[COMPLETED] Her Friends Sent Her on a Blind Date With Boston's Most Feared Mafia Boss—Then He Caught Them Laughing

Daniel Brooks kept his hand inside his suit jacket.

Across the Grand Oak, Olivia and the two women beside her were no longer laughing. I could see Olivia's mouth moving, although I was too far away to hear what she said. One of the others looked toward the exit.

I had spent the last four years learning what happened when I trusted someone who withheld the truth. Now I was sitting across from a man with a frightening reputation, waiting to learn whether my friends had arranged something worse than humiliation.

"Daniel," I said.

He looked at me immediately.

"I don't want anyone hurt."

For the first time since I'd told him the truth, he seemed surprised.

"Neither do I."

He withdrew a slim black phone. Nothing else. I realized how tightly I had been gripping the edge of my chair.

"My assistant gave me a name and a reservation," he said. "She didn't tell me there would be an audience."

His thumb moved across the screen. He didn't make a call.

"What are you doing?"

"Asking the manager to come over. I'd rather not make you cross that room again."

I watched him send a short message. He set the phone face down beside his untouched water glass.

"You can tell me to stop," he added.

The offer was so unexpected that I needed a moment to answer. Jason had made decisions for both of us, usually explaining afterward why I should have understood. Olivia had brought me here without allowing me to understand anything. I wasn't prepared to let a stranger, however considerate he seemed, take over the evening too.

"I want to hear what she says," I said. "But I'm the one who gets to decide whether I stay."

"Agreed."

The Grand Oak's floor manager arrived a minute later. Her name was Mira, and she spoke to Daniel with the familiar discretion of someone accustomed to serving difficult guests. He asked her to invite Olivia to our table. He also asked that nobody be filmed without permission.

Mira's expression shifted slightly.

"One of the ladies near the bar has been holding up her phone," she said.

I closed my eyes for an instant.

Of course she had.

When Olivia approached, she attempted a smile. Her friends remained behind the column. The one nearest the wall lowered her phone into her lap.

"Emily," Olivia said brightly. "You look wonderful."

I remembered standing behind the bookstore register, reading her three laughing emojis.

"Tell him why you invited me."

"I thought you two might get along."

"That wasn't what you were laughing about."

Olivia glanced at Daniel. The room had not become silent, but I had the distinct feeling the surrounding tables were listening without appearing to.

"It's a harmless joke," she said. "Everyone makes jokes."

Daniel did not raise his voice.

"Who was supposed to find it harmless?"

She looked at me, then away.

"Emily's been miserable since Jason. I thought she'd finally get out and meet someone."

"Then you could have told me who he was," I said. "You could have asked whether I wanted to come."

"You would have said no."

"That should have been the end of it."

Olivia pressed her lips together. For a second I saw annoyance beneath her embarrassment, as if my objection were spoiling something she'd worked to arrange.

"I didn't know he'd take it so seriously."

Daniel leaned back.

"You haven't heard me take anything seriously yet. I'm asking you to answer her."

There was no threat in his wording. That didn't make Olivia any more comfortable.

"We thought she'd panic," she admitted. "Maybe say something ridiculous. It wasn't supposed to become a whole thing."

I looked at her.

"You brought an audience because you wanted to see me panic?"

She said nothing.

For a moment, the only sound I could hear clearly was a knife touching a plate at the next table.

"Did you tell Daniel I agreed to this?" I asked.

Olivia hesitated long enough to answer me without speaking.

"Olivia."

"I told his assistant you were interested."

Daniel's expression became very still.

"You used my office to arrange a joke?"

"It was a date," she protested. "Not a business meeting."

"That doesn't answer the question."

He glanced at Mira. She understood without an explanation and walked back toward the bar, where the other women were looking anxiously at their phones.

I felt anger beginning to replace my embarrassment. Not loud anger. Something quieter and more useful.

"I need you to leave," I told Olivia.

"Emily, don't be dramatic."

"You've already had your entertainment. Please leave."

Olivia stared at me as though I were the one who had broken an agreement. Then she turned and walked away, the heels of her shoes striking the floor more sharply than before.

Daniel waited until she was beyond hearing distance.

"Would you like a car home? I can ask Mira to arrange one without involving my office."

"I came here myself. I can leave myself."

"All right."

He accepted the answer without argument. I had expected an apology on Olivia's behalf or a grand declaration about what he would do to her. Instead, he asked whether I wanted water.

I laughed once, despite everything.

"Is that how you normally handle a disastrous first date?"

"I don't have enough experience with disastrous first dates to establish a method."

His expression almost softened.

I looked toward the exit. Olivia and her friends were gathering their belongings. I could leave now. I had every reason to. But that would mean the only decision I'd made tonight was the one Olivia had forced upon me.

"I agreed to thirty minutes," I said. "I'd like to spend the rest of them actually meeting you. If that's still something you want."

"It is."

A waiter came to take our order. We chose coffee rather than dinner. For the next few minutes we talked about Maple Street Books, his childhood habit of reading the last page of a novel first, and how offended I was by that practice. It wasn't suddenly easy. But it was ordinary in a way I hadn't expected.

As we stood to leave, Daniel handed me his phone, its screen open to a message his assistant had received earlier that afternoon. He gave me time to read it without hovering.

Emily Carter is ready to try trusting someone again. Please tell Daniel she specifically asked for a private introduction.

The message was from Olivia.

I remembered saying almost those exact words to her, late one evening after Jason left. I had been crying. She had promised the conversation would stay between us.

Daniel took the phone back only when I offered it.

"I didn't ask for that introduction," I said.

"I believe you."

Outside the restaurant, the evening air felt cooler than it had when I arrived. I had discovered that Olivia had lied to two people, not one. And the most private part of my grief had become the instrument she used to put us at the same table.

Daniel didn't touch my arm or ask me to forgive him for the way we met.

"May I call you tomorrow?" he asked.

I considered the question. The fact that he had asked mattered.

"You may ask me again tomorrow," I said.

His smile was small, but real.