Page 11 of Vow Of Fire

Dante Marcelli.

What had he been up to in my office? Why was he offering on a painting Mikhail had just bought for Sergei Malakov? And what was all that Ophelia crap?

I got warm just thinking about the way he’d touched my cheek like he knew me. The intimate way he’d said my name.

I tilted my face up to the night air, trying to cool my flushed cheeks, but it didn’t help. I was a jittery, hot mess, and it was all because of him.

Chloe had been duly concerned when I told her what happened. Not the touching bit, or the Ophelia references. All that I’d kept to myself.

She was convinced they had an agenda. That they’d place an offer tomorrow, or commission a painting, but I guess that remained to be seen.

I knew one thing for sure. The second I got home, I was googling Dante Marcelli.

For some reason, he’d rattled me. And that wasn’t easy to do. Both my parents had died before I was twenty, and I’d fought hard to build a career in a world of trust-fund babies and eye-watering wealth, so I’d learned to be tough.

Yet, he’d gotten under my skin and unnerved me.

There was a metallic thud behind me, like someone stepping on a loose grate. I knew the sounds of the city instinctively, having lived here my whole life.

I was almost at my apartment building. Turning, I scanned the street, but there was nobody there. The strangeness of the evening, along with the adrenaline crash that comes after a successful event, not to mention the several glasses of champagne, had all made me jumpy.

I stepped into the lobby, nodded at the nightwatchman, who half lifted a hand in response, and headed for the stairwell. Mine was a small, narrow block, and I was three floors up.

At the end of the short hallway, I stepped into the small vestibule that all the apartments in the building had, before unlocking my front door. I’d left the hall light on, and the warm glow spilled across the hardwood floors, giving me an immediate sense of comfort. I’d barely kicked off my heels when my phone lit up.

Chloe: You home safe?

Me: Yeah. You?

Chloe: Yeah. So I was thinking… About Dante Marcelli.

Me: What about him?

Chloe: I think he likes you.

Me: He was snooping in my office.

Chloe: That aside, I saw the way he looked at you.

Me: He looked at me like I was something stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

Chloe: More like a bowl of something he wanted to devour.

Me: Goodnight, Chloe.

An hour later, I sat curled up on the couch with my legs tucked beneath me, watching an old black-and-white movie flicker on the television screen.

Casablanca. One of my favorites.

I knew it was a little strange for someone my age to prefer classics over doomscrolling through social media, but there was something soothing about them. Maybe because my mother had loved old movies too. I still remembered snuggling up beside her as a child while she quoted Humphrey Bogart and cried over tragic love stories. Back when life had felt safe. Predictable.

But tonight, my mind refused to settle.

I’d made the mistake of searching Dante Marcelli online.

The man barely existed digitally. No social media. No interviews. No candid photographs stumbling drunk out of clubs like every other disrespectable billionaire in Manhattan.

The few images I did find were stiff, polished photographs accompanying articles in Forbes or the business pages of national newspapers.