16
“Freya?” Sal’s concerned voice fills the air. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
She narrows her eyes. “Where are you? And how are you engaged?! ”
“And why weren’t we invited to the engagement?!” Pippa chimes.
I tuck a stray piece of hair behind my ear. “It just happened, really. And it wasn’t really a happy occasion for me, you know, to want you guys to be there.”
They’re both quiet, but only for a short moment, before Pippa decides to speak again. “Frey…you never wanted to get married.”
“I still don’t,” I say, “It was arranged.”
There’s silence on the other side.
Sal’s face scrunches. “Okay, I knew you were filthy rich, but an arranged marriage? Is it the 1950s?”
I exhale. “But you can’t tell anyone, alright? They want the public to believe it was a love marriage.”
“So you don’t love him?”
I laugh.
But they’re looking at me with serious faces.
I deadpan. “No. I don’t.”
“Oh my God, are you in his apartment right now? We’re coming over.”
My eyes go wide. “No!”
There’s an awkward silence.
“He might kill you,” I mumble, “or something.”
Sal laughs, like I’m joking about how much my fiancé likes his space. “Right…”
Except I’m not joking.
I don’t think Torren cares enough to hurt them, but I wouldn’t put it past him to use my friends to hurt me. In fact, that’s exactly something he would do. Which is why I need them to stay as far away from him, and this entire mess, as possible.
Sal’s features shift into discomfort. “I’m just finding it hard to believe.”
“Yeah, you and me both,” I mutter.
Pippa sighs. “I guess it’s not so bad being in an arranged marriage if your husband looks like that…”
My face contorts. “He’s not my husband.”
“Yet,” Pippa adds.
“You don’t understand,” I groan, “He makes me want to kill myself.”
Sal laughs.
Again, not a joke.
The smell of food wafts into the library, and I figure my appetite is back, because my stomach growls in response. Is Giulia still here? Turning my attention back to the call, I groan. “Listen, just, do not try to visit me, okay? I’ll text you guys.”
They both grudgingly agree and make me swear to call back later. Even though I want to keep them away from this whole situation, I can’t deny that I feel way better after talking to them, even if it was for a short time. I cut the call and walk out the library, following the scent of food.
Creeping down the stairs, I look across the staircase to find Torren standing at the kitchen oasis, forking pasta into his mouth.
He was here the whole time?
My stomach has officially caught up, and I’m now so hungry I’m practically salivating at the sight and smell of food. But… I’d rather just wait it out until he leaves. That way, I’m not forced to engage with the spawn of Satan.
I take a few steps back, deciding to wait it out in my room, a.k.a. the guest room, when his low voice sounds from the other side of the space.
“You haven’t eaten in two days.”
Stopping my tracks, I frown. How does he know? But the answer comes to me just as quick. Giulia.
“What do you care?” I bite back.
He glances up at me, bored. “I don’t. I’m contractually obligated to keep you fed and healthy.”
Technically, he’s only contractually obligated to provide me with food and water. Whether I actually eat or drink is up to me. I meet his gaze. “The contract is only effective once you marry me.”
His jaw is tight, his gaze empty. “Are you planning on starving yourself to death before then?”
I roll my eyes, deciding to just ignore him. My stomach is literally begging me to eat. Walking over, I settle on one of the bar stools.
He pushes a ceramic bowl filled with pasta across the marble towards me.
It’s steaming hot and smells like garlic bliss, covered in a deep red tomato basil sauce and sprinkled with a dusting of parmesan.
I stare down at the bowl, try not to salivate, and then glance back up at him.
“Are you trying to feed me so you can fatten up your food?”
His eyes darken at the edges, but he doesn’t bother replying.
A warm spiral cuts through my veins. The pasta seems fresh, but the kitchen is spotless — there isn’t a single sign that something was prepared.
I look up at him. “Did you make this pasta from scratch?”
He doesn’t reply.
So he did make it.
“Who taught you how to cook?”
“None of your business,” he snaps, “Eat.”
I look at the steaming bowl suspiciously. What if it’s poisoned or something?
Torren seems to read my mind, giving me a flat look before he reaches forward, forking some into his mouth.
Fine. I lean forward over my bowl. My hair falls forward, getting in the way, so I try to braid it back.
A frustrated sound climbs up my throat as the strands of hair get caught in the fresh scabs on my palms. It’s hopeless.
Ana always did this for me. I can’t braid my hair on a good day, so how the hell am I supposed to braid it with my hands all sliced up?
Torren watches me fail miserably from the opposite side of the counter. I’m on my fourth try of trying to braid my stupid hair back, when, clenching his jaw, he walks over.
Confused, I freeze up as he edges up behind me.
He reaches for me, and I pull away, brows crossed. “What are you doing?”
“Stay still,” he grunts, grabbing and tugging on my hair, and heat spreads across my scalp.
For a brief second, I think he’s going to take a pair of scissors to my hair as retribution for me cutting up all his shirts, or something. Panic floods my chest, my heart a slobbering mess.
But he doesn’t move.
His hands shift behind me as he just . . . braids my hair.
Torren Costa braids my hair.
I hate this man. And he hates me. But he shared his food with me, and now he’s braiding my hair? It’s fucking absurd. The word falls from my lips before I can help it.
“Don’t.”
His grip on my hair tightens. “Shut up.”
I grit my teeth as another rush of warmth spreads across my scalp.
How does he know how to do it, anyway? Most men can’t even tie a ponytail.
What’s worse is that the barstool I’m sitting on leaves no reprieve from the thick heat sliding off his chest to land on my back.
I can’t ignore it. Or the way his breath is hot down my neck, making the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I squirm uncomfortably on my seat.
The air between is alive. Electric. Heated. I’m fuming. I want to take this thing between us and strangle it — watch the life in its eyes die out. And then toss it to the street and watch the cars roll over it.
He reaches for my hand. I startle, jerking away from him. He rolls his eyes, grabbing hold of my wrist and coaxes the hair tie from it. My skin burns from where it meets his, but all too soon, his touch is gone, and he’s tying the hair tie to the end of the braid that he’s somehow made.
He finally moves away from me, the heat of his chest disappearing from behind me as he reclaims his potion in front of me, on the opposite end of the kitchen oasis.
I hate this.
The inconsistency of his actions makes hating him a messy and confusing game. Maybe that’s why he does it—to set me off track. Off balance. Off kilter. To make me question his every move.
My stomach rumbles, hauling me out of my mind. Clenching down on my jaw, I turn my attention to the steaming bowl of pasta in front of me.
I lift the fork to my lips and blow on it a bit before eating. It tastes good. Better than good. It tastes like heaven. I go to eat more, but when I hold the fork tighter, the handle pushes into the cuts in my palm.
I feel his eyes on me, dark and thick like molasses, and I break out in a cold sweat. I would normally play around with the fork and try to find a more comfortable way to hold it, but right now, I don’t want to look like an idiot in front of him. It would give him way too much satisfaction.
So instead, I hold the fork harder and fork another morsel into my mouth. I try to ignore the pain but the sweat on my palm makes the cuts sting. Badly.
I’m so hungry that I feel like flinging the fork aside and eating this pasta with my bare hands. Or taking the entire bowl and running to my room. But again, no way I’m doing that in front of him.
I painfully fork two more morsels into my mouth before Torren’s phone buzzes, and he lifts his attention away from me as he answers the call.
I exhale.
“Shipments should have been in by yesterday,” he speaks in the receiver.
I squirm in my seat, fighting the urge to run. Yes, I get some reprieve from his glare, but he’s still right fucking in front of me.
Suddenly, he reaches over and takes my fork, twirling pasta into it and holding it to my mouth.
He’s not even looking at me.
“You’re holding up my accounts, Marino,” he says, into his phone, “I have better things to do.”
My stomach rumbles. Not thinking, I lean forward and close my mouth over the fork.
He turns his gaze to me, his dark gaze lit with amusement. “Sto dando da mangiare a mia moglie.”
I scowl as I snatch the fork from him, ignoring the pricks of pain shooting through my palm. I don’t know what he said—just basic Italian, like greetings, numbers, and a few colors. But I have a feeling that it meant nothing good. He ignores me, turning his attention back to the caller.
“You got a wife, Marino?” he speaks on the phone. His gaze turns to me again, and it narrows on my lips. Then he reaches over the counter and presses a rough thumb to the side of my mouth, wiping away pasta sauce.
It takes my mind a few seconds to register the action, and I scowl, even as my stomach erupts at his touch. He pulls his hand away from my mouth before I can slap it away, his attention once again on the call.
“You like fucking her?” Torren asks, casually. He looks down at his thumb, then slides the edge of it into his mouth, licking off the sauce he wiped away from my mouth.
My breath catches in my throat, and my chest swells, at both his words and actions. There’s a pause as the person on the other end answers.
“Good,” Torren says, “because if I don’t get my product soon—” He meets my gaze for a brief second. “You won’t have a wife to fuck.”
He cuts the call.
God, he’s so sick. Did he just threaten to kill someone’s wife over a late shipment? And the way he speaks about sex so casually. Slowly, I realize something. I glance up at him, and before I can stop myself, I blurt, “Where were you last night?”
It’s a while before he meets my gaze evenly. “After you tried to kill me?”
I purse my lips. I shouldn’t have even bothered asking, but now that I have, it would be a waste not to get an answer. “Did you go to see someone else?”
No reply.
“Did you?” I repeat.
In any other case, he would continue to ignore me, but as soon as he opens his mouth to answer, I know that the answer is a knife.
“Yes.”
My stomach falls. To have a fiancé, to hate him, and for him to hate you back. But to also want him to be yours to hate. Only yours.
My jaw is lead, and I’m grinding it down as I bare my teeth. “What if I did the same thing?”
Anger ripples through his features.
My hold on my fork tightens, pain pistoning through every pressure point on my hand. “You’re a hypocrite.”
No reaction, save for the slightest, almost untraceable lift of the corner of his mouth.
“You can’t keep me here forever,” I say, seething, “and the first thing I’m going to do when I leave is find the first willing man, pull down his pants and ride him till I—”
His fist comes down on the counter. The cutlery rattles.
“Do that,” he growls, “And I’ll fuck up your life nice and good.”
I manage a dry laugh. “You already did.”
He’s quiet for a while. Eerily quiet. And then, without meeting my gaze, he says, “Any man you touch is a dead man, Freya.”
The way he says my name skitters down my spine. But he slept with someone last night. I know he did, and he isn’t denying it. I don’t know why I care, but I do. I can’t fucking stand it. There it is again—that living, breathing thing between us. I want it dead.
“Who is she?” I say, lifting my chin stubbornly, “Sof?”
And just like that, all emotion drains from his face. His gaze catches fire, burning like white hot coal as his lips curl into a sneer.
It takes a few seconds for the blaze in his eyes to bleed out, but the fire still burns, and a pit opens up in my stomach as he pins me with it. His voice is low when he speaks. So dangerously low.
“I’ll answer your question when you answer mine.”
My throat pulses. My thighs warm.
His gaze is devoid of any emotion. “What’s your mother’s name?”
I go cold. “What?”
“Your mother’s name,” he repeats, slowly. Cruelly. “What is it?”
I don’t know.
He knows this. He knows I don’t know, but he’s asking anyway. To hurt me. To make me bleed where it hurts most. He’s doing it on purpose. Reminding me what I am. Illegitimate. Misbegotten.
I don’t even know my own mother’s name.
My throat aches as I try to hold back tears. I fail, and one pathetic little tear slips down my cheek. It’s horrific and mortifying, and it burns as it slides down my cheek like it knows to be ashamed of itself. The tear is small enough not to notice. But he notices.
His dark eyes glitter with annoyance and something like fascination as they latch into the tear trailing down my cheek.
His hand comes up, and the rough pad of his thumb is on my cheek as he wipes at the single track of moisture.
“If you don’t know the name of the women in your life, don’t fucking question me about the women in mine. ”
I grind down on my jaw. “Don’t touch me.”
He tucks his hand into his pocket. Leisurely.
Biting down harder, I mutter, “Let me go home.”
I’m met with silence.
And I can’t hold back the tears anymore.
They’re falling down my cheeks, blurring my vision and fucking everything up.
Fuck! Why did I sign that contract? Why did I have to be so fucking altruistic?
This isn’t for me. I should have just let Ana marry him, like she was supposed to.
I should have packed my shit and ran as far away from this hell hole as possible.
I’m out of my chair before I know it, crossing the island and throwing weak punches to his chest, my vision so fucked up and blurry with tears that half of them don’t even land. “What do you want, huh? What do you want from me?!”
Torren grunts, grabbing hold of my wrists mid-air and holding on like a vice until I’m forced to stop, my chest heaving, all the tears shed so that my vision clears up, and I’m left to stare up at his fucking face.
He stares down at me, the slightest pinch between his brows. “I want you to hate me as much as I hate you.”
I scoff through the tears. “I hate you far more than that!”
“Not enough. I want —” His jaw clenches painfully, his hold on my wrists tightening. “I want you to burn with it. Burn the same way I do.”
Anger coalesces in my chest. “Well why don’t you just light a fucking match and set me alight?!”
There’s a long pause, and I’m breathing heard as my throat burns with exertion.
“I wish —” He inhales sharply. “I wish it was that simple.”
“It’s not fair,” I say, “How can you punish me for something I didn’t do?”
“Because,” he says, letting go of my wrists as he throws them back to me. “You insist on provoking me.”
I wipe at my face with the back of my hands. “Well? Does it make you feel better? Seeing me like this?”
I want to hear it. Maybe it makes me a masochist, but I want him to tell me how happy it makes him to see me miserable. I do hate him. I hate him so much. But he’s right. I want to burn with it.
He doesn’t reply.
“Tell me!” I exclaim, “Tell me how it makes you feel!”
But he says nothing. He just shifts, his expression the closest to discomfort I’ve ever seen it in my short, unbearable time of knowing him. I take a deep breath and wipe the rest of the stupid tears from my cheeks, steadying my voice as I glance at him evenly. “Let me go home.”
The air between us is empty, but charged. Like a house after Christmas.
“Take the guards.”
I pause, looking up at him in surprise.
He tucks both hands in his pockets as he turns, walking out of the kitchen.
“Tomorrow’s an important meeting,” he calls out behind his back. “You need to be there, and you need to behave.”
So that’s why he’s letting me go. He needs something from me. It was as easy as that. This was never about something as simple as letting me see my father. It was about control. And what I just gave him with that little tantrum of mine? It was exactly what he wanted. Triple fucking scoop.
But there’s other ways he can get me to do what he wants without letting me visit. And there’s no doubt a limit to his generosity.
I grit my teeth. “Fine.”
The offer was unfair.
I’m out of the apartment before he can take it back.