Julia
I stare dumbly at the car as he stands there patiently, waiting for me to take a step forward. My head is still throbbing, the kiss still pulsing against my mouth, the shock of it all coursing through me until it feels like there’s no room for anything else.
“Come on,” he tells me, and I can hear in his voice that he’s trying to be patient, but he must be having a hard time, given the circumstances.
I stumble forward, doing as I’m told, wanting nothing more than to get away from here, from the place where it all happened.
I take the front seat opposite him, and he climbs in beside me, taking the wheel, his gaze fixed ahead as we drive away from the church.
I glance back toward the building. This is hardly how I imagined my life after my marriage going.
I had pictured tins clattering behind a car, holding hands with my husband, laughing as we thought of everything that our lives together would involve.
And instead, here I am, sitting with the man I thought was going to be my father-in-law, with a ring on my finger—and no fucking idea what is going on.
As we pass the end of the street, something snaps inside of me, and I turn to him, eyes narrowing. “Uh, are you going to explain to me what the fuck is going on?”
He doesn’t move his gaze from the road, as though it’s the last thing he wants to discuss with me right now.
“Excuse me, in case you didn’t notice, I’m your wife,” I snap at him, almost flippantly.
The words feel close to a joke coming out of my mouth, but I don’t care.
He’s the one who went through with this, the one who did this, the one who fucking married me when his son didn’t turn up on the day of our wedding.
I glance behind me, wondering what Anna is making of all of this, but my phone is back in the apartment and I don’t have any way to get in touch with her.
“I know you are,” he growls back, his voice low. And something about his tone silences me in an instant.
I don’t know Antonio well. I’ve only met him a few times, as if Andreo, for whatever reason, wanted me to keep my distance from his father.
Sure, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a little crush on him, in that hot-for-teacher kind of way.
With his wavy gray hair, silver eyes, and a few tattoos that show just at the collar of his shirt to hint at something a little less refined than the front he puts on, it would be hard not to.
I had convinced myself that it was nothing more than the aspects of Andreo I saw in him that I had been attracted to, but honestly, I’m not so sure if I believe it now.
“Was this what you planned, hmm?” I demand, refusing to let up, refusing to let him get away with this so easily. “You and Andreo? Get me to the altar so you could get me married off to you when I thought—”
“I never planned this,” he fires back. “I never would.”
“So how the hell did I wind up married to you?” I press.
I’m covering up the shock and fear and confusion with as much anger as I can muster, but I’m not sure it’s entirely convincing. Even to my own ears, my voice is quaking slightly, a sure sign that everything is threatening to give out at any moment.
I will myself not to cry, not to let him see me like this. It just feels too dangerous, after everything that’s happened. I’m completely at a loss, the ground shifting out from underneath me, and I don’t know what it will take to get myself back in place.
“Because Andreo left,” he says.
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know.”
I snort. “Oh, come on,” I protest. “You really think I’m going to believe that? Your son takes off on his wedding day, and he doesn’t say a word to you about it—”
“I would never have let him do something like this, if I had known,” he shoots back, gaze snapping to mine for a moment in the mirror and casting me into silence.
I squeeze my hands into fists in my lap, gathering the layers of my skirt as I try to calm myself.
“Antonio, I don’t understand,” I tell him, softening my voice, trying to change my approach, though I get the feeling that I’m not going to get through to him.
“Andreo—he proposed to me. He told me he loved me. That he wanted to spend his life with me. And now…” I gesture around.
I don’t know if I can even put it into words, everything that has happened.
I mean, left at the altar? It sounds like a soap opera storyline, not something that would happen in my real life.
Andreo, all that he promised me, has it always been nothing more than a lie?
A story he was spinning to get me to do whatever he wanted, as some kind of promise that things were going to get better?
The idea makes me sick, but the further we get away from the church, the harder and harder it becomes to deny that this, somehow, is real.
“I don’t know why he did it,” Antonio replies, voice low, gripping the wheel tight. I stare at his hands, the ones that took mine at the altar. The hands of my husband, I suppose, as crazy as that is to think.
I look away from him, staring out of the window, trying to remind myself that, somehow, this is really happening. “So he just left?” I whisper, tears hitching at the back of my throat. “I—I thought he cared about me…”
I shake my head, pressing my lips together, willing myself not to show any more emotion than I already have.
I need to keep my wits about me, and I don’t want to let my doubt or fear show right now.
I have no clue where all of this ends up, but I don’t like the idea of putting all my insecurities out for the world to see, especially in front of someone I know so little about.
“Julia, I have no idea why he did what he did,” he tells me. “But I—”
“Come on,” I urge him, turning to him again as the car races through the streets. “You must have some idea. Why would he have left today, of all days? He got a better offer with some other woman…?”
He sighs, flicking his tongue across his bottom lip. Those gray eyes of his flash under the sunlight that breaks through the clouds, a few raindrops already beginning to fall. They hit the windshield loudly, and I stare at the droplets as they scatter over the glass.
“Not another woman.”
“So, you do know something about this?” I press, leaning forward and raising my eyebrows. I can tell he doesn’t want to discuss this now, but I will be damned if I let him get away without explaining at least some part of what the hell has happened here.
“There’s…other businesses in this city, like mine,” he replies, speaking carefully, as though unsure of how much I know. “And a man like Andreo—my son, with everything he knows—he’s of great interest to them.”
I frown. So, he’s looking to work for someone else? What would that have to do with me? I shake my head. “So he—”
“I don’t know anything for sure,” Antonio says.
“But you were willing to marry me over a suspicion?”
He falls silent.
“You wouldn’t have been safe,” he mutters, after a long pause. “If I had let you walk out of there without the Gattuso family name.”
I snort. “You really think anyone would give a damn about me?” I ask. “I’m nobody. Especially not without him marrying me—”
“Because anyone close to this world is a target,” he replies. “And I wasn’t going to let you walk out of there with one on your back just because Andreo decided he didn’t want to see through what he had promised.”
There’s a note of anger to his voice, though it’s carefully controlled. Or perhaps I’m just all too aware of what it sounds like when someone is seriously pissed and doing their level best to keep it under wraps.
Not that my own family went to any lengths to protect me from their anger, no—hell, I was the reason, most of the time, that they flew off the handle in the first place.
It didn’t seem to matter how much I tried to keep from getting into trouble.
The very thought of them dumps a cold wash of fear through me, and I can only imagine what they would make of all of this, if they were to find out what the hell I was involved in right now.
Left at the altar—my mom would probably tell me I deserved it, that no man should have to put up with me.
I twist my hands around each other again, willing my breathing to steady. “So…this isn’t just because you want…?” I trail off. I don’t want to put it into words.
It feels almost arrogant, to think that a man like Antonio—with all his wealth, all his power, all his good looks—would shoot a second glance in my direction, let alone that he would want to marry me.
He frowns, looking over at me. “Because I want what?”
“I mean…what people do when they’re just married…” I feel stupid for even saying it.
He grunts with irritation. “Jesus, Julia, you think I would have gone this far just for sex?” he demands.
I retreat back into my seat, feeling stupid for even asking.
Of course he wouldn’t have. Nobody would.
Especially not him. Something twinges in my chest, the same thing that did when he kissed me back in the church, and I scold it silently within my head, willing it to vanish before it can take hold.
“Where are we going?” I ask, changing my approach.
“My place,” he replies.
“Oh, okay…”
I’ve been there a few times before, when Antonio, according to Andreo, insisted on meeting me.
I had thought he was scoping out whether I was a good enough match for his son, but now I can’t help but wonder if there was something more to it.
Preparing me for this, the moment he would step in and marry me instead.
As much as he seems intent on claiming that it’s nothing more than duty, necessity, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to believe that anytime soon.
We drive the rest of the way in silence, and my mind wanders. I wonder if he has questions for me. Why I was so willing to go along with marrying someone I barely know, let alone the father of my fiancé? He must think I’m crazy.