Chapter 2 - The Ice in the Room
Maya Ellison did not blink. She stood by the table with her order pad poised, her pen hovering, her posture straight as an iron rod. The dim, amber lighting of Giardino caught the edge of her collarbone, and her eyes—hard, sharp, and entirely devoid of fear—locked directly onto the man sitting across from her.
She had seen a lot of faces in this restaurant. Politicians with sweat on their upper lips, tech bros trying to look like venture capitalists, married men with guilt clinging to their expensive cologne. But she had never seen a face quite like this one again, sitting less than three feet away from her in broad, public view.
The man from the street.
The expensive trash.
Luca Moretti didn't move. He sat back in the leather booth, his dark blazer unbuttoned, one cuff slightly rolled back to reveal the expensive weight of a watch that cost more than Maya’s entire college education. His lips didn't curve into a smirk. There was no triumphant flash in his dark eyes, no vindictive smirk to signal that he had hunted her down, cornered her in her own workplace, and was ready to exact a petty revenge.
Instead, he looked at her with a terrifying, absolute calm.
“You’re shaking,” Luca said quietly. His voice was low, rich, and cut through the ambient murmur of the crowded dining room like a scalpel.
Maya’s jaw tightened. She wasn't shaking from fear; she was shaking from the sudden, violent spike of adrenaline that slammed into her chest. Her brain raced through a terrifying catalog of possibilities. He knows. He somehow tracked her down. He owns this place? No, Giardino was owned by some faceless corporate holding group—or so the management always claimed when the staff complained about broken espresso machines. But wealthy men didn't just walk into random Italian restaurants on a Thursday night and sit down in section four unless they had a reason.
And Luca Moretti’s reason was sitting right in front of her, holding a menu he hadn’t even opened.
“I’m not shaking,” Maya said, her voice dropping an octave, steadying with a stubborn defiance that belonged to someone who had spent too many years fighting for every inch of her life. “And if you’re looking for a menu, I can get you one, or I can get you the check for whatever water you decide to spray on me next. Your choice.”
A flicker of genuine amusement—fast and dark—crossed Luca’s face. It was the first time she had seen any real emotion break through his porcelain-doll composure.
“Water,” Luca repeated softly, tasting the word. “An unfortunate incident. I assure you, my driver has been severely reprimanded.”
“I’m sure he’s crying into his leather seats,” Maya snapped, refusing to back down an inch. “Can I get you something to drink, or are you just here to test the structural integrity of your ego?”
At the adjacent table, a regular customer choked slightly on his Chianti. Daniel Ross, the general manager, who had been hovering by the host stand like a nervous hawk, suddenly developed an intense interest in a bread basket across the room. He had seen Luca Moretti walk into rooms of hardened criminals and leave them sweating blood without raising his voice once. Watching a twenty-two-year-old waitress talk to him like an insolent teenager felt like watching someone poke a sleeping grizzly bear with a sharp stick.
Luca tilted his head, studying her with a clinical intensity. “Water. Still. With a slice of lemon.”
“Coming right up,” Maya said, spinning on her heel with a sharp rustle of her black apron.
She didn't run. She didn't look back. But the moment she hit the service station behind the partition, her hands were trembling so badly she nearly dropped the notepad into the ice bin.
He knows.
She leaned against the stainless steel counter, closing her eyes for a three-count. How did he find her? Lakeview to DePaul to Giardino—it was a routine, but it wasn't public record. Unless he had resources. The kind of resources that didn't just belong to a guy with a nice car.
Across the room, Luca Moretti watched her shoulders tense under her black blouse. He picked up his water glass when she brought it back three minutes later, setting it down without drinking.
“You have a voice,” Luca observed quietly as she set the glass on a linen napkin.
“It comes standard with the job,” Maya replied, not looking at him, her pen tapping against her pad. “Are you ready to order, or are we going to discuss my tone all night? Because my section is twelve tables deep, and the couple at table six look like they’re about to break up over the tiramisu.”
Luca looked past her toward table six for a microsecond before bringing his dark gaze back to her face. “The veal chop. Medium rare. And a bottle of the 2018 Barolo.”
“Good choice,” Maya said flatly, writing it down with sharp, aggressive strokes. “It’ll be out in twenty minutes. Try not to run over any pedestrians while you wait.”
She walked away before he could answer.
Luca picked up his fork, tracing the silver handle with his thumb. For the first time in ten years, someone hadn't looked at his name, his suit, or his shadow and backed away. She had looked at a multi-millionaire power broker, a man whose word could close banks or clear docks, and called him trash.
May you like
And for reasons Luca Moretti refused to analyze too closely, he didn't want to ruin her. He wanted to see how far she could push him before she finally broke.
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