**Part 2** His Curvy Wife Returned Every Dress He Bought Her—Then the Mafia Boss Finally Discovered Why
Emily stepped from the sedan into a pale winter morning. The estate rose beyond bare oaks like a fortress of gray stone and black iron. Marcus led her through the silent foyer into the east wing.
Adrien stood beside a narrow walnut door.
“You called me to look at clothes?” Emily asked.
“Not just clothes.”
He unlocked the door. The room smelled faintly of cedar, lavender, and years without sunlight. Garment bags lined one wall. Hatboxes rose in careful stacks. A vanity still held a silver-backed brush and pearl earrings exactly where someone had left them.
Emily understood. “Your mother’s.”
Adrien nodded. “Lucia.”
He opened a wardrobe filled with silk gowns, tailored suits, and embroidered coats.
“The foundation wants an exhibit this spring,” he said. “My advisers suggested auctioning part of the collection afterward.”
“And you don’t want to.”
His eyes moved to her. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Emily put on cotton gloves and began examining the nearest gown. Adrien watched in silence. Other experts had talked about designers and auction estimates.
Emily asked, “Which one did she love?”
The question stopped him. “What?”
“Which dress did she actually love wearing?”
After a moment, Adrien pointed to a simple navy silk dress hidden behind two elaborate gowns. “That one.”
Emily lifted it from the rack. The silk was softened from use. The cuffs had been repaired by hand.
“She wore it to family dinners,” Adrien said. “My father hated it.”
“Why?”
“He thought it looked too plain.”
Emily smiled. “Maybe that’s why she loved it.”
She turned one sleeve over and found uneven stitches near the cuff. “Someone repaired this at home.”
“My mother. You can tell?”
“She was terrible at sewing.”
Emily laughed before she could stop herself. Then Adrien surprised her by smiling.
“My father used to say she could run a charity gala for five hundred people and still lose a fight with a button.”
Emily touched the crooked stitches. “I’d keep these.”
“They’re bad.”
“They’re hers.”
Adrien fell quiet.
“Restoration isn’t about making something look untouched,” Emily said. “If I erase every imperfect repair, I erase the evidence that someone lived in it.”
His gaze dropped to the dress. “My father wanted everything perfect.”
“Most people do.”
“And you don’t.”
Emily looked around the room. “Perfect things make terrible memories.”
For the next hour she found weakened seams, brittle thread, and moth damage throughout the collection. Then she opened a cedar chest and found a charcoal wool coat.
Adrien moved at once. “Careful.”
Emily paused.
“My father’s,” he said.
One pocket had been crudely repaired in black thread that did not match.
“Your mother again?”
“No. My father repaired that himself.” Emily looked up.
“He died not long after.”
Nothing more.
Emily did not ask. She knew grief well enough to recognize when someone had already said all he could.
“I can reinforce it from underneath,” she said. “The original stitches will stay visible.”
“Wouldn’t it be cleaner to redo them?”
“Yes.”
“Then why not?”
“Because he put them there.”
Emily met his eyes. “You don’t have to fix every mark someone leaves behind.”
Something shifted in Adrien’s expression. For him, damage meant removal. Weakness was hidden. Mistakes were corrected until no trace remained. Emily was offering another idea: some scars were proof that something had survived.
A knock sounded. Marcus opened the door. “Adrien. Daniel Price is here.”
Adrien’s jaw tightened. “Tell him ten minutes.”
“He says it can’t wait.”
Emily began returning the coat to its tissue. “I can finish alone.”
At the door, Adrien looked back. “Don’t change the stitches.”
She smiled. “I wasn’t going to.”
He left.
Emily worked another forty minutes before packing her tools. In the corridor, voices carried from around the corner. Daniel Price, the Moretti family’s chief attorney, spoke in a low, urgent tone.
“The board moved the vote forward to when?” Adrien asked.
“Eight weeks. Whitmore is pushing the stability clause.”
“What stability clause?”
“The one your grandfather buried in the trust. If the board decides federal scrutiny threatens the legitimate companies, they can freeze your voting authority.”
Adrien’s voice hardened. “What does my private life have to do with corporate control?”
“More than it should.”
Emily slowed.
Daniel continued. “They want proof you’re building something stable.”
Adrien gave a humorless laugh. “Define stable.”
A pause. Then Daniel said, “A credible marriage.”
Emily stood still behind the corner, tool case in hand. The word felt absurd beside federal scrutiny.
Adrien said, “They’re serious.”
“Michael Whitmore has enough influence to make them serious. If the board freezes your authority, everything becomes vulnerable.”
“And your solution is that I get married.”
“My solution is that you give them no opening.”
Emily quietly backed away before either man could discover her. She reached the staircase and let out a slow breath. Minutes earlier, she had told Adrien not every scar needed to disappear. Now she understood his world turned scars into leverage.
Emily left the estate believing the problem had nothing to do with her.
She was wrong.
Before her sedan reached the end of the driveway, Daniel looked through the library windows. “There is one other problem.”
Adrien turned.
“The board won’t believe a sudden marriage to a society woman. They’ll call it a deal.”
Daniel glanced toward the disappearing car. “It has to be someone they would believe you chose.”
Adrien followed his gaze. For the first time, Emily Carter’s name entered a conversation that could determine the future of the Moretti empire.
Daniel closed the library door. “The board expects some ally whose father wants your ports. They won’t believe it. Emily has no family connection to the syndicate and no interest in your influence.”
Adrien turned toward the snowy windows. “She is not part of this.”
“She could be.”
“She’ll say no.”
“Then ask. If you force anything, they see a transaction. If she chooses, they see a marriage.”
Adrien looked at him coldly. “I don’t force women into marriages.”
“Good. Give her a door.”
Three days later, Emily entered the Moretti corporate offices in the Loop, carrying her canvas work bag instead of a designer purse. Glass walls, black stone, and a gray Chicago skyline made the top floor feel built to intimidate.
Adrien waited in a conference room with Daniel. Emily saw the legal folder.
“If this is about the restoration contract, I sent the estimate.”
“It isn’t,” Adrien said.
“That is never comforting when a lawyer is present.”
He gestured to a chair. Emily remained standing. “Say it first.”
“I need a wife for one year.”
Silence.
Then Emily laughed. Actually laughed.
Adrien’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“That makes it worse.”
Daniel started. “There are corporate reasons—”
“I’m sure there are.” Emily looked directly at Adrien. “Why me?”
“Because the board would believe I chose you.”
“You mean they’d believe you love me?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly. Something small changed in her face, and Adrien noticed. He corrected himself. “They would believe the choice was real. You have your own work. You don’t want my money or access to my circle.”
“You say that like a medical condition.”
“It is rare.”
Emily finally sat but did not touch the contract. “What do I get?”
Daniel answered carefully. “Your father’s house is in pre-foreclosure.”
Her shoulders stiffened. “How do you know that?”
“We performed due diligence.”
“You investigated me.”
“Yes.”
Emily stood again.
Adrien spoke before she reached the door. “No one will touch the house.”
“That sounds very close to buying me.”
“Then forget the house.”
She stopped. He opened the folder.
“Your restoration studio is carrying commercial debt. Eight people depend on it. I can invest at market terms. Documented equity. Independent counsel. You keep operational control.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Nothing happens. Your house stays your problem. Your studio stays yours. You won’t call the bank, my landlord, or anyone else.”
Daniel added, “The agreement gives you the right to terminate at any time without financial penalty.”
Emily slowly returned to the table. “One year maximum. Separate finances.”
“Yes.”
“My work continues.”
“Yes.”
“I choose where I go, what I wear, and who I see.”
Adrien answered, “Yes.”
“No staff reporting what I eat. No security following me into fitting rooms. No one deciding which friends are acceptable.”
A pause.
“If there is a credible threat,” Adrien said, “I tell you. Then we decide together.”
That surprised both Emily and Daniel.
She read every page. She crossed out two clauses, rewrote another, then tapped a paragraph labeled *reasonable public cooperation*.
“Define reasonable.”
Daniel glanced at Adrien.
Emily raised an eyebrow. “If I’m pretending to be married to a mafia boss, I want fewer vague words.”
The corner of Adrien’s mouth almost moved.
By the end of the meeting, there was still no signature.
“I need forty-eight hours,” Emily said.
“You have them.”
Outside, winter wind knifed between the towers. Emily walked beneath the elevated tracks before calling Nora, her studio manager.
“How bad is it?”
A long silence. “Maybe six weeks before we have to let someone go.”
Emily closed her eyes. She pictured Rosa, who sent money to her mother every month. Ben, whose daughter had been born in September. Mr. Alvarez, sixty-eight and still the best hand-sewer in the studio. Eight people had trusted Emily. She could not let them become invisible too.
The next afternoon, she returned to Adrien’s office. This time, he was alone. She put the amended contract on his desk.
“I have one condition that isn’t written there.”
Adrien waited.
“You do not get to treat me like something you purchased.”
“I won’t.”
“You do not use the investment when we disagree.”
“I won’t.”
“And if I say no, you hear no.”
His gaze held hers. “Yes.”
Only then did Emily pick up the pen.
“You’re not buying me, Adrien. You’re renting a role.”
“I understand.”
She signed.
Sixteen days later, they married in a small stone chapel overlooking Lake Michigan. There were no reporters or orchestra—only Daniel, Marcus, a few Moretti relatives, and discreet security. Emily wore an ivory tea-length dress she had altered herself.
Adrien watched her walk down the aisle and felt something different from relief. Emily noticed it too: the way his expression softened for half a second when she reached him.
Then she saw the woman in the first row—tall, elegant, blonde, dressed in a white suit sharp enough to look deliberate. The stranger watched Emily with a smile that never reached her eyes.
During the vows, Emily felt that stare.
Outside, Lake Michigan was steel gray. As Adrien spoke quietly with Daniel, Marcus came beside Emily.
“You know who that was.”
Emily watched the blonde woman step toward a waiting sedan. “No.”
Marcus hesitated. “Vanessa Whitmore. She runs the Moretti Foundation.”
Emily waited.
Marcus lowered his voice. “For years, half this city assumed she would become Mrs. Moretti.”
Across the drive, Vanessa paused before entering her car. Her eyes found Emily’s. Then she smiled again.
For the first time since signing the contract, Emily wondered whether she had agreed to play a role someone else already believed belonged to her.
—
*End of Part 2*
