My hands remained clasped in front of me, carefully restrained as I made my way down the steps. Lydia’s plan for a grand entrance remained firmly in place, all of them watching me as I descended slowly in my heels. The light dress hung off my shoulders, lace covering my stomach and the tops of my thighs.
I ignored the weight of my father’s stare and of all the ways he would judge me and find me lacking. Keeping my gaze intent on the man who stood beside him, I forced my face to remain impassive but pleasant. If he was to be my future, then pleasing my father was no longer my main concern.
Keeping Damianos happy would be my only purpose.
He stepped forward to meet me where the stairs curved around the corner at the bottom, holding out a hand for me to place mine in. Tipping his upper body forward, he touched his lips to my knuckles. The split on his bottom lip scratched against my skin, a reminder of the violence from his fight only a few days prior.
Where he’d won me without a hint of concern for what I might think of it.
I shoved down the thought, tipping my lips into a slight smile as he stood straight. ‘You’re as beautiful as ever, η νύφη μου,’ he said. I winced, only reminded of the contract that bound us together without any of the love that came with marriage in my favorite books.
It certainly didn’t help that the overly affectionate name in Greek reminded me that there had been rumors of his rivalry with Calix. The two boys had been competitors before Calix was banished, but I couldn’t allow myself to care. Calix was forever gone from my life, and I had to do what was necessary to find peace with the life I had.
The very one he’d promised to protect me from.
‘You’re too kind,’ I said, my cheeks heating with the lie.
‘I expect her home immediately after lunch,’ my father barked as Damianos offered his arm. I took it, wincing slightly when his body brushed against the side of mine. I’d been so trained to expect pain with human touch that I couldn’t help the reaction when presented with a new, unknown person.
I wondered if it would matter to him to see the marks on my body, and to see the welt across my shoulders that Lydia hadn’t bothered to try to hide with a more modest dress. Instead, only the curtain of my dark hair offered any cover.
‘Of course,’ Damianos said, grinning at my father’s attempt to control the man who had recently taken over as the head of the Hasapis family. His father’s battle against the cancer that had riddled his body in the last year had made the transition of power necessary, and with it came the knowledge that Damianos was not a man content to remain one of several in power.
He’d start a war if the other families didn’t keep him in check, and I’d somehow had the misfortune to find myself the glue between the two factions. The last time such an alliance had been struck, it had ended with my mother dead.
I had to hope I wouldn’t follow in her footsteps.
Damianos guided me out the front doors, not pausing when I turned my face up to feel the sun on my skin. My seclusion had worsened after my mother’s death, the result of private tutors who did their best to keep me trapped inside for all the daylight hours. Without my mother’s attention, my father had allowed her field of narcissus flowers to wither and die in the yard, and I couldn’t bring myself to step outside there in the rare moments I snuck away.
To feel the death of everything I loved so poignantly. That garden had been where I’d felt closest to my mother. It was where I’d met Calix.
It seemed fitting, in a way, that it too would be dead.
His car waited, and I regretfully let him fold me into the passenger seat. His eyes fixated on the expanse of my thigh as my dress rode up, making me swallow back the bile that came at the thought of his hands on me. I squeezed my eyes shut as he closed the door and walked around to the other side.
Damianos wasn’t an unattractive man. While his dark hair might have been longer than I suspected was my personal preference, he had a ruggedly handsome quality to his face and broad shoulders, as if he was truly a gladiator and didn’t just engage in battle because of some ridiculous competitiveness.
We remained silent as he started the engine of his Porsche, pulling away from the home’s entrance to turn down the long driveway. I wrung my hands in my lap, shoving down the feeling of horror that started to rise inside me. In my brief interactions with the other girls my age, I knew Damianos was considered a great catch.
Several wanted nothing more than to be contracted as his wife, given that there were no rumors of cruelty toward the women he slept with or the escorts the families employed. Still, the knowledge that he would touch me in less than two months’ time made something insidious slither over my skin.
‘Do you—’ I paused to swallow down my nerves before starting over. ‘Is there anything you wish to know about me?’ Perhaps if I could find a way to believe this was more than a business arrangement, then I would be able to find him more tolerable.
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye as he drove through the streets toward the restaurant that wasn’t far. ‘Like what?’
I bit my lip to fight the surge of anger that rose at his blatant dismissal of everything that was me. It was the only confirmation I needed that he was just like all the rest. I would be his breeder, his trophy, tucked away and all but forgotten until he had the desire to use my body for his own pleasure.
I turned to look out the window, tugging my dress down to the best of my ability as I felt suddenly exposed in a way I hadn’t even moments before.
‘Your father mentioned you liked history,’ he observed, as if the fact that he knew one small fact about me would ease whatever hurt he’d caused. He just didn’t understand that he wasn’t capable of hurting me. Not in that way. ‘He says you spend your free time buried in a book.’
‘Yes,’ I said, not bothering to admit that more often than not I read romance or fantasy books. ‘Ancient history specifically. Mythology. That sort of thing.’ The fact that he only knew my more acceptable hobby was salt in the wound.
My father wouldn’t advertise the parts of me that he saw as flaws in the pristine image he hoped to create of me.
‘I enjoy artwork as well. Sketching, mostly,’ I said, watching as he clenched his jaw.
‘But you have such lovely, soft hands.’ He reached across, taking mine in his grip and running his thumb over the smooth skin and eventually to the scars on my knuckles. ‘Wouldn’t such a thing ruin them?’
I forced my best impression of the sultry smile Lydia had taught me, raising my right hand to run over the back of his where he held mine. Turning it over, I separated our hands and ran delicate fingers over the rough skin on his palm. ‘You have calluses, but you are far from ruined,’ I murmured softly, watching as his hand twitched in my grip.
Turning my eyes up to look at him through my lashes, I watched as his eyes slid to mine. They darkened, as if I’d made a mistake and awoken something I couldn’t have predicted would come so quickly. ‘I would much rather your nails dig into my shoulders than your calloused fingers,’ he said, deftly bringing us back to the reality that I was nothing but an inexperienced virgin who had no place playing games with a man.
I swallowed as my cheeks heated, moving to withdraw my hand. He clutched it in his as his attention refocused on the road. Resting the back of my hand against the top of his thigh, he seemed oblivious to my discomfort. ‘I think we should come to understand one another to prevent misunderstandings later on.’
‘Okay,’ I whispered, tugging back on my hand.
‘I’m not a man to toy with. I will not fall for manipulations through sex and teasing as your stepmother likely tried to teach you. Such things are done to catch a man, but you already caught me, sweetheart. We have no need for games between us, because in just a few weeks I’ll spend my nights inside you.’ His voice was cold and impassive as he said the words, but there was no cruelty or taunting to them. Just a bleak picture of my reality.
He deftly pulled the Porsche into the parking lot, pulling up to the valet. ‘I understand,’ I whispered.
He made no move to get out, only releasing my hand and shifting in his seat to touch his to my bare upper back. His fingers skimmed the welt from Lydia’s cane, gently prodding the skin. ‘But this is unacceptable. You will not suffer at my hands in this way,’ he said, pulling his hand away finally.
‘I won’t?’
‘No, η νύφη μου. I will not harm you, and in return you will do what I expect of you as my wife,’ he said. ‘Can you do that for me?’ I nodded slightly, holding still as he raised a hand to cup my cheek. Even if my instinct was to back away, to avoid the touch at all costs, I let his thumb trace over my cheekbone.
He shoved open the car door, walking around and pulling me out to escort me inside so that we could have lunch together. The fortunate reality was, after we were married, he’d likely spend very little time with me.
My days would be my own, even if my nights belonged to him.
