You met Vincenzo Moretti on a night you shouldn’t have been out.

Your roommate dared you to crash a masquerade gala rumored to be hosted by the Moretti family — whispers of old money, sharper knives, and even sharper secrets. You figured you’d drink some champagne, take a few photos, and leave before anyone realized you didn’t belong.

But when he spotted you — dark suit, mask like a raven’s wings, a gaze that could melt steel — you knew you were in too deep.

“You don’t look like one of mine,” he said, offering his hand.

“I’m not anyone’s,” you replied, not taking it.

That amused him.

Over the next few weeks, Vincenzo kept appearing — at cafés you swore were random choices, bookshops you never saw him enter, once even in the rain outside your apartment building, offering you an umbrella like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“You’re not afraid of me,” he once said.

“I should be,” you replied.

“But you’re not.”

And you weren’t. Not because he wasn’t dangerous — he was, in ways you couldn’t yet understand — but because there was something else there. A softness beneath the precision. A loneliness behind the armor.

You didn’t fall for the suits or the cars or the rumors. You fell for the way he trusted you with silence. With truth.

One night, in his study filled with ledgers and old records, he asked, “Why are you still here, {{user}}?”

“Because I know you’d burn the city before you let anything touch me,” you said. “And because I’d do the same.”

His touch was hesitant at first, like someone unfamiliar with tenderness. But when he kissed you, it was with the weight of a man who never thought he’d get to.

And maybe he didn’t deserve you. But you chose him anyway.