Chapter 20
COSIMO
There wasn’t a single free seat in the church. Ferraros on the left. Messeros on the right. The two sides of the pews were split by the red-carpeted aisle like a bloody gash.
Mother sat in the front row beside my brothers, her head held high and her hands folded demurely in her lap.
There was no way I could’ve kept her from showing up today.
Rescinding the invite of a late don’s wife—to her own son’s wedding—was unthinkable.
There were certain rules of respect when it came to family that had to be observed.
Until I became don, I had to tread carefully.
Mother met my gaze, and a small smirk pulled on her lips. She was so confident she finally had me cornered.
I should’ve seen it coming.
The wedding was the perfect opportunity for Mother to try to land a blow, and she wouldn’t be Vita if she didn’t take advantage of it. I didn’t doubt she was the one who’d sent that photo to Fabiana.
She would love it if Fabiana ran today, on the day of the ceremony. If she left me standing alone at the altar. It would turn the wedding into my personal humiliation.
How can a man who can’t even control his fiancée control the Ferraros? I could hear her taunt.
Much to Mother’s disappointment, that wasn’t going to happen. Fabiana wouldn’t walk away from the promise of freedom over a single photo.
I’d outmaneuvered Mother by making a deal with Fabiana.
That should’ve calmed me. But I didn’t feel all that fucking calm as I stood at the altar waiting for my bride to appear. Instead, a strange weight throbbed inside my chest.
Fabiana said she didn’t care about the photo, but she was as transparent as cellophane. She cared. She cared so much she’d tried the oldest trick in my own book—to shove all those feelings deep, deep down and let them fester.
So what if she was pissed? For once, I hadn’t done anything wrong.
I hadn’t cheated on her. I kissed Rosa once when we first started our charade, and that was long before I even knew Fabiana existed.
I told myself I cared because we needed to maintain an image of unity, and a pissed-off bride on her wedding day wasn’t exactly in line with that, but deep down, I knew it was more than that.
I’d already learned I couldn’t stay angry at her when she was drunk and vulnerable. Now, I was learning I really didn’t fucking like it when she was quietly furious with me.
I tugged on my sleeves and rolled my shoulders. The priest shifted beside me, the Bible clutched in his hands. I glanced at my watch. Fabiana was a minute late.
I’d told her as much as I could. Telling her more would have meant sharing one of my most closely held secrets.
Yet, something gnawed at me like a starving dog worrying a bone.
I hadn’t cheated on her. But it bothered me that she thought I did.
The audience hushed as the organ began to play “Ave Maria.” The sound rose through the air, and my breath hitched.
Momentarily, every thought about politics and succession evaporated.
I’d seen her in that dress already. I had a moment to come to terms with how magnificent she looked. I thought I could handle it.
But I hadn’t prepared for the veil.
It caught the light from the open door behind her and softened her outline so that she looked like an angelic apparition.
She and Messero walked toward me. Well, Messero walked. She floated. Light snagged on the embroidery of her dress, making her shimmer like something divine—a kind of mirage one might see when praying for salvation from their sins.
My heartbeat was everywhere—in my throat, in my palms, at the base of my skull.
When they reached me, Messero squeezed her hand and stepped aside.
I lifted the veil.
The tulle fell back, and her face appeared—radiant and so fucking beautiful it made it difficult to breathe.
But her eyes were pure ice.
Inside me, something withered and squirmed. I looked down at her from my height and wondered how someone as small as her could have so much power over me.
The priest began the ceremony.
There would be no carefully crafted vows. Just us repeating a script countless others had said before us while standing in this very place.
“I promise to cherish and to hold you. I promise to take care of you when you’re ill.”
When the priest got to the part about being faithful, Fabiana’s lips twitched. The disdain with which she watched me as I said the words I actually did fucking mean made me want to shake her.
How would she react if I told her everything? That my relationship with Rosa was faker than this marriage. That the last time I’d held a woman’s hair while she puked was never. That I hadn’t touched anyone in three goddamn years—and hadn’t wanted to…until she came along.
She wouldn’t believe me.
I slid the wedding ring onto her steady hand. She did the same—briskly, transactionally. God, was I starting to hate that word.
“You may now kiss the bride.” The priest’s fond smile told me the man was completely ignorant of the palpable, suffocating tension between us.
Slowly, Fabiana tilted her face up. She exhaled like she was bracing herself to do something unpleasant.
Frustration ran through my veins.
Just kiss her and move on.
But seconds ticked by, and I just… I just fucking couldn’t.
I didn’t want to take this kiss like something that was owed to me.
I wanted her to give it to me. Willingly.
It made no sense. I knew that. But I wasn’t going to kiss this woman for the first time like this.
I cupped her cheek and leaned in, bringing my lips close to her ear. “Rosa works for me. She’s a con artist,” I whispered. Each word cost me something. Years of secrecy. Countless hours of pretending. “No one else knows.”
A beat.
Then softly, “What?”
When I pulled back, Fabiana’s brows were drawn together in confusion.
I flicked a glance toward the audience. People were starting to look at us curiously. “Later,” I said under my breath.
“Then why tell me now?” she whispered.
I turned my hand and brushed my knuckles over her cheek, hoping the audience would confuse this for a tender moment shared between two fools in love. “Because I’m not a cheater, Fabiana. And I don’t want you to kiss me thinking that I am.”
The ice in her gaze thawed. Softness crept into her expression, and…there she was.
The Nettle I recognized.
Something inside me rejoiced.
I pushed my fingers into her hair and drew her to me, eating up the inches between us. “You understand?”
Closer, closer…
Her lips were a millimeter from mine. I held her there and waited for her to say it.
She exhaled. “Yes.”
The moment those luscious fucking lips touched mine, the church around us shattered right out of my perception. My every nerve ending lit up as if I’d been injected with a drug.
Warmth trailed through my insides, coaxing dormant parts of me awake, to stand at attention. I groaned into her open mouth and pushed my tongue inside. She sighed. Something came loose right beneath my ribs.
I kissed her with more fervor than I’d intended, more than I’d prepared for, more than I had any strategic justification for, and for a long moment, there was nothing at all except the warmth of her mouth and the entirely unreasonable feeling that I had just walked through a door I’d spent years bricking shut.
I felt her hand on my lapel. Felt her pull me closer, and… Christ.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. I moved on autopilot, needing to taste her like I’d never fucking needed anything else.
It was only Rom’s loud whistle that pulled me back to the church and all the people here. Watching us. Watching me lose control.
I tore myself away from her.
She stared at me. Stunned. Lips wet from the kiss, hair mussed from my hands, and just seeing her like that made my body thrum with an energy that felt too potent to be healthy.
She was a lethal threat to my careful, hard-earned self-control.
And she was my wife.