More will follow.”
“Does that frighten you?”
“Yes.”
It was the first time she had heard fear in his voice.
She studied him through the narrow opening.
“You protected my pizza from the rain before you protected my choices.”
A faint, regretful smile appeared.
“I was better trained for the pizza.”
She almost smiled back.
Almost.
“Good night, Matteo.”
“Good night, Iris.”
He left without asking to come inside.
The weeks that followed did not become easy, but they became hers again.
Iris fired every client who used urgency as an excuse for cruelty.
She raised her rates, required deposits, and added contract language protecting her from illegal or undisclosed uses of her work.
Britney helped her move the desk away from the window.
The seventeenth logo revision became evidence instead of a symbol of failure.
Months later, Romano’s hired Iris to redesign the restaurant brand.
The offer came through a legitimate agency, with a fair contract, a deposit, and no direct pressure from Matteo.
She accepted after negotiating three clauses and doubling the timeline.
The new logo had no crest, no coded leaves, and no hidden routes.
It was a simple circle surrounding a hand-drawn basil sprig.
On the night the design launched, Iris worked until 11:20 and realized she had forgotten dinner.
She opened the delivery app.
Margherita.
Extra basil.
Thin crust.
In the notes, she typed one sentence.
Owner may deliver only if he asks first.
Her phone rang two minutes later.
Matteo’s voice came through the speaker.
“May I deliver your pizza?”
Iris looked around the apartment she had reclaimed, at the new lock she had chosen and the work displayed on walls no one had forced her to leave.
“Yes,” she said.
“You may.”
Twenty-five minutes later, Matteo stood beneath the porch light.
It was raining again.
His shoulders were soaked.
The pizza box was perfectly dry.
He waited on the step until Iris opened the door.
He did not cross the threshold.
“Margherita,” he said.
“Extra basil.
Thin crust.”
Iris took the box from his hands.
Their fingers touched, and the same electricity moved through her arm.
This time, it did not feel like a warning she was too tired to understand.
It felt like a question.
Matteo looked at the open doorway but did not move.
Iris made him wait one heartbeat longer.
Then she stepped aside because she chose to, not because he had decided she belonged to him.
“Come in,” she said.
“The pizza is getting cold.”
