Chapter 4 - Ninety Days Beside Lorenzo Vitali
By Saturday morning, Avery had become two entirely different women.
One existed online.
That Avery was a schemer.
A secret mistress.
A gold digger.
A corporate whistleblower.
A brilliant undercover investigator.
A woman who had "seduced" Lorenzo Vitali by standing wet in a doorway and asking for a signature.
The second Avery sat barefoot on a hotel sofa eating cereal from a coffee mug because room service charged twenty-eight dollars for eggs.
She preferred the second one.
Lorenzo arrived shortly after nine.
Gabriel followed carrying folders.
Avery glanced at them.
"More good news?"
"No."
"At least you're consistent."
Lorenzo removed his coat.
The hotel suite had become their temporary command center.
Security stayed in the corridor.
Aunt May had gone back to the laundromat after new security cameras were installed, refusing Lorenzo's offer to replace the broken window unless he let her pay him monthly.
He had accepted.
Avery suspected he had learned faster with Aunt May than with Avery.
Gabriel opened a laptop.
"Duca Maritime has called an emergency press conference for noon."
"Why?"
"Officially, to address the leaked documents."
"Unofficially?"
"To bury Lorenzo."
Lorenzo poured coffee.
Avery noticed he drank it black.
It seemed annoyingly appropriate.
Gabriel continued.
"We also identified three television appearances booked for Odette Duca."
"She is going on television?"
"Apparently."
"To discuss what?"
"You."
Avery lowered her mug.
"Excuse me?"
Gabriel looked uncomfortable.
"Her representatives are describing last night's events as evidence of an ongoing personal crisis affecting Lorenzo's leadership."
Avery laughed.
"So insulting me wasn't enough. Now I'm a symptom?"
Lorenzo's face hardened.
"I'll handle Odette."
"No."
He looked at her.
"What?"
"Every time you 'handle' something, I seem to become more famous."
Gabriel coughed into his fist.
Lorenzo gave him a look.
Avery continued.
"What exactly is she going to say?"
Gabriel hesitated.
"She may claim you and Lorenzo knew each other before Thursday."
"That's a lie."
"Yes."
"Can she prove it?"
"No."
"Then let her embarrass herself."
Lorenzo leaned against the counter.
"You underestimate how easily repetition becomes truth."
Avery understood that.
She had lived a version of it.
Hear enough jokes about your body and eventually you started entering rooms already apologizing for it.
"What do you suggest?"
Gabriel and Lorenzo exchanged a glance.
Avery pointed her spoon at them.
"I hate that look."
Gabriel spoke first.
"We have an unconventional option."
"That's lawyer language for terrible idea."
"Usually."
He slid a document toward her.
Avery didn't touch it.
"What is it?"
"A ninety-day public-relations agreement."
She stared.
Lorenzo's expression remained carefully neutral.
Avery looked between them.
"No."
"You haven't heard it."
"No."
"Avery—"
"No."
Gabriel sighed.
"It isn't marriage."
"No."
"It isn't even an engagement."
"No."
"It's a controlled public courtship."
Avery stared.
Then she started laughing.
She laughed so hard cereal almost came out of her nose.
Lorenzo waited.
Gabriel looked wounded.
When she finally stopped, Avery wiped her eyes.
"You want me to pretend to date him?"
"Temporarily."
"Why?"
"Because the Duca strategy depends on portraying you as an embarrassing accident and Lorenzo as unstable."
"So your response is proving he actually dates random delivery drivers?"
"Not random."
"Thank you. Much better."
Gabriel leaned forward.
"If Lorenzo appears ashamed of you or desperate to distance himself, they win the narrative. If he insists you deserve respect, publicly spends time with you, and refuses the Duca merger on legitimate financial grounds, the story changes."
"Into what?"
"A choice."
Avery stopped smiling.
Gabriel continued.
"They want you to represent chaos. We make you represent independence."
"No."
Lorenzo spoke.
"I told him you would say that."
"Then why are we wasting time?"
"Because there is another reason."
Avery looked at him.
"The investigation."
"Yes."
He sat across from her.
"Whoever manipulated the delivery is watching our reactions. If you disappear from my life, they may believe their plan worked."
"And if I stay?"
"They may make another move."
Avery stared.
"So I'm bait."
"No."
"That's exactly what you just described."
"I won't use you as bait."
"Then what are you asking?"
His answer came slowly.
"To stay visible while we investigate together."
Avery looked out the window.
The rain had finally stopped.
Savannah looked scrubbed clean.
She thought about going home.
Returning to the laundromat.
Finding another courier company.
Waiting for the internet to discover somebody else.
That would be sensible.
It would also mean never knowing who had used her.
Avery turned.
"Terms."
Gabriel straightened.
Lorenzo's eyebrows rose.
"I didn't say yes."
Gabriel opened the document quickly.
"Naturally."
Avery held up a finger.
"My terms."
He stopped.
"First, I lie about nothing."
Gabriel frowned.
"A public courtship involves some performance."
"Then call it something else. I will attend events. I will be seen with Lorenzo. I will not tell reporters I'm in love when I'm not."
Lorenzo nodded.
"Agreed."
"Second, no controlling my clothes."
Gabriel looked confused.
"That wasn't—"
"No stylists telling me I need to look thinner. No wardrobe people putting me in something designed to make rich strangers more comfortable."
"Agreed," Lorenzo said.
"Third, I keep my own apartment."
"The hotel—"
"Temporary. I go home when security says it's safe."
Lorenzo hesitated.
Then nodded.
"Fourth, my aunt is off limits. No interviews. No cameras. No using her business for some touching public-relations story."
"Absolutely."
"Fifth."
Avery looked at Lorenzo.
"You don't give me money."
His brow furrowed.
"This arrangement will take your time."
"I'll accept compensation for lost work at my normal rate."
Gabriel almost objected.
Avery continued.
"Not triple. Normal."
Lorenzo studied her.
"All right."
"And sixth."
"What?"
"If I want out, I'm out."
"No argument?"
"No argument."
Lorenzo didn't answer immediately.
Then he extended his hand.
"No argument."
Avery looked at it.
Big hand.
Expensive watch.
One slight scar across a knuckle.
She placed her hand in his.
His grip was warm.
Steady.
"Thirty days," she said.
Gabriel blinked.
"The proposal says ninety."
"Thirty."
"Sixty," Lorenzo countered.
"Forty-five."
Lorenzo's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Fifty."
Avery considered.
"Forty-five, and you pay for Aunt May's window only if she lets you."
Something like amusement crossed his face.
"Done."
Gabriel stared at both of them.
"I've negotiated international acquisitions that were easier."
"Then you're overpaid," Avery said.
They signed.
The first public appearance happened that evening.
Not a gala.
Not a press conference.
Avery refused both.
Instead, Lorenzo invited her to dinner at a small Italian restaurant near the river.
Public enough to be photographed.
Private enough that they could actually speak.
Avery wore a dark green wrap dress she'd owned for three years.
Her curls were dry for the first time since meeting him.
When Lorenzo arrived at the hotel lobby, he stopped.
Avery immediately became self-conscious.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That's a look."
"What kind?"
"The kind people make before lying."
His gaze softened.
"You look beautiful."
Avery stared at him.
There was no smirk.
No performance.
No publicist standing nearby.
"Thank you," she said finally.
He offered his arm.
She ignored it and walked beside him.
Outside, cameras exploded in white flashes.
"Mr. Vitali, is she your girlfriend?"
"Avery, are you engaged?"
"Are you replacing Camila?"
Avery kept walking.
Lorenzo leaned closer.
"Still think this was a good idea?"
"No."
"Excellent."
At dinner they discovered things neither expected.
Lorenzo hated opera.
Avery loved terrible disaster movies.
His mother had died when he was twenty-eight.
Avery's mother had died six years earlier.
He had once wanted to become an architect.
She had once wanted to open a bookstore.
"Why didn't you?"
"Money."
"And now?"
"Still money."
"You work constantly."
"So do you."
"That's different."
"Why?"
Lorenzo didn't answer.
Avery looked at him.
"There."
"What?"
"That."
"What?"
"You assume your work matters more because the numbers are bigger."
His face tightened.
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to."
He sat back.
Most men Avery knew would have defended themselves.
Lorenzo considered the accusation.
"You're right."
She blinked.
"Stop doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Admitting when I'm right. It's disorienting."
He smiled.
A real smile this time.
It changed his entire face.
Avery hated noticing.
Outside the restaurant, photographers waited.
When Avery and Lorenzo stepped onto the sidewalk, questions flew again.
Then one reporter shouted:
"Avery! How much is he paying you?"
She stopped.
Lorenzo kept walking half a step before realizing.
The reporter pushed forward.
"Is this all fake? Did Vitali hire you to distract from the fraud investigation?"
Avery turned.
Security moved closer.
Lorenzo quietly said, "You don't have to answer."
Avery looked at the camera.
"No."
The reporter blinked.
"No what?"
"No, he isn't paying me to date him."
Technically true.
"And no, I did not know Mr. Vitali before I delivered that package."
Another reporter called, "Then why are you with him tonight?"
Avery looked at Lorenzo.
For once, he seemed as interested in her answer as everyone else.
She faced the cameras.
"Because somebody made me part of this story without asking me."
Her voice strengthened.
"So until I learn who did it and why, I'm not disappearing just because strangers decided I don't look like the woman they expected beside him."
Silence.
Then shutters erupted.
Lorenzo watched her.
Avery started toward the SUV.
He followed.
Inside, neither spoke for several blocks.
Finally Lorenzo said, "That was not in Gabriel's media plan."
"Good."
"He may suffer."
"He'll recover."
Lorenzo looked out the window, but Avery caught the smile.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
No words.
Just a photograph.
It showed Avery and Lorenzo leaving the restaurant.
Taken from across the street.
Only seconds earlier.
Below the image came one line.
YOU HAVE 43 DAYS LEFT. YOU WON'T MAKE IT TO 45.
Avery turned the screen toward Lorenzo.
His smile vanished.
And for the first time, their ridiculous agreement no longer felt like publicity.
May you like
It felt like a countdown.
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