Knowledge was power, and Melissa now held a fragment of his. She knew his name, his face from society pages, the shadow of his reputation. It changed the dynamic. When Luca returned the following day, her guard was up, a visible wall erected in the line of her posture.
He didn't try to buy a coffee this time. He simply walked to the community bookshelf, selected a battered copy of *The Great Gatsby*, and sat in his now-usual chair. He read—or pretended to read—while watching her from the corner of his eye. He saw her exchange a worried glance with her friend Sophie, a bubbly art history major who worked the morning shift.
"Is he bothering you?" Sophie whispered loudly enough for Luca to hear. "He looks like a movie villain who's about to monologue."
"He's just a customer," Melissa replied, but her voice lacked conviction.
As her shift ended, Luca closed the book and approached the counter. Marco waiting outside by the car, a silent, ominous sentinel.
"A thought occurred to me," Luca said to Melissa, his tone conversational.
Melissa, counting the till, didn't look up. "I'm sure many do."
"You're a literature student at College. Top of your class, despite working thirty hours a week." He saw her freeze. The background check had been thorough. "The Moretti Family Foundation awards a postgraduate fellowship. A full ride, plus a generous stipend. It's designed for students overcoming significant adversity."
Now she looked up, her grey eyes blazing. "Are you offering me a bribe?"
"It's a fellowship, An application process. I'm just making you aware of an opportunity."
"Opportunity?.... An opportunity that just happens to come from you," she spat, her composure cracking. "I don't want your money. I don't want your… fellowship. I want you to leave me alone. My life is complicated enough without a mafia prince playing philanthropist."
The words *mafia prince* hung in the air, a forbidden truth spoken aloud. Luca's mask of casual charm slipped, revealing a flash of genuine anger—not at her, but at the box she was putting him in, the same box he'd been fighting against his whole life. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
"Don't I?" she challenged, leaning across the counter, her voice low and fierce. "I saw the man who came for you. I know that look. My father had that look, right before he left and never came back, leaving us with nothing but debt and whispers. I don't know if your money is clean or dirty, Luca, and I don't care. It's all tangled in the same web. I won't be another fly caught in it."
She had a history, a personal scar that mapped perfectly onto his world's collateral damage. The realization was a cold splash of water. He had come here seeking a distraction, a novelty, but she was a person—a person with scars his family's kind might have indirectly caused.
He took a step back, the fight leaving him. "I apologize," he said, the words foreign and stiff. "That was not my intention."
Before she could respond, the door chimed,A new customer entered, but this was no ordinary student, It was Cynthia Calvano stood in the doorway of The Grind like a lioness surveying new territory. She was impeccably dressed in a cream-colored pantsuit, her blonde hair a sharp, perfect bob. Her beauty was cold, calculated, her eyes the pale blue of glacial ice. She ignored the counter entirely and walked straight to Luca, a smile playing on her lips that didn't reach her eyes.
"Luca, darling. Following up on your investments personally? How… hands-on." Her voice was smooth as silk, laced with mockery. Her gaze flickered to Melissa, taking in her apron and her simple ponytail, the defiant set of her chin. A barely perceptible smirk appeared on Cynthia "And who's this? New… talent?"
Luca's body went rigid. "Cynthia. It is Unlike you,being here."
Cynthia Chuckled with no humor "So do you!...by the way I was in the neighborhood," she said, her lie as transparent as glass. She turned fully to Melissa, extending a manicured hand. "Cynthia Calvano,A friend of Moretti's family"
Melissa, understanding she was now a pawn on a board she couldn't see, wiped her hands on her apron but did not take Cynthia's hand. "I'm working. If you're not ordering, I have to close up."
Cynthia smile tightened, her hand dropping slowly. "Of course. So sorry to interrupt." She turned back to Luca, her voice dropping to a intimate purr meant to carry. "Daddy was asking after you. He has a proposition regarding the harbor developments. He thought we could… discuss it over dinner. Tuesday? You remember our dinners."
It was a claim, a public flag planted. Luca's jaw worked. Refusal would be an insult that could have business—and other—repercussions. Acceptance would be a signal.
"Yeah Tuesday," he confirmed, his voice devoid of emotion.
"Wonderful." Cynthia triumphant glance at Melissa was brief but devastating, She had seen the dynamic, identified the unknown variable, and moved to neutralize it.
With a final, condescending sweep of the shabby café, she left, the scent of expensive perfume lingering in her wake.
The silence she left behind was thick and choking. Melissa busied herself with the lock on the cash drawer, her hands trembling slightly.
"Melissa—" Luca began.
"Don't," she cut him off, her voice hollow. "Just go. Please.Go back to your world,whatever explanation won't work on me" She finally met his eyes, and the disdain from their first meeting was back, now mixed with a weary resignation. *The fly has seen the web. It doesn't want to know any more about the spider.*
Luca left, the taste of defeat and Cynthia cloying perfume bitter in his mouth. He had tried to reach across the divide, and in doing so, had only drawn the attention of a predator, putting Melissa directly in the crosshairs. He had wanted to be seen as a man, not a prince or Mafia .
But his title, his world, clung to him like a second skin, poisoning everything it touched, including the one honest connection he'd stumbled upon.