Dante Moretti had been twenty-nine years old when Alessandro Castellano destroyed him.
Not physically. Nothing so crude or honest. Alessandro was too sophisticated for that. He'd destroyed Dante the way rich men always destroyed their competition—with whispers in the right ears, information shared at the right moment, money moved at exactly the wrong time.
Sienna didn't know any of this yet.
They were having dinner at a small Italian place in the West Village, the kind of restaurant with checkered tablecloths and wine bottles covered in candle wax and a grandmother in the kitchen who treated every plate like it was going to her own family. Dante had suggested it after the gallery opening, needed somewhere quiet after the tension of running into Alessandro.
"You're thinking too hard," Sienna said, twirling pasta around her fork. "I can literally see the gears turning in your head."
"Sorry." Dante forced himself to relax, took a sip of the Chianti they were sharing. "Just work stuff."
"Liar." But she smiled when she said it. "You've been somewhere else since we left the gallery. Since you met Alessandro."
There it was. The opening he'd been both dreading and waiting for.
Dante set down his wine glass, studied her face in the candlelight. She'd been quiet in the cab ride here, processing whatever had happened during her conversation with Castellano. He'd given her space. Now maybe it was time to claim some honesty of his own.
"I need to tell you something," he said. "About Alessandro and me. About why I reacted the way I did when I saw you talking to him."
Sienna's expression shifted. Careful. Guarded. "Okay."
"Five years ago, I had a deal. The biggest deal of my career up to that point." Dante leaned back in his chair, the memory still sharp enough to cut. "A partnership with the Chen Group out of Hong Kong. They wanted to invest in American smart city infrastructure, and Moretti Industries was their first choice. We're talking two hundred million in funding. Enough to take my company from promising startup to major player overnight."
"What happened?"
"Alessandro Castellano happened." The name tasted bitter even now. "See, the Chen Group was also looking at New York real estate. They wanted a local partner, someone who knew the market. Castellano Properties was on their list."
Sienna set down her fork. She wasn't eating anymore, just listening with that focused intensity she brought to everything.
"Alessandro found out about my deal somehow," Dante continued. "Probably had someone on the inside—he's good at that, planting people where they can be useful. He went to the Chen Group with 'concerns' about Moretti Industries. Shared some financial projections that were technically accurate but completely misleading. Made it look like we were overleveraged, unstable, a bad investment."
"Were you?"
"No. We were aggressive, sure. Startups have to be. But we were solid. I had three years of proven growth, contracts lined up, a business model that worked." Dante's hands clenched on the table. "Alessandro didn't care about facts. He cared about eliminating competition. So he told the Chen Group that if they invested in me, he'd pull out of his real estate partnership with them. Made them choose."
"They chose him."
"They chose him." Dante laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Two hundred million dollars, gone. My investors panicked. Half of them pulled out. I had to lay off thirty percent of my staff—people I'd hired myself, people who'd believed in the company. People with families, mortgages, lives that depended on those jobs."
Sienna reached across the table, covered his hand with hers. The touch was gentle. Grounding.
"We survived," Dante said. "Obviously. Rebuilt. Found other investors. But it took three years to get back to where we'd been before Alessandro decided I was a threat. Three years of sixteen-hour days and maxed-out credit cards and wondering if I was going to have to call my father and admit that I'd failed."
"Your father?"
"Immigrated from Italy when he was nineteen. Worked construction for thirty years to send me to MIT. Died of a heart attack two weeks before I graduated." Dante's throat tightened. "He never got to see what I built. Never got to see that his sacrifices meant something. And I almost lost it all because some entitled trust-fund prince couldn't handle competition."
The silence stretched between them. In the background, someone laughed at another table. Normal people having a normal dinner, unaware that Dante was sitting here bleeding old wounds.
"I didn't know," Sienna said finally. "About any of this. Alessandro never—" She stopped herself. "But I guess he wouldn't have told me. I wasn't important enough to share business secrets with."
"That's not what I meant."
"Isn't it?" She pulled her hand back, and Dante immediately missed the warmth. "I was his mistress for three years, Dante. Hidden away, kept secret. You think he was sharing his business strategies with me? You think I mattered enough for that?"
"You matter now."
"Do I?" Her eyes searched his face. "Or am I just a convenient way to get back at him?"
The question landed like a punch. Dante should've expected it—Sienna was too smart not to see the pattern. But hearing it stated so baldly still hurt.
"Is that what you think?" he asked. "That I'm using you?"
"I don't know what to think." She picked up her wine, swirled it without drinking. "You just told me Alessandro destroyed your business five years ago. And now you're dating his ex-mistress. The timing's... convenient."
"The timing's terrible," Dante corrected. "If I wanted to hurt Alessandro through you, I would've pursued you six months ago when you first left him and he was still calling you obsessively. When it would've actually damaged him to see you with someone else."
"How do you know he was calling me?"
Dante hesitated. This was dangerous territory. But they were already here, might as well be honest.
"I had someone looking into Castellano Properties," he admitted. "Standard competitor research. My guy mentioned that Alessandro had been... distracted lately. Missing meetings, drinking more. Apparently his engagement to Vanessa Whitmore was his family's idea, but there was someone else. Someone he'd kept hidden for years."
"Me."
"I didn't know it was you specifically. Not until we met at the Hartwell gala." Dante leaned forward. "And I swear to you, Sienna, I didn't approach you because of Alessandro. I approached you because you were the smartest person at that party and you actually understood what I was trying to do with the Brooklyn project."
"But you knew who I was. Eventually."
"Not that night. Not for weeks." He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. "I Googled you after our first coffee meeting. Found some photos from society events—you in the background of pictures with Alessandro. But by then I already liked you. Already wanted to see you again."
"And the fact that I was connected to Alessandro? That was just a bonus?"
"No. It was a complication." Dante caught her eyes, held them. "Look, I'm not going to lie and say I didn't think about it. I'd be lying if I said seeing you with him at the gallery didn't give me some petty satisfaction. But that's not why I'm here, Sienna. That's not why I asked you to dinner."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because you laugh at my terrible jokes. Because you see problems three steps ahead and solve them before anyone else even notices they exist. Because you called me out when I was being an arrogant ass about the community board meetings, and you were right." He reached for her hand again, relieved when she didn't pull away. "Because when I'm with you, I forget about Alessandro Castellano and business rivals and all the bullshit that usually fills my head. I just... feel good. You make me feel good."
Sienna studied him for a long moment. "I want to believe you."
"But?"
"But I've spent three years with a man who told me what I wanted to hear. Who made me feel special in private while treating me like a secret in public. I'm not good at trusting my judgment anymore."
"Then don't trust your judgment. Trust my actions." Dante squeezed her hand. "I'm here, aren't I? In public. At a restaurant where anyone could see us. I introduced you to my entire team as my girlfriend, not my 'friend' or my 'consultant.' I'm not hiding you, Sienna. I'm not ashamed of you. And I sure as hell am not going to marry someone else while keeping you on the side."
She flinched at that last part. Direct hit.
"I'm sorry," Dante said immediately. "That was—"
"No, you're right." She drained her wine. "That is what happened. And maybe that's why I'm being paranoid about your intentions. Because the last man who pursued me had an agenda that had nothing to do with actually loving me."
"I'm not him."
"Prove it."
The challenge hung in the air between them.
"Okay," Dante said. "What do you want? Name it."
Sienna was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then: "Tell me something real. Something you've never told anyone else. Something that has nothing to do with business or Alessandro or impressing me. Just... something true."
Dante took a breath. Okay. Truth.
"I'm terrified I'm going to end up like my father," he said. "Working myself to death for something that won't matter in the end. He spent thirty years building a life for me, and he never got to enjoy any of it. Never traveled. Never retired. Just worked until his heart gave out on a construction site in Queens."
He paused, surprised by the emotion clogging his throat.
"I'm thirty-six years old," he continued. "I've built a successful company. Made more money than my father ever dreamed of. But I work eighty-hour weeks. I can't remember the last time I took a vacation. And sometimes I wake up at three in the morning wondering if I'm just recreating his life with better suits and a nicer office."
Sienna's expression softened. "Dante—"
"That's why I started the Brooklyn project," he said. "It's not just about smart infrastructure or sustainable development or any of the buzzwords in the pitch deck. It's about building something that matters. Something that makes people's lives actually better. My father spent his life building other people's buildings. I want to build something he would've been proud of."
He stopped, suddenly aware he'd said way more than he'd intended.
"Sorry," he muttered. "That was probably—"
"That was real." Sienna's eyes were bright. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For being honest. For not trying to impress me with how successful you are or how much you've overcome. Just... being human."
Dante smiled. "I'm very human. Unfortunately."
"Good." She picked up her fork again, returned to her pasta. "I've had enough of men who think they're gods."
They ate in comfortable silence for a while. The tension from earlier had eased, replaced by something quieter. More solid.
"Can I ask you something?" Dante said eventually.
"Sure."
"At the gallery. When you introduced me to Alessandro. You called me your boyfriend."
"I did."
"Was that just to make him jealous, or...?"
Sienna set down her fork, met his eyes. "Little bit of both, if I'm being honest. I wanted him to know I'd moved on. But also..." She smiled, small and uncertain. "I like you, Dante. I'm not ready to love you yet—I'm not sure I'm ready to love anyone yet. But I like who I am when I'm with you. I like that you ask my opinion and actually listen. I like that you're ambitious but not ruthless. I like that you care about building things that matter."
"But you're worried I'm using you to hurt Alessandro."
"I'm worried we're using each other," she corrected. "You to hurt him. Me to prove I've moved on. And maybe that's okay for now. Maybe we can be two damaged people helping each other heal while also happening to make your business rival's life miserable."
Dante laughed. "That's the most pragmatic approach to dating I've ever heard."
"I've learned to be pragmatic." She raised her wine glass. "To mutually beneficial arrangements?"
"God, that's depressing." But he raised his glass anyway. "To... trying something real, even if we're both terrified it's not."
"Better." Their glasses clinked. "Much better."
They finished dinner, split a tiramisu that Dante swore was better than anything in actual Italy, and argued about the best superhero movie. Normal date things. Easy things.
When Dante walked her to her door—her actual door in Brooklyn, not some penthouse she wasn't allowed to call home—he kissed her goodnight. Just a kiss. Sweet and brief and full of promise.
"I'm going to earn your trust," he said. "I don't know how yet, but I will."
"I believe you want to."
"I'll take it." He stepped back, hands in his pockets. "Same time next week?"
"I'd like that."
He waited until she was inside, until he heard the lock click, before heading back to his car.
On the drive home, his phone rang. Marcus, his head of security.
"We've got a problem," Marcus said. "Castellano Properties just filed an injunction against the Brooklyn project. They're claiming we don't have proper environmental clearances. It's bullshit, but it'll tie us up in court for months."
Dante's hands tightened on the steering wheel. Of course. Of course Alessandro would pull something like this. He'd seen Dante with Sienna and immediately went on the offensive.
"File a counter-motion," Dante said. "And get me everything we have on Castellano's business practices. Every shady deal, every corner cut, every permit they've pushed through with bribes. If he wants to play dirty, we'll show him dirty."
He hung up, stared at the road ahead.
Sienna had asked if he was using her to hurt Alessandro. He'd said no. But the truth was more complicated than that, wasn't it? Because yeah, he liked her. Yeah, he wanted to be with her. But did seeing Alessandro's face when he'd introduced Sienna as his girlfriend feel good?
Hell yes it did.
Dante told himself that didn't make him a bad person. Told himself he could care about Sienna and enjoy hurting his rival at the same time.
Told himself he wasn't becoming the kind of man who'd use a woman as a weapon.
But late that night, alone in his apartment, he wondered if he was lying to himself just as much as he'd accused Alessandro of lying to Sienna.
The difference was, Dante actually wanted to be better.
He just wasn't sure if wanting was enough.