Chapter 1
“Will you marry me?”
Rosalia blinked, rain pelting her lashes and blurring her vision. She stared down in disbelief. Matt Calloway was kneeling on one knee in the middle of the sidewalk, soaked to the bone, rainwater streaming down his sharp jawline.
Her throat tightened. She almost laughed, thinking this must be some kind of cruel joke, maybe even a hidden-camera prank. But no, there he was, holding up a velvet box with a glittering ring inside, his face desperate and expectant.
Her heart thudded painfully.
“Matt… what…” Her voice faltered, lost between the drumming of the rain and the murmur of strangers gathering to watch. Phones lifted, recording, the blue glow of screens reflecting against wet pavement. A proposal in the rain. The kind of thing people posted with hashtags about love conquering all.
Only this wasn’t love. Not anymore.
She shifted uncomfortably, clutching her jacket tighter around her shoulders as whispers rippled through the small crowd. She could already imagine the headlines across social media. Rosalia Ivanov — yes, that Ivanov, Leonid Ivanov’s daughter — engaged in the rain. Her name in everyone’s mouth again.
Panic bubbled in her chest.
“What are you doing?” she hissed, her tone sharp enough to slice through the murmurs. “Get up.”
Matt’s smile wavered but didn’t disappear. “Just say yes.”
Her stomach twisted.
“Just get up, okay? You’re embarrassing me.”
The words slipped out harsher than she intended, but they hung between them like a knife.
The smile vanished. His expression hardened, eyes narrowing as he rose from the wet pavement. His soaked shirt clung to his chest, his jaw tight with fury.
“Embarrassing you?” His voice dropped low, seething.
“Yes, Matt,” Rosalia said, forcing her tone steady even as unease slid icy fingers down her spine. She tried to remind herself why she couldn’t cave, why she had to stand her ground. This wasn’t about embarrassment — this was about betrayal. About last night. About Mila.
They had been together almost a year. She had trusted him. Loved him. And then, like a knife to the gut, she’d found out he’d been sleeping with her best friend.
The memory burned. Her nails dug into her palms. "I am embarrassing you? After everything I have done for you, for us?"
“This us ended the moment you decided it was okay to screw my best friend,” she spat, the words tasting of venom and heartbreak. “We broke up last night, remember?”
Matt’s lips curled into something between a sneer and a plea. “No. You broke up with me. I never broke up with you.” His voice cracked with anger, desperation lacing every word. “Besides, I told you I made a mistake. I just got… tempted. She was the one who seduced me, okay?”
Rosalia huffed bitterly, shaking her head as the rain plastered her curls against her cheeks. “I don’t care. It happened. And I want nothing to do with you anymore. You can go propose to her. In the rain. It’ll be perfect.”
She turned sharply to leave, but his hand shot out, clamping around her arm with bruising force.
She gasped, hissing in pain. “Let go of me!”
“Why should I?” His grip tightened, his eyes burning with a possessive madness that made her stomach drop. “You’re mine. Mine only. And you have no right to throw away what we have just because of a little mistake I made.”
A little mistake. That’s what he called it. The betrayal, the humiliation, the knife in her back — a little mistake.
Her chest rose and fell in rapid bursts, heart hammering. The look in his eyes wasn’t the look of someone begging forgiveness. It was something darker. Something that scared her.
“Matt, if you don’t let go right now, I’ll scream.”
His lips curved in a chilling half-smile. “Scream all you want. If you do, I’ll show the world what you looked like screaming my name.”
Rosalia froze. Her mind tripped over the words.
“What?”
“I have videos,” he said, his voice low, almost gleeful.
For a second, her fear cracked into laughter. “Yeah, right. We never made any sex tapes.”
“Believe what you want to believe,” he said, his gaze steady, unreadable.
Her stomach twisted, nausea clawing its way up her throat. She didn’t know if he was bluffing or if he had really recorded something without her knowing. Either way, it was enough to make bile rise.
“Let go of my hand,” she snapped, forcing her voice to steady. “Or I’ll scream. My dad is in that building anyway.” She jerked her chin toward the glass tower across the street.
For the first time, his grip faltered. Of course, everyone knew who Leonid Ivanov was. And nobody, not even Matt, was foolish enough to test his wrath.
What Matt didn’t know was that it was a lie. Her father was at home, probably asleep, his arms wrapped around Layla, blissfully unaware that his daughter had snuck out tonight.
The second his fingers loosened, Rosalia ripped herself free and bolted. She didn’t look back. Didn’t dare. Her heels splashed through puddles, water soaking through her tights as adrenaline carried her forward. She ran like her life depended on it.
Her breath came in sharp bursts. Her chest burned. She turned the corner too fast, and her foot slipped on the slick pavement. She crashed down hard, her knees scraping against the ground.
“Shit,” she hissed, pain flaring.
Rain pelted her, masking the tears spilling freely now. She pressed her palms against the wet concrete, trembling.
The universe was against her. It had to be.
First, her boyfriend — her first boyfriend, her first everything — had cheated with her best friend. A double betrayal, a knife twisted twice. And now this, humiliation in the rain, a proposal turned nightmare. "He just listens to me." She remembers that those were the words that she said to Mila when she asked her what she saw in Matt. She huffed, mayhe Mila wanted someone to listen to her too so she thought that it was okay to go behind her back and fuck with Matt, and Matt though that it was okay to let it happen.
Her chest ached with anger, with grief, with something she refused to name. Because the truth was, it still hurt. She still ached for him, for what they used to have before it all soured.
But she couldn’t let him know that. If she showed even a crack in her armor, he’d wedge himself in and never let her go.
She squeezed her eyes shut. She was too tired to get up. Too tired to fight. If someone walked by and stepped on her foot right now, she’d probably thank them for putting her out of her misery.
And then—
The rain stopped.
At least, it stopped on her. Around her, the storm still raged, sheets of water falling against the pavement. She opened her eyes slowly, confusion knitting her brow.
A large, black umbrella hovered above her.
Her gaze followed the handle, up to a hand covered by a black leather glove, then higher still — and her breath caught.
A man stood over her, tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a long black jacket that fell around him like shadows. His skin was caramel-toned, his jaw sharp, his mouth set in an unreadable line. Storm-colored eyes peered down at her from beneath thick, wet curls that nearly fell into his gaze.
She blinked up at him, stunned, caught between awe and suspicion.
He extended his gloved hand toward her.
Her first instinct was to hesitate — hadn’t she learned her lesson about trusting too easily? But her body betrayed her, and she slid her hand into his. His grip was steady, firm, grounding. He pulled her up effortlessly, as though she weighed nothing.
“Are you okay?” His voice rumbled low, carrying a thick accent. Not Russian, like her father’s, but something smoother, richer. Italian, she realized.
Her stomach fluttered. She quickly cleared her throat, brushing damp curls from her face. She didn’t need a mirror to know she was a mess — mascara smudged, curls wild, looking more like a drowned cat than Leonid Ivanov’s daughter.
“Yeah,” she managed.
“Do you need a ride?”
Her lips parted. “Uh…” Every warning her father had ever drilled into her screamed in her head. Never get into a stranger’s car. Not at this hour. Not in this city.
“I’ll manage,” she said quickly, clutching her arms across her chest.
He studied her for a long moment, his gaze sharp, almost assessing, like he could see past her words into the truth she hid.
And then, without a word, he lifted her hand and pressed the umbrella into it.
“You’ll catch a cold,” he said simply.
Her lips parted. “Oh… uh… thanks.”
He nodded once. “Get home safely.”
She nodded back, a little too fast. He turned, his coat swaying with the motion, and began walking away into the rain.
“Wait!” she called before she could stop herself.
He paused, glanced over his shoulder.
“What’s your name?”
For the first time, his lips curved into a small smile. It didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Alessandro. Alessandro Russo.”
“Alessandro,” she repeated softly, tasting the name on her tongue.
He tilted his head. “And yours?”
“Rosalia,” she said.
“Rosalia,” he echoed, rolling the syllables in his accent, savoring them like fine wine.
And then he turned the corner and was gone.
Rosalia stood there, drenched, clutching the umbrella, her heart pounding against her ribs.
At least good men still existed.
What she didn’t know — what she couldn’t know — was that this man would ruin her for any other. And she would beg him for it.
