19. Forgive Me, Father #3
“That was before I knew…” I looked him up and down with disgust. “The real you. The moment I found out about Damiano, my fleeting attraction to you was cured for good.”
“Is that so?” he smirked, but his nostrils flared, and his grip tightened on the steering wheel. A brief spark of triumph spread through my chest, knowing it had gotten to him. “We’ll see.”
“No, we won’t see. Because you are going to stop this madness and let me out of the car.”
“You know what?” He glanced at me, that fire back in his gaze. “I don’t know what you’re so pissed off about. If anything, I should be angry at you.”
“What?” I blurted, my eyes wide and my mouth hanging open.
“Si. I’m mad at you.” He said it with such finality that it was no longer up for discussion.
“You’re mad at me?” I yelled. I stared at his side profile, seeing that he was indeed fuming.
“Si. I. Am. Mad. With. You.”
I snorted. How the hell did this man’s brain work? “You came to my wedding, threatened my fiancé’s life, and then forced me to agree to marry you by threatening to kill a man and ruin my father. And you are mad at me? What universe are we living in?”
“You got a little scared of your big, bad feelings for me, so what did you do? You agreed to marry another man,” he growled. “In that fucking dress. You were never meant to wear this for anyone else. You said it yourself. You didn’t want to marry him. You were doing it for my attention.”
“Your attention?” Red-hot rage boiled in my veins. “Oh, I get it. You think I should be thanking you for ruining my wedding day?”
“Si.” He nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. “You can thank me later. Once my ring is on your finger, you have my last name, and you’re in my bed.”
I let out a humourless laugh and shook my head, ignoring the flare of excitement that tried to surface beneath the pure anger and resentment. “You really think you saved me, don’t you? You are that crazy.”
“I did. I saved you from the biggest mistake of your life.”
“You are the biggest mistake of my life. Having that massage was the biggest mistake of my life!”
“I think you mean the best experience of your life. So far. More to come.” He shot me a teasing grin, his apparent anger at me already passing. I hated the way my lips twitched at the corner. “One day you’ll realise that what I did today was for both of us.”
“No. You are no hero, so don’t pretend otherwise!”
“I’m not a hero. Far from it. I just don’t let people touch what’s mine.”
“Oh my God,” I screamed. “I’m not yours! I am not a thing you own, Santino!”
“You are. Just as much as you own me.”
“You are impossible to talk to! You are literally a psychotic caveman with all this possessive ownership bullshit.”
He suddenly swerved the car to the side of the road and stopped the engine.
He twisted his torso to face me and grabbed my jaw over my veil, forcing me closer to his face.
His eyes roved down to my lips, which he was forcing together, then back to my eyes.
A pesky flutter of butterflies swarmed in my stomach, and I wanted to shoot every single one of them for letting him control them.
“You are mine, Arianna. I would have rather dated you, had you fallen in love with me, showered you with every fucking thing on this planet because that’s what you deserve, and then, when I couldn’t stand you not being my wife for a second longer, I’d have got down on one knee in your favourite place with a load of romantic shit and asked you to make me the luckiest motherfucker on this planet. Then I’d marry the shit out of you.”
A breath staggered past my lips, ghosting against his.
He closed his eyes and rolled his tongue over his bottom lip as if tasting a phantom kiss.
When he opened his eyes again, they were full of dark possession and relentless desire that left me weak.
Those eyes literally weakened my ability to fight this.
“But, unfortunately, because that cunt thought he could take you from me, we’re having to do this a little backward. We’ll start with possession and end with love. But don’t get this wrong, Aria, this is forever.”
He let me go and opened his car door. I sat frozen to the seat, his words rolling around inside me and sparking a flurry of emotions too big and too scary to comprehend.
I watched him put on a tuxedo jacket, casually bend down to do up a bow tie in the car’s wing mirror, and then walk around to my side.
That’s when I took a second to look around at where we were. Outside one of the oldest, most historic chapels in Rome. He opened my door and held out his hand to me as if he were a respectable gentleman and not an unhinged nutter.
“Put that pretty shoe back on, Cinderella, and marry your prince.”
I glanced up at him, realising this was actually happening and that there was no way out.
“Do you promise never to hurt my father?”
He ground his jaw and exhaled, then met my gaze. “I swear.”
“And Callum.”
“As long as he stays out of my way and never comes near you again, sure.”
I licked my lips, my heart racing as I looked at his open hand. Then I made the first move that would determine the rest of my life. I placed my hand in his.