Too Late To Apologize, Mr. Billionaire

For seven years, I scrubbed floors, cooked books, and hid my identity as the Vitiello heiress just to test if Dante Moretti loved me for me, not my father’s power.

But the massive digital billboard in Times Square froze the blood in my veins.

It wasn’t my face next to his under the headline "The King and his new Queen." It was a cocktail waitress named Lola.

When I walked into the lobby to confront him, Lola slapped me across the face and crushed my late mother's locket under her stiletto heel.

Dante didn't defend me. He didn't even look sorry.

"You’re useful, like a stapler," he sneered, checking his watch.

"But a King needs a Queen, not a boring clerk. You can stay on as my mistress if you want to keep your job."

He thought I was a nobody. He thought he could use me to launder his money and then discard me like trash.

He didn't realize that the only reason he wasn't in federal prison was because I was protecting him.

I wiped the blood from my lip and pulled out a secure satellite phone.

Dante laughed. "Who are you calling? Your mommy?"

I stared him dead in the eyes as the line connected.

"The pact is void, Papa," I whispered. "Burn them all."

Ten minutes later, the glass doors shattered as my father’s military helicopters descended onto the street.

Dante fell to his knees, realizing too late that he hadn't just lost a secretary.

He had just declared war on the Capo dei Capi.

Chapter 1

I had spent the entire ride rehearsing the smile I’d give my fiancé after seven years of hiding in the shadows for him. But the massive digital billboard in Times Square didn't just stop me cold—it froze the blood in my veins.

It wasn’t my face next to his under the headline "The King and his new Queen."

And if I didn't kill the man I loved right this second, my father would burn this entire city to the ground just to do it for me.

The taxi driver tapped the steering wheel, oblivious to the fact that his passenger was currently calculating the logistics of a homicide.

"Big night for the Moretti family, huh?" he said, gesturing vaguely to the screen that lit up the night sky. "Dante Moretti is finally settling down. That girl, Lola? She looks like a movie star."

I stared at the screen.

Dante Moretti.

The man for whom I had scrubbed floors.

The man for whom I had cooked books.

The man I had loved in silence for seven agonizing years.

He was kissing a woman who was definitely not me.

The caption scrolled in bold, electric blue letters: A Union of Power. The Future Don and his First Lady.

My phone vibrated in my hand. It was a text from Dante.

*Baby, I’m so sorry I can’t pick you up. Family business is insane with the Gala prep. I’ll see you tomorrow