Chapter 30
Dominico
Something is wrong with Lily.
Since our conversation in the room on the jet, she has barely reacted, even after we arrived at my family villa in Tuscany, which sits atop a beautiful piece of land with a panoramic view of the countryside.
Twenty guests make up our entourage, with the rest arriving over the next two days.
Twice as many guards stand watch while Matteo remains close by, his eyes always on Lily.
Yet even in this beautiful place and safe environment, she is reserved, not participating in the lively conversation around her.
Her gaze remains fixed on a point to the left; I would guess that if she removed her sunglasses, her eyes would reveal a detached, out-of-focus expression beneath them.
When we arrived yesterday, she told me she wasn’t feeling well and went to lie down.
Later that evening, she insisted on sleeping in a separate room, saying it was normal for a soon-to-be-married couple to stay apart leading up to the wedding day.
It was a poor excuse, but I gave in when I saw the look on her face—the brief glint of hurt that flitted across her features.
Now, it seems she has completely checked out.
Even Holly commented on how robotic Lily appeared during the dress fitting this morning, not giving her opinion on anything.
Mia, who arrived early this morning with her husband, had gone along, hoping to form a bond with the woman who would be my wife.
She returned worried, telling me how Lily instructed the seamstress to do whatever I wanted, as if I cared about what she wore.
She could be dressed in a burlap sack, and I wouldn’t give two fucks.
But I wanted her to have a dress fit for a Queen. I wanted her to have the best.
"Don't worry, brother, I'm sure it's just a lot for her to take in. She doesn't come from this world, anyone in her shoes would find it intimidating," Mia says, squeezing my arm reassuringly before leaving to join her husband at a table nearby.
“She probably just has pre-wedding jitters,” Nero says, his gaze tracking mine as he hands me a cigar.
“Maybe.” I watch Lily get up, not even looking at anyone before wandering back toward the mansion.
Even though this marriage was somewhat forced on her, I can tell she has feelings for me.
Her not-so-secret glances at me when she thought I wasn’t looking, her trust in me, which I knew was not easily given, and then there was her body's response to me. All our interactions were filled with feelings. So why did it now seem like she didn’t want any of it?
She was pushing me away, and I didn’t know why.
I replayed the conversation in my head over and over, looking for the moment when it all changed.
Usually, I could read her easily, but with her being tipsy, her emotional state had become chaotic, and who knows how she interpreted my responses?
When I asked her what she wanted, she said she wanted to know me.
Perhaps that was what was needed to solve this problem .
Determined to get past whatever this was, I get up and head inside.
Lily is not in her room or the library, where I thought she would be.
Instead, I find her in the large drawing room.
What better place for us to start this whole ‘her getting to know me’ thing than this room full of pictures and paintings?
A room filled mainly with painful memories.
Mia never comes in here when she visits. I don't blame her.
I nod to Matteo, standing outside, a silent order for him to leave us.
Lily stands in front of a large portrait of my mother and father.
“I got my looks from my father, but that is all.” Lily jumps in fright as her gaze whips toward me. She has removed her sunglasses, making her expression easier to read.
Her eyes sweep over my body before she looks back at the painting—a deceptive one.
My mother's smiling face, with my father lovingly wrapping his arm around her shoulder, was a ruse. A minute after it was finished, my father backhanded her because, during their sitting, she asked if I could be in one of the pictures. The answer was clearly no. That’s why there were so few paintings or pictures that included me.
“Was your father always abusive?” she asks, not looking at me as she moves on to the next painting, one of my grandparents.
“Not always. My mother says it only started when I was born. He had hoped for a daughter. Having a son when he was still so young was a threat to him. Ironically, it was his very behavior towards us that made me into the thing he feared most. By the time the daughter he wanted, Mia, arrived, his resentment toward my mother and me was like a cancer he could not get rid of.”
“Did you always want to be the Don, like your father?” She strolls around the furniture dotting the room while I follow at a small distance behind.
“I was voted in after I killed him.” She nods, and while I can’t see her face, this information doesn’t even seem to startle her. I wasn’t sure if I should be impressed or worried.
“Is it what you wanted?” Her whiskey-brown eyes meet mine briefly before she heads toward a picture on the mantle.
“To kill him or to become Don?” I ask, her eyes meeting mine pointedly before she says, “Both.”
“I wanted to kill him. Especially that day. He had been drinking and was calling my mother a whore, which isn’t something new.
But then he tried forcing himself on her in front of me and Mia.
I couldn’t take a minute more. So yes. I wanted to kill him.
As for being Don, it is what I know and what I am good at.
” That was the best answer I could give.
I was raised in the mafia, and with a father I was constantly on edge with, it left little room for dreams. That was beaten out of me.
So perhaps there was a time I dreamt of doing something other than this.
But when my hands were bloodied with my father's life force, it was over. I was officially part of the mafia.
"And Mia, how did she feel about you killing her father?" I often wondered this, but Mia reassured me that she held no grudge against me.
"When my mother finally gave birth to Mia, the daughter my father had longed for in my place, she was treated better than any of us were.
But she had eyes and she saw the abuse. While he didn't do anything to her, he still managed to fuck her up, leaving her feeling guilty for what my mother and I went through.
So when that moment came and I killed him, I think she felt relieved. It changed everything for all of us."
“What kind of woman was your mother?” she asks, picking up the picture as she examines it closely.
It was one of the few family portraits we had.
I should throw them all out, especially the ones of my father, but this was our history.
As much as I didn’t like it, this was my past. It made me who I am today.
“She was a flower. Gentle and delicate and too good for my father. Like Mia. Like you.” She nods but doesn’t look at me, the somewhat open and carefree Lily from days ago now hiding. She is being careful with me. With what she says. With how she acts or reacts.
“Why did she marry your father then? Did they love each other?”
“It was an arranged marriage. But yes, I think they did love each other in the beginning. In a way.” My mother would often tell me about how they had been before I was born, her reminiscing reminding me that I was the one who changed that.
I don’t think she intended for it to be that way; I believe she just didn’t realize how hurtful it was.
That’s when I decided to build walls. Walls to shield me from her words and his actions, so they couldn’t hurt me anymore.
It made navigating this life easier, being detached.
That’s when it snaps into place. Lily was feeling hurt. That’s why she was withdrawing from me.
“You’re hurt about something, what is it?” Her gaze snaps to mine, and her eyes flare with surprise, the first genuine emotion I have seen since the jet.
“Nothing. I’m not hurt. I would have to have feelings about something in order to feel that emotion, and I don’t.” She turns away from me. Hiding. Lying.
I stalk up to her and turn her around to face me so I can see the emotions she doesn’t want me to see. Her eyes widen as she squares her shoulders and looks up at me.
“Are you telling me that you have no feelings for me?” I take the photograph she is squeezing tightly in her hand and place it on the mantel behind her.
When she doesn’t answer, I close the distance between us, my body forcing her backwards. When her back hits the piece of furniture, the ornaments and frames jiggle, some even falling over.
With no space between us, I circle her neck with my hand, her eyes closing briefly before flying back open.
“You have no feelings for me, yet every cell in your body wants me. I know your feelings because they mirror mine.” It is true. Lily is falling in love with me, and I am falling in love with her. That is why she will soon be mine officially. Why is she resisting this?
“Impossible,” she whispers, the emotion behind her words telling me more than the word itself. It is true.
“I don’t feel anything. I’m marrying you because I have to.” Stubborn. She is infuriatingly stubborn, but then so am I.
“Is that right?” I murmur, leaning close to her ear so that I can feel the shiver that racks her body. At least it didn’t lie.
“Ahhh, Dominico, there you are.” Lily squints at the female intruder standing at the drawing room door.
Here we go. If I could count on one of her emotions to reveal the truth, it would be the one she couldn’t control.
“If that’s the case, and you have no feelings for me whatsoever, then I suppose I’ll marry someone else,” I say quietly, releasing her suddenly and moving back.
I stalk toward the door where a bewildered Sam stands.
“Dominico, what's happening?” Sam asks, her face pale with shock as she looks between us.
“We’re getting married,” I say to her, smirking when I think about how this will play out.
“Um, I know. That’s why I’m here.”
“No, I mean, we’re getting married,” I emphasize, turning around to face Lily as I lace my hand through Sam’s.
Lily stares at us, her face a blank mask. But it's not her face that gives her away.
It’s the tight little fists at her side.