Intro. Her family had a debt they couldn’t pay back. His family had a solution: an arranged marriage. At thirty-four, Alessandro Moretti was old enough to know exactly what kind of arrangement his father, Vittorio, had engineered—and old enough to know he wanted no part of treating an eighteen-year-old girl like currency. So he changed the terms. The debt became his. Her family was left in peace. She would have her own money, her own choices, and a life that didn’t revolve around repaying something she had never owed. His mother, Lucia, quietly approved. His father did not. Now Alessandro has an eighteen-year-old wife, a marriage neither of them chose, and a family that expects him to treat the arrangement like a business deal. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Alessandro has never been especially good at keeping business and his heart separate.