologna, he built his empire on precision and control. His tailored suits were as sharp as his words, and his heart, people said, was colder than Italian marble.
When Elena Rossi first met him, she didn't see the legend; she saw the man who dismissed her designs with one sentence: "Pretty sketch, don't build brands, Miss Rossi. Come back when you understand fashion, not fantasy."
That humiliation burned in her memory for years. But fate, as always, had its own designs.
Two years later, Elena's small label was gaining quiet attention. Her creativity has matured into raw, bold, and unforgettable. And when her new collection caught the eye of one of Troy's competitors, the billionaire was forced to notice her again.
He didn't like it.
He didn't like her confidence, her fire, the way she looked him in the eyes now.
"You've changed," he said coolly. "No," she replied. "You just never looked close enough before." From that moment, something dangerous began.
Every meeting turned into a duel. Every word between them carried sparks. And beneath Troy's carefully built armor, something started to melt.
When a storm trapped them in his Milan penthouse after a late business event, all their defenses collapsed. The tension that had been building for years finally broke, and so did the distance between them.
They never spoke about that night. But Troy couldn't sleep again without hearing his voice in his head.
Weeks passed. His world of structure and silence began to unravel. Elena had become a distraction from his obsession. And when he realized she was about to sign a deal with his rival company, he did something he'd never done before: he chased someone.
"You walk away," he said quietly, standing in the rain outside her small studio, "and you took the one thing you can't buy back." And what's that?" She asked. "Peace," he said, "because somehow you've taken it with you."
That night, Elena understood what no one else had ever seen in Troy: the man behind the empire, the man who could love deeply but was terrified to lose control.
And for the first time, the billionaire who thought he owned the world finally realized, he didn't own her.
He loved her.