5. Federica
FEDERICA
Valerio’s office smells like him.
I knew it would. The closer I got to it, the more I felt it coming for me through the elevator doors, and the closer I got, the more I had to face the fact that I am in Rio’s personal space.
And he is, apparently, still in possession of his old cologne.
“Go in,” Tito says, stopping at a door.
I enter and gasp when I realize that this is his house. Or, at least, it’s arranged like one. There’s no sign that someone has lived here in years. Everything is well organized, polished and lifeless. But still, it’s not an office. At least, not in the traditional sense.
“Uhm…”
I want to argue, but Tito’s cold expression tells me it’s best I keep my mouth shut. It’s Rio, after all. I’m safe around him or whoever works for him. I know that much.
After about an hour of pacing, the elevator chimes.
Valerio walks in first. Camillo is behind him.
My brother looks terrible. His face is white, nearly green, his left eye purpling.
His eyes get wet immediately he sees me. He starts toward me before I can take a step forward.
“Fede—”
However pissed I am at him, I’m still not pissed enough to refuse my brother a hug.
He folds against my collarbone. Valerio is in the doorway, his hand still on the frame.
I pull back. “Are you alright?”
“I-I’m fine.”
I turn to Valerio. “How can I—” I take a breath. “How can I thank you? For tonight. For—for whatever you just did?”
Valerio looks at me. It’s the first time he’s really done that in six months.
“There is one thing.”
“Anything,” I assure him.
“Marry me.”
I hear it before I understand it.
My body hears it first. Chest first, then breath, then the small flicker in the place behind my ribs that has been off duty for six months and has, at the sound of his voice, reported back for work.
Then the words land and the sense is impossible.
“Excuse me?”
“Marry me.” He’s completely emotionless. Like he’s reading a number off a contract. “It’s already been arranged. All that’s missing is your signature.”
“Arranged?” Fury mounts inside me. “What is this, the Middle Ages? Arranged by whom?”
I look at Camillo.
He doesn’t meet my eyes.
“Cami,” I growl. “Tell me you didn’t fucking do this. Tell me you didn’t just sell my hand to pay off your debts.”
He has the decency to look ashamed. “It was the only way, Fede.”
I close my eyes for one second.
My brother sold me out. To pay off his debts. He’s been using me for years, and I’ve been letting him out of some misguided sense of familial love and duty. And in exchange for that, he just sold me like a broodmare. To his best friend.
I open my eyes again. Calm has descended over me, cold and sharp.
“Out,” I tell Valerio and Tito. “Both of you. I need to speak to my brother alone.”
Valerio inclines his head once and steps back out. Tito takes two cups of coffee and follows. The door clicks shut.
The second it does, I turn to my brother and demand, “How much?”
“What?”
“How much was I worth?”
He hesitates. “Fifty million.”
I sink down on the leather couch.
Betrayal burns through me. At the same time, a traitorous relief is seeping into my bones. Because no matter how badly my brother has just done me dirty, he’s also whole and here and debt-free. And part of me still cares about that more than anything.
“Listen,” Camillo rambles, “it’s not even a real marriage. It’s in name only. He said it himself—he said he wouldn’t touch you?—”
“Cami, stop talking.”
He stops and looks at me with wet eyes. After a beat, his voice goes small. “Please,” he says. “Please don’t tell mom and dad.”
I hear it.
It closes a door in a hallway I did not know was there.
Sometimes I think the only thing my brother actually needs from me is for me to stay quiet and compliant. Give him money and keep his secrets, be the black sheep so he can be the golden boy.
“I won’t tell them,” I find myself saying.
Tears cloud his vision. “Thank you. Thank you, Fede.”
“Cami.” I stand. “Stop talking.”
He stops.
I straighten my cocktail dress and check my reflection in the dark window. There is a woman there I don’t recognize.
I guess congratulations are in order. She’s getting married.
When I open the door again, Valerio is in the corridor.
He steps back into the apartment he claims is an office, and closes the door behind us.
“Have you made your decision?” His voice is cold.
“I have.”
I walk straight up to him.
He’s much taller than me. I don’t stop walking until I’m close enough that he could put his hand on my waist without extending his arm.
But he doesn’t. He stands exactly where he stood when he came in. This close, I can smell his cologne.
I force myself to ignore it and make my voice very even.
“I will marry you,” I tell him. “Because I have no other option. And because I am not going to lose my brother to his own stupidity.”
Valerio lift an eyebrow and waits for me to continue.
“But understand me.” My voice does not waver. “I will never be your wife. Not in any way that matters. I will be a name on a document. That is the only deal you are getting from me.”
His jaw twitches once, but he says nothing. Just holds my gaze.
For a long, stupid moment, I think he’s going to refuse. That he’s going to say he loves me. That he’s always loved me. That he wants me, all of me, and he won’t take anything less.
Part of me desperately hopes he will.
“Understood,” he says instead.
I nod tightly and walk past him. Past Tito, who does not turn his head, and my own brother, who is still refusing to look me in the eye.
I walk to the elevator, press the button and keep my back straight until the doors close.
Only then did I burst into tears.