Chapter 1 - The Amber Gaze
It went quiet when I touched the dog.
One second, crystal glasses were clinking beneath the soft jazz playing through Manhattan’s most exclusive dining room. The next, a waiter froze beside the bar, a champagne flute slipped from his fingers, and two men near the entrance reached beneath their jackets.
And every terrified face in the room turned toward me.
All because my hand was resting on the enormous black hound beside table twelve.
At twenty-six, I was Olivia Marshall, and I knew almost nothing about New York’s criminal underworld.
I knew rent was due in six days.
I knew my checking account had exactly $118 in it.
And I knew that after working two double shifts in a row, my feet hurt so badly that I wanted to cry.
That was why I didn’t immediately realize I had just done something everyone else in that restaurant considered suicidal.
The dog was magnificent.
Thick midnight-black fur. Powerful shoulders. Piercing amber eyes.
He looked intimidating enough to make most people cross the street.
But when I approached table twelve to collect an empty wineglass, the massive animal quietly stood and pressed his head against my leg.
I smiled.
“Oh, you sweet boy.”
Without thinking, I bent down and scratched behind his ears.
The dog melted against my hand.
His eyes closed.
His tail thumped once against the polished floor.
Then I noticed the silence.
I slowly looked up.
The entire restaurant was staring at me.
One waiter stood with his mouth open.
A woman at the neighboring table had gone pale.
And the two broad-shouldered men near the entrance were watching me with the kind of attention that made every instinct in my body scream.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, pulling my hand away. “I thought he wanted me to pet him.”
A chair moved behind me.
The man seated at table twelve rose.
He was tall—easily over six feet—with broad shoulders beneath a charcoal coat that probably cost more than six months of my rent.
Dark hair.
Sharp cheekbones.
A face that belonged on a magazine cover if it weren’t for the cold gray eyes studying me.
The entire room seemed to shrink around him.
“You didn’t disturb him,” he said.
His voice was quiet.
That somehow made it more intimidating.
I glanced around.
“Then why is everyone looking at me?”
His eyes swept across the restaurant.
Every person immediately looked away.
My stomach tightened.
“Because Orion doesn’t allow strangers to touch him.”
I looked down.
Orion had pressed himself against my leg again.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
I cautiously scratched behind his ear.
Orion’s tail began thumping.
“Well,” I murmured, “he seems pretty friendly to me.”
“He isn’t.”
The answer came immediately.
I glanced up at the stranger.
“Maybe he just has good taste.”
For the briefest second, something changed in his face.
Not quite a smile.
But close.
I didn’t know that the man standing in front of me was Dante Moretti.
I didn’t know his name was whispered in federal offices, police precincts, courtrooms, and private clubs all across New York.
I didn’t know people described him as ruthless, calculating, and untouchable.
And I definitely didn’t know that Orion had once put a grown man in the hospital simply for approaching Dante without permission.
To me, Orion was just a lonely dog who wanted someone to scratch his ears.
“Good night, handsome,” I whispered.
Orion leaned against me one last time.
Then I grabbed my tray and hurried toward the kitchen.
Just before the swinging doors closed, I looked back.
Orion was standing.
He was staring after me.
Then the enormous dog released a low, heartbreaking whine.
Dante wasn’t watching me anymore.
May you like
He was staring at Orion.
And for the first time that night, the powerful man looked genuinely unsettled.
