Chapter 6 - OLIVIA REFUSED TO BECOME THE REASON DAMIAN CHANGED HIS LIFE
Dating Damian Moretti created problems nobody covered in romance movies.
Restaurant reservations were too easy.
Paparazzi occasionally appeared.
Strangers recognized him.
One morning I discovered a gossip site had called me:
THE WEDDING PLANNER WHO TAMED CHICAGO’S MAFIA KING.
I threw my phone onto the couch.
Damian picked it up.
“That is offensive.”
“Which part?”
“Tamed.”
I stared.
He smiled.
“Joking.”
“Dangerous hobby.”
What actually bothered me was the implication.
That Damian changed because I was special enough.
No.
Absolutely not.
So when a reporter called asking for a profile about “the woman behind Moretti’s transformation,” I refused.
Damian did too.
His statement was simple:
Olivia Brooks is not responsible for my business decisions. They are mine. Please direct questions regarding Moretti Holdings to the company.
I saved that one.
Over the next two years, Moretti Holdings became boring.
Damian considered that success.
Warehousing expanded.
Trucking contracts became transparent enough for ordinary banks to finance.
The restaurants remained.
Real estate became the largest division.
Private-security operations were separated and professionally licensed.
No enforcement crews.
No debt collection through intimidation.
No hidden partnerships that existed only because someone’s father had shaken hands in 1998.
Federal and state agencies investigated historic conduct.
Some cases ended with penalties.
Some with no charges.
A former Moretti associate was prosecuted for independent crimes.
Damian testified under subpoena when required.
Men who once called him boss stopped returning invitations.
Good.
Marco became weirdly passionate about compliance systems.
I teased him.
He said surviving gunfire changed a man.
Isabella built her own life too.
Her father eventually entered a plea agreement after multiple cases converged.
He lost control of Bellini Maritime.
Isabella kept the shares her mother left her.
She joined a professional board but refused to run the company.
Instead she opened an architectural-preservation firm because apparently everyone in these families secretly wanted normal jobs.
She and I became friends.
Not because Damian brought us together.
Because canceled weddings create a surprisingly durable bond.
On the first anniversary of the disaster, Isabella sent me a card:
THANK YOU FOR FIRING ME.
I framed it.
Damian wanted one.
I told him to earn his own.
My company recovered completely.
Better than completely.
The public story about the canceled Moretti wedding attracted clients who liked our philosophy.
I formalized a new contract clause:
Either member of the couple may pause or cancel the ceremony at any time before legal completion. Staff will not pressure either party to proceed because of cost, schedule, guest inconvenience, or family demands.
Some luxury clients hated it.
Excellent filtering mechanism.
Emily became operations director.
She stopped dropping coffee every time Damian entered.
Mostly.
Eventually she said:
“You’re less scary now.”
Damian replied:
“That’s bad for branding.”
Life became ordinary in pieces.
I kept my apartment for almost two years.
Damian never asked me to give it up.
He offered space at his home only after I brought it up.
Even then I refused.
His penthouse felt like a hotel designed by someone afraid of fingerprints.
“You own twelve couches.”
I said.
“Nine.”
“Worse.”
We eventually chose a different place together.
Not his.
Not mine.
A townhouse closer to the lake.
Still expensive because Damian was Damian.
But it had a kitchen people actually used.
I paid toward household expenses proportionally based on an agreement our attorneys reviewed.
Yes, attorneys.
Dating a former mafia boss changes your relationship with paperwork.
The first serious fight happened after we moved.
I came home and found a security camera installed near the back entrance.
“What is that?”
Damian looked up from his laptop.
“Camera.”
“Excellent identification.”
“Why is it there?”
“Someone photographed you outside last week.”
“So?”
“So I increased security.”
“Without asking.”
He stopped.
Old pattern.
Smaller.
Still old.
“I thought exterior security was obvious.”
“To you.”
“Not to me.”
He took a breath.
“You want it removed?”
“I want a conversation.”
“Okay.”
That word saved the evening.
We discussed the actual risk.
A photographer had indeed been lingering.
Police found no threat.
We agreed to one camera pointed only at the entrance, no interior monitoring, footage controlled by a security company rather than Damian personally.
Compromise.
Not surrender.
Later he said:
“I still do it.”
“What?”
“See fear and immediately turn it into control.”
“Yes.”
“Does that make you want to leave?”
Sometimes questions deserve uncomfortable answers.
“If you stopped noticing it?”
“Yes.”
“If you decided your fear automatically outranked my choices?”
“Yes.”
Damian nodded.
“That seems fair.”
“No one promised fair would feel good.”
He kissed my forehead.
“I hate your company motto.”
“That isn’t my company motto.”
“Should be.”
Three years after our first date, Damian asked me a question while we were making pasta.
He had become decent at exactly four meals.
Pasta was safest.
“Do you want to get married?”
I dropped a tomato.
Not:
Will you marry me?
Do you want to get married?
Conversation first.
I looked at him.
“Generally or specifically?”
“Specifically.”
“To you?”
“Preferably.”
I smiled despite myself.
“Yes.”
His entire body relaxed.
Then:
“Can I propose?”
“Not tonight.”
His face fell.
“Why?”
“Because you’re holding a wooden spoon.”
“I can put it down.”
“Damian.”
“Fine.”
He waited.
Four months.
I began to suspect he had forgotten.
That was impossible.
The man remembered vendor disputes from eight years earlier.
Then Isabella invited us to the reopening of a restored theater her firm had worked on.
Afterward, Damian asked if I wanted to walk.
Same park where we held lesson four.
I knew immediately.
“You’re obvious.”
“I’ve been told I’m difficult to read.”
“By terrified employees.”
“Former employees.”
We reached the lagoon.
Damian stopped.
No crowd.
No musicians.
No hidden photographer as far as I knew.
He pulled out a small ring.
Not small financially.
Tastefully sized.
Progress.
He did not kneel yet.
“Do you still want me to ask?”
My eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Then he knelt.
“Olivia Brooks.”
“Before you canceled my wedding, I thought love was something people either got lucky enough to feel or important enough not to need.”
“I thought marriage could be useful without being chosen.”
“I thought protecting people meant deciding for them.”
“I thought no was the beginning of a negotiation.”
He smiled faintly.
“You have spent several years proving I was exhausting.”
I laughed through tears.
Damian continued.
“You did not save me.”
“You refused to.”
“That may be the best thing anyone ever did for me.”
“You made me responsible for my own choices.”
He opened the ring box.
“I choose you.”
“But I do not want your yes if it requires you to become smaller.”
“Will you marry me?”
I looked at him.
Chicago’s once most feared mafia boss.
The man I fired.
The man I refused to tame.
The man who learned slowly, imperfectly, repeatedly, that love without choice is only another form of control.
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
Then looked up.
“May I put the ring on?”
I started laughing.
“Yes.”
He slid it onto my hand.
Then stood.
I kissed him.
Five seconds later, my phone buzzed.
Isabella.
DID HE FINALLY DO IT?
I pulled away.
“You told Isabella?”
Damian looked offended.
“She threatened Marco.”
May you like
I started laughing again.
Some parts of his old world would apparently never become normal.
