Chapter 2 Sophia #2
Maybe this won’t be so bad after all. I could do much worse than him, at least when it comes to physical characteristics.
I’m all of five-five, so I’ll never be a supermodel, but I’m not exactly ugly.
I look a lot like Mom did before she started overdoing it on the Botox, fillers, skin peels, and whatever else she has done on the regular.
The way his dark eyes move over me tells me he doesn’t hate what he sees.
“So, Dante. I’ve heard nothing but good things. Please, everyone.” Dad extends an arm, gesturing toward the table now laden with trays of cured meats, cheeses, olives, and bread. We’re really going all out tonight. It will probably take hours.
“Sophia.” Isabella is at least trying to engage me when it’s clear nobody else feels like it after we’ve taken our seats. “Tell me about yourself.”
“Sophia is an open book,” Mom announces while I swallow back my irritation. Am I not allowed to speak for myself anymore, either? “She turned twenty-five in April. I raised her well. She’s a good girl. Never in any trouble. Always a credit to our family.”
I feel like I’m being judged in a dog show. Soon, it will be time for me to run through an obstacle course. “I try,” I murmur. Guilia presses her lips together like she’s trying not to laugh. That tiny gesture sparks hope. Maybe I’ll have an ally in all of this.
I would like to know something about Dante, obviously, but any hope of getting answers tonight is fading rapidly.
He’s sitting between Dad and Rocco, and the two of them seem almost to be talking over him at times while he sips cabernet and checks his phone now and then.
Only when one of Dad’s associates asks him a question about how he feels about marriage does he snap to attention.
“It sounds like a solid arrangement,” Dante murmurs in response before looking my way across the table.
There’s a single moment when our eyes meet, and my heart throbs, along with other parts of my body, parts farther south that suddenly heat up.
But instead of offering a grin or some small gesture that lets me know we’re in this together, he smirks before popping an olive into his mouth.
Bored. Disdainful. Judging me? As if he isn’t just as much a part of this charade as I am? Like there isn’t a two-ton elephant in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge? My chest is tightening, making every breath a challenge.
“Excuse me, please,” I murmur, pushing back and leaving my napkin on the chair.
I need to get away from this table. Glancing around, I notice a discreet sign labeled Restrooms set over a swinging door, which I stride toward with my clutch tucked under my arm, moving with all the dignity I can muster.
I wonder if Dante is looking at my ass, checking to see if he’s getting a good bargain out of this arrangement.
The door leads into a hallway with the men’s room on my left and the ladies’ room on my right.
I take that door and enter a fancy room with soft lighting and calming classical music piped in through an overhead speaker.
There’s a trio of stalls, but I really need to take a breather, settling myself on a satin-covered stool set in front of a marble vanity.
I look like a scared rabbit, all wide aqua-blue eyes and flared nostrils.
I don’t know what I expected tonight. I only know I’m disappointed.
Sad. I always knew Dad looked at me like I was nothing more than an accessory, someone he could parade around at charity balls and civic functions, but tonight I know for sure he has never taken me seriously. I might as well not be here.
If I’m surprised or disillusioned, it’s all my fault.
This is hardly the first time life-altering decisions have been made for me.
Definitely not the first time my desires have been completely overlooked in favor of what Dad wants.
I could count on one hand the number of times he’s actually looked at me tonight. I am a means to an end.
Stinging behind my eyes makes me blink hard and fast, willing the tears away.
Now is not the time. I can cry once I’m home, in my room.
A room that won’t be mine much longer, but the only one I’ve known until now, since I wasn’t allowed to live in the dorms during college.
Even that wasn’t up to me. Too great a security risk.
Get yourself together.
One slow, deep breath after another brings me back to the present. I can get through this. It’s only a first meeting. I knew I would be under scrutiny, right? It turns out it’s one thing to know something and another thing to actually go through it.
The door opening makes me sit up straight and fix my face so I don’t look quite as heartbroken. I guess I’ve been in here for too long, and Mom decided to fetch me.
It’s not my mother who steps in, glancing back into the hall before letting the door close. My breath catches before Dante turns my way. “It looks like we had the same idea,” he offers with something like rueful laughter running under his words.
“What, you needed to retreat to the ladies’ room too?” Right, because when in doubt, make a joke, using humor to combat awkwardness—one of my go-to methods.
His expression shifts in a way that tells me he doesn’t know how to react. “It’s a lot out there, I know. But at the end of the day, we’ll get through it. It’s what we’re expected to do,” he concludes, lifting a shoulder.
My, oh my. Should I swoon? Good thing I’m sitting down, or I might collapse and hurt myself. “I realize that, but it doesn’t make it easier or less awkward.” I mean, he has to be able to relate, right?
When he sighs, he gives me hope. He’s human, after all. He gets it. We are in this together. At least that’s what I na?vely believe until he proves me wrong.
Adjusting his black necktie, he murmurs, “I hate to break it to you, but this is happening whether you want it to or not.”
And there go my hopes, down the drain. “You should get a job writing greeting cards,” I suggest with a sinking heart before turning to the mirror and reaching into my clutch for lip gloss.
He snorts, then replies, “I’m a little too busy with my family.”
Oh my God. Could he be a little more self-important?
I am sick to death of self-important men sitting back, puffing out their chests, and thinking they rule the world.
Believing they can order their children around, force them into a marriage they don’t want for the sake of legacy and stability when they are the ones responsible for the instability in the first place.
It is all such a joke. “Is that so?” I mutter before smearing pink gloss over my lips, glancing his way in the mirror.
“And until very recently, I had your family to thank for that.” There’s the tiniest bit of resentment in his words before he clears his throat and slides his hands into the pockets of his charcoal slacks. “Let’s put that behind us. Let bygones be bygones.”
“You’re the one who brought it up,” I remind him with a tight smile before capping the gloss and returning it to my clutch.
Grinding my teeth, I force my trembling hands to steady myself before standing.
“Anyway, we’ll be missed if we’re gone for much longer.
It’s been fun. Guess I’ll see you at the wedding. ”
A frown draws his heavy brows together. “Is that it? I come in here, hoping we could—”
“What?” I ask, standing toe-to-toe with him, pretending not to notice the way his gaze crawls over my face in a way that makes my core flutter.
“What were you hoping we would do? Did you want a little preview of the wedding night? Or maybe you were coming in here to tell me you have no say in any of this and you’re being forced into it, like I am. Is that it?”
I’d swear the air is crackling by the time he asks, “What if it is?”
“Then I would say you might as well have been born a girl, since you clearly have about as much control over your life as I do.” Tossing my hair over my shoulder, I add, “I thought you were supposed to be the future boss.”
“I am.” His jaw tightens, his chin lifts, and now I see in front of me the kind of man who could lead a mafia family. Ice cold. Imperious. Why does he have to be so hot on top of it?
Forget hot. Maybe I could afford to think about his square jaw and deep-set, sultry eyes if he didn’t walk in here like he owns the place and me. My shoulders roll back before I ask, “But you still let your papa boss you around and force you into an arranged marriage in the twenty-first century?”
“It’s for the good of our families.” He slides his hands over the front of his jacket, brushing invisible lint off the lapels. Those big hands now bring to mind how easily he could hurt me. How quickly this could all turn on its head. “And like I said, it’s happening whether you like it or not.”
He might as well be made of ice. No wonder I feel so cold inside.
“Is that what your father said to you?” I ask, and the way his brows pull together tells me I hit the bullseye. I would stick around if I felt like hearing the answer, but I don’t, so instead, I leave the room without glancing his way again.
I’ll be seeing more than enough of him before much longer.