She Entered The Wrong Bedroom At A Billionaire Gala — Then Woke Up Next To Chicago’s Most Feared Mafia Boss With A Ring On Her Finger.

PART 1

Waking up in a stranger’s bed was embarrassing.

Waking up beneath the arm of Dominic Castelli, the most feared man in Chicago’s criminal underworld, was the kind of mistake people did not live long enough to regret.

But before I could scream, run, or explain why a catering coordinator was trapped against his bare chest, the bedroom doors flew open.

An elderly woman in a silk floral robe stared at us for three seconds.

Then she clapped her hands and shouted, “Finally! My grandson has found a bride!”

That was how the worst night of my professional life became the first morning of my engagement.

My name is Harper Russo. At the time, I was thirty years old, buried under student loans, supporting a mother recovering from heart surgery, and working as a senior event coordinator for Silver Spoon Catering.

“Senior” sounded impressive.

It meant I was allowed to work eighteen-hour shifts while my manager, Brenda Kline, took credit for everything that went right and blamed me for everything that went wrong.

The Castelli Foundation Gala was supposed to change that.

It was the largest event our company had handled in years, hosted at a sprawling stone estate overlooking Lake Michigan. The Castelli family presented themselves publicly as investors, developers, and generous patrons of hospitals and schools.

Privately, everyone in Chicago knew better.

The Castellis had controlled half the city’s illegal gambling, private security, and waterfront unions for decades. Their current head, Dominic Castelli, was a man people discussed only after checking whether the doors were locked.

By three in the morning, I had been awake for nearly twenty hours.

My feet were blistered. My lower back felt like someone had driven a nail through it. My black uniform clung uncomfortably to my size-sixteen body, and my manager had just ordered me to inventory linen in the third-floor staff wing.

The problem was that the estate had more corridors than some hotels.

I took a wrong turn.

At the end of a quiet hallway, I found a pair of dark wooden doors. I opened them expecting to see folding tables and stacks of tablecloths.

Instead, moonlight revealed an enormous bedroom.

The room smelled of cedar, leather, and expensive cologne. A fire had burned down to glowing embers in a black marble fireplace. At the center stood a king-sized bed covered in charcoal silk.

I should have left.

I knew that.

But the mattress looked softer than anything I had ever seen, and exhaustion whispered that resting for five minutes could not possibly destroy my life.

I slipped off my shoes, sat on the edge of the bed, and lowered myself onto the comforter.

“Five minutes,” I murmured.

The world went black.

I woke to warmth, weight, and the unsettling awareness that something powerful was breathing against the back of my neck.

A heavy arm lay across my stomach.

The hand near my waist was large, scarred across the knuckles, and attached to a muscular forearm marked by a black serpent winding around a dagger.

Every person who had lived in Chicago for more than a week recognized that symbol.

Dominic Castelli.

I stopped breathing.

I had fallen asleep in the mafia boss’s bed.

Worse, he had apparently returned in the dark, climbed in beside me, and pulled me against him without waking.

I tried to slide away.

His arm tightened.

“Don’t move,” a rough voice said behind me.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

“I can explain.”

“Start.”

“I work for the caterer. I got lost. I was tired. I thought this was a guest room.”

His breathing slowed.

“You entered the private wing of my home, climbed into my bed, and fell asleep?”

“When you say it like that, it sounds irresponsible.”

“It is irresponsible.”

“I’m aware of that now.”

For one insane second, I thought I heard amusement in his voice.

Then the bedroom doors burst open and every light came on.

“Dominic!”

The woman in the floral robe stood in the doorway, flanked by two men in dark suits. She was barely five feet tall, but the guards looked more frightened of her than they did of the guns beneath their jackets.

Dominic sat up with a groan.

I scrambled toward the headboard and grabbed a pillow to cover myself, even though I was still wearing my catering uniform.

The woman’s sharp brown eyes moved from Dominic’s bare chest to my tangled blonde hair, flushed face, and discarded orthopedic shoes.

I prepared myself for humiliation, arrest, or death.

Instead, she smiled.

“Thank heaven,” she announced. “A real woman.”

Dominic rubbed a hand over his face. “Good morning, Nonna.”

“Do not ‘good morning’ me. You have hidden this beautiful girl from your family.”

“I have not hidden—”