“If I get married, I want to be very married.”
—Audrey Hepburn
THE TOUCH WAS INNOCENT. HIS hands were braced beside mine on the countertop, grazing my own, yet the warmth that flooded me felt like the letting of sunlight into a dusty, dark room.
“What’s this?” His drawl ran down my spine as he stood behind me, his body trapping mine against the island.
“It wouldn’t interest you.” I bit my lip.
This morning I’d awoken to the sound of rain on glass, the drip, drip, drip seeping into my subconscious. I’d lain in an unfamiliar bed, though slept better than I had in a while. It was eight a.m. when my fiancé decided to come home.
I didn’t know where he was last night, who he might have been with, but I decided it didn’t matter. This was the start of my new life with him, and I’d known it would be this way.
I’d spent yesterday going over the list Mamma had emailed me, while Luca watched TV and pretended I wasn’t here. I’d assumed he’d slept on the couch, because I hadn’t once heard the unmistakable creak of the old wooden stairs.
He was in Nico’s office now, watching sports news on the computer. I’d wondered why he couldn’t do that yesterday, but came to the assumption the couch was probably much more comfortable than the desk chair.
“I’ll let you know what interests me.”
“Wedding stuff,” I said. “You know, the details that will tie us together for the rest of our lives?”
“Sounds like you’re trying to scare me off.”
“Is it working?”
“Nah, I’ll take my chances.” The amusement in his voice did strange things to my nervous system. How could he be so nonchalant and insistent about marrying me, and why did that hold a certain charm to it?
His fingers brushed mine as he pulled the printout of my mamma’s email closer. He had nice hands, I noticed. Big, masculine, with clean, blunt nails. I wished I could find something I didn’t like about this man, but it seemed it would have to be with his personality and not with his appearance.
His body grew closer to pressing against my back with each second as he read my mamma’s list like I wasn’t trapped in front of him.
“How do you feel about pink?” I breathed.
One of his hands slid to my waist, searing my skin through the pink scalloped dress I wore. “Never thought about it before,” he drawled, “but I think I like it.”
Warmth ran to my cheeks. “Good,” I supplied. “Because you’ll be wearing a pink tie.”
He let out a breath of amusement. “I don’t mind, but it will probably annoy Luca. Did he bother you yesterday?”
“No, he was a perfect gentleman. Didn’t push me into a pool or anything.”
“He stayed in my office?”
I hesitated, because I was a terrible liar. “Of course.”
“Hmm.” His hand slid from my waist to my hip, his fingers gripping my flesh with a firmness that set my pulse aflutter. Pressing his lips to my ear, he whispered, “I don’t believe you.”
I inhaled. “You expected him to stay in your office all day and night?”
“Yes,” he said, like he wasn’t asking for much. “Tell me what you did.”
“We played monopoly and shared an ice cream cone.”
I could feel his smile on the back of my neck. “Little liar,” he drawled.
“You don’t have a coffeemaker,” was all I could think to say.
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“You’re not human,” I breathed.
His palm ran from my hip to my lower stomach. Heat curled inside me with the smallest amount of pressure from his hand. Each finger burned through the fabric while his lips brushed the nape of my neck. My insides were melting, dissolving into nothing but memory as he softly bit down and then licked the skin. I gripped the edge of the countertop, a moan crawling up my throat.
“Why are you dressed to go out?”
I sucked in a shaky breath. “I’m going to the dress shop with Mamma at ten.”
“Are you now?” He ran his face across my bare shoulder, his scruff teasing my skin. “Who’s taking you?”
“Benito’s picking me up.”
It went silent for a moment, and I suddenly wondered if he would tell me no. Would he be strict? Irrational? All the horrid possibilities came to mind as I finally realized I was putting my future in this man’s hands. I hardly even knew him. I wanted to know him, just so I could understand how he would react. At least, that’s what I told myself. I wanted to know what he did last night. What his middle name was. Who he had loved or who he did. I wanted to know everything, and that made my chest ache with the inevitable break.
“You’ll take a burner phone until I can get you a new one.”
I exhaled. In relief? I wasn’t sure. It was hardly enough to understand his character, but it was something.
“Nico, it’s not necessary to have Luca stay here with me. I don’t need a babysitter.”
A strained quiet crept between us before he stepped away.
“Your past says differently.”
I tensed, somehow not believing he’d said that.
I got my first glimpse of Nico that morning. He walked into the living room, pulling off his tie, and I couldn’t help but notice he wore the same clothes he had on last night. Swallowing the bitter taste in my mouth, I said, “I’m not going to run away.” I did that once and it wasn’t liberating; it was the biggest mistake I’d ever made.
His gaze was a lit match in a pitch-black room. “There’s nowhere you could go that I couldn’t find you.”
A cold shiver rolled down my spine at the indifferent tone of his voice, because I believed him. Though, an edge to his expression made me believe he wasn’t only leaving one of his men with me for my safety or the fact that I might try to run.
I paused when the realization hit me. Did he believe I was involved with another man? It would make sense with the way he’d implied more than once that I was somehow unfaithful.
Did he think I was that stupid? I would have to be incredibly foolish to be in a clandestine relationship, especially after what happened to me before. No offense to Adriana—she thought with her strange heart, not with her head.
Annoyance bubbled to the surface.
This man could sleep with whoever he wanted. My throat tightened as I imagined he’d done just that last night, and I was babysat so I didn’t do the same? It was the way this life worked, I knew. But I’d only understood it from afar, not personally from a man I would soon call Husband. From a man I would share a home with.
Annoyance turned to bitterness and spread through my blood like poison.
I would never have a husband of my own. I would always have to share him. And that truth felt so real, so raw at that moment, tremors of resentment ached in my chest.
My eyes narrowed, just like they had at the church when I’d first seen him.
His gaze imitated mine.
I had no desire to inform him there was no other man. It didn’t matter if there was, anyway.
My heart would never be his.
It was the one thing in my life that was mine, and I would never sign it over.
The entire ride to the dress shop, Nonna and Adriana watched me with blank, non-blinking expressions. Benito stayed silent in the driver’s seat, and Mamma talked, over-animated and nervously, about the wedding.
Where most girls dreamed about their wedding and how perfect it would be, I viewed it behind a murky film. As if the dress in the store’s window was behind a finger-smudged pane of glass. My wedding wouldn’t be based on love, but a mere transfer of power from my papà to my husband.
Although, as my heels clicked on the pavement and my breath went shallow with each step, something danced under my skin. Vibrated in my veins. Excitement. Yearning. With a sad flame of hope flickering beyond.
The glass was crystal clear, a gorgeous white dress showcased behind it.
I didn’t love the man I would marry. Couldn’t. Placing my finger to the glass, I left one smudge against the false hope this window gave.
My mamma held the door open, her eyes narrowing as she examined me. “One day with the Russo and I think my daughter’s gone stupida.”
“With your genes?” Nonna muttered, walking inside. “What else did you expect?”
I shut the door with a quiet click behind me. Awareness brushed my skin from my head to my toes as Nico flicked a gaze my way from his seat at the island.
His elbows rested on the counter, his gun taken apart in front of him. The way he cleaned the piece in his hand was thoughtful, as if he had a lot on his mind—or maybe he was just meticulous about his gun.
“Did you find a dress?” His tone was light, not tainted with the anger I’d expected.
The tension in my shoulders eased. My frustration had faded with the hours of the day, but with the way we’d left things earlier, I didn’t know what to expect when I returned.
I leaned against the door, feeling the toll of the day all at once. When I thought of my dress, a smile came to my lips.
“The perfect one.”
“Perfect, huh?” he drawled.
“Uh-huh.” And then, because this conversation seemed too stuffy and formal, I said, “It was very expensive.”
It rewarded me with the tiniest smile.
“‘Course it was.”
It wasn’t as if its price had any bearing on my decision. When I saw it, I knew it was the one. Love at first sight with a dress. I had reservations about our marriage, but today I realized the wedding would be my only one. I wasn’t going to throw it away because the union might not be the love story of the century.
We’d found four pink bridesmaid dresses, instead of the yellow ones Mamma had chosen for Adriana. And considering my sister’s bridesmaids were made up of me and three of our closest cousins, I didn’t have to make any changes to the wedding party. Maybe that should have been depressing, but to me it just seemed convenient.
I kicked off my heels. “Mamma cried.”
“Did she?”
“I guess sobbed is more accurate,” I sighed, remembering the scene.
“Shame I had to miss it.”
This conversation was easy, relaxed, though I couldn’t help but notice his movements were slightly tense. I chewed my lip, padding into the kitchen. I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it from the faucet as if I did normal things around this man all the time and didn’t care about his presence. In reality, my spine tingled with a violent awareness.
While trying to think of something to say, my attention caught on the new appliance on the counter. Something heavy sank in my chest.
“You got a coffeemaker?”
“Can’t have you turning into anything nonhuman.”
That was thoughtful of him . . . and I hated it, because I couldn’t remember the last time someone had thought of what I needed before I had to ask for it.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“The phone on the counter is yours,” he said.
My gaze flicked toward the device, and I picked it up. In all honesty, I’d enjoyed the freedom of not having a phone for the last six months. “I don’t think I want it,” I told him.
“It’s yours, Elena. Keep it on you at all times.”
I wondered if this would be an inappropriate time to ask him to say please.
“Ace,” I read when I came across his name already programmed in my contacts. “Awfully presumptuous of you to put your number in my phone.”
I turned my head to see a small smile pull on his lips, but his gaze was focused on his work. “You’re a sure thing, wife.”
“Wife” should have been a sweet pet name for any man to call his fiancée, but the sardonic possessiveness of his tone ruined it. However, six months ago I’d realized I didn’t like sweet. Heat spread through me.
“I’m not your wife yet,” I told him.
“Semantics.” He glanced at my pink cheeks. “I’ve never seen a woman in the Cosa Nostra blush until you.”
He didn’t need to remind me.
“Does it bother you?”
“Not at all.” He pulled his gaze to his work, running a thumb across his jaw in a thoughtful way.
My breathing turned shallow, and I took a step toward the island, grasping the countertop. “Thank you for the coffeemaker and the phone.”
Sitting across from me, the dim lighting made his eyes look like burnt gold. “You’re welcome.”
Tension crept between us, finding its way between my legs and settling there like a heavy weight. I wanted to thank him in an entirely different way. I wanted to see what was beneath that white shirt. I wanted to know how much little effort it would take for him to hold me down. I wanted to put out this fire inside me that had been there since I’d met him. I wanted him.
His gaze found mine, and the gold blackened around the edges. My pulse pirouetted to a strange dance.
“You’re coming to work with me tonight.”
His indifferent tone broke the tension until it scattered to the corners of the room.
I exhaled. “Why?”
“I need Luca and I don’t trust anyone else to stay with you.”
I ignored the way that made me sound like a two-year-old. “Are you expecting trouble tonight?”
“I expect trouble every night.”
My brows pulled together. “And you want to drag me into it?”
“I’m not going to let you die.” His gaze flashed with dark amusement. “I’m just getting started with you.”
