Chapter Two
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AGO, life was exactly as Olivio Cannizzaro knew it to be.
He'd arrived back in Toronto yesterday evening, having spent two weeks in Sicily for Selena's birthday.
The annual gathering had quietly become the thing his father looked forward to most, which was something Olivio found both unexpected and, if he was honest with himself, something close to relieving.
Miguel had mellowed. Not softened—-a Cannizzaro man didn't soften, it simply wasn't in the bloodline—-but mellowed was more than enough, the way good stone mellowed, becoming more itself with time rather than less.
The years of friction between him and Aivan, Olivio's older brother, had finally found their resolution, and Sienah had done what Selena had always believed she would do, which was to simply love his brother steadily until Aivan remembered that he, too, possessed the capability to love.
Those two weeks were good. But Olivio still chose to take the red-eye back because even for such occasions, he had a schedule he strictly observed, and he was not, by nature, a man who lingered.
Now moreso than ever actually, with how both Miguel and Selena had been attempting to matchmake him with a rotating cast of daughters belonging to this friend and that.
A senator's daughter in Palermo one afternoon, then a hotel heiress summoned to dinner under transparent pretenses, and with every instance, Selena's eyes would find his across the table that he knew she earnestly believed was subtle but was actually not.
Isn't she lovely? How about settling down like your older brother? Do you see yourself spending the rest of your life with her?
Olivio had deflected each one with the ease of long practice and the courtesy of a man who understood that his family's affection, however misguided its expression, was genuine.
His own life, meanwhile, had operated with the discipline he'd spent twelve years building into it.
The North American arm of the Cannizzaro empire—-his, built from a graduation gift and a particular talent for seeing what a piece of land wanted to become before anyone else did—-ran like something engineered rather than merely managed. Every quarter projecting forward.
Every variable accounted for.
Or at least it had been that way...until this morning.
Russell Marquez had been twenty-three years old and the kind of young man who moved through the world as though consequences were something that happened to other people.
Olivio had spent eight months positioning himself to acquire the waterfront property in Vancouver that Russell had inherited from a grandfather who'd had better sense than his grandson.
The deal had been three weeks from signing.
Then Russell had gone snowboarding without a helmet.
Olivio had spent the first hour of his morning restructuring an acquisition timeline that no longer existed and trying not to think about how a helmet cost less than the hospital bill that hadn't saved him anyway.
The property had reverted to Russell's grandparents, the Marquez family, rather infamous in certain circles for doing business exclusively with family men.
Not businessmen. Not billionaires. Men with rings, with wives, with the kind of life that photographed well at charity galas and could be verified with a phone call to someone who'd attended the wedding.
Olivio had been composing his alternative strategy—-methodically, without particular feeling, the way he did most things—-when his assistant put Edgar Coolidge's call through.
He'd taken it.
He always took Edgar's calls. Whatever had happened this morning, whatever Edgar had done, that would not change.
There were certain men whose absence from one's life left a particular kind of silence, and Edgar was one of them.
Olivio had known that since he was eighteen years old and had first understood what it meant to have someone in your corner who asked nothing in return.
The chaos in the lobby had been handled with the efficiency of a thing well-rehearsed, which it was, because reporters had discovered long ago that Cannizzaro Tower had a particular elevator bank that Olivio favored, and security had discovered equally long ago that the solution was speed rather than confrontation.
By the time Olivio had his hand at the girl's back—-Chelsea, Edgar had told him, Chelsea Regis, now apparently Chelsea Cannizzaro—-they were already moving.
The elevator doors closed, and the lobby noise cut to nothing.
She hadn't said a word.
That was the first thing Olivio noticed—-not that she was standing beside him, not the faint scent of something light and clean that he couldn't identify, not even the quilted case she was holding against herself with both hands like something she was either protecting or being protected by.
She was looking at her hands.
He'd half-expected gratitude, the slightly breathless variety that tended to follow physical rescues, usually accompanied by wide eyes and a hand to the chest and some variation of you saved me.
Instead, what greeted him was a disconcerting combination of stillness and eyes that couldn't quite meet his. Disconcerting because he didn't know what to make of it...when his whole life, all the women he had known were like an open book to him.
But this girl, though...
This girl who was now his wife...
Was she acting? Or was this all real?
Olivio let his gaze move over her with the same methodical attention he applied to anything that required understanding.
The single braid over one shoulder, dark hair, neatly done this morning and now coming undone in small ways she hadn't noticed—-a strand near her temple, another at the nape of her neck.
His fingers registered the observation before his brain did and he redirected his attention immediately, the way he redirected everything that had no place in his current calculations.
The dress with its blue flowers, already catalogued, already absorbed.
The ivory of her complexion...it wasn't the warm ivory of someone naturally fair. It was paler than that even, like skin that had spent a long time indoors, or horizontal, or somewhere the sun couldn't reach. Like winter had gotten into her somehow and hadn't entirely finished leaving.
And on her left wrist, a smartwatch. Medical-grade, from the look of it. Not a fashion choice.
Chelsea struggled not to squirm at the way Olivio Cannizzaro was studying her with unusual intensity.
Honestly, she couldn't remember causing any man to stare at her like this, much less this long.
It was making her overthink, her brain overrun with all sorts of pointless conjectures.
Is he staring because I have something on my face?
Is he staring because he can't get over how ordinary I look?
Or is he staring because he's trying to find the right words to get rid of me without sounding like a jerk?
A part of her knew she was getting sillier by the moment, but that was mostly because a larger part of her was still reeling, with how her body was still tingling in the aftermath of having his hand briefly land against the small of her back as he led her away from the crowd.
She knew she was making herself sound more and more pathetic by the moment, but the truth was, no man had ever touched her like that before. Like...like he had a claim on her, with how his palm had settled on her cotton-covered skin like it had always been his.
And the way he had guided her...
That was new to her, too. In some ways, it reminded her of how her dad had been.
Gentle and protective at the same time. But this man's touch, though.
..it was also underscored by an unmistakable sense of possessiveness, and that was why, even though he was no longer touching her, the warmth of that palm was still there, a phantom imprint on her spine that her nerve endings refused to let go of.
Am I getting crazy, Chelsea wondered dizzily, to be thinking all of these things...and all because he touched my back?
Never ever had she imagined that the simplest of touches could mess her up this bad. But then...maybe it was because this man was no ordinary man either.
Olivio Cannizzaro was way, way out of her league. He was just too gorgeous. Too scary. Too everything that was currently wreaking havoc over her heartbeat, and was it just her or was he still not done staring at her?
Granted, they were stuck in an elevator, and there wasn't much to look at. But seriously, though. Why was he still staring at her? It just didn't make sense, and even worse, it just made her so, so tempted to take a peek at him...even as it became harder and harder for her to breathe.
I get it now, she thought ruefully. Edgar had offered multiple times to show Chelsea photos of her "husband", but she had gently turned him down, every single time. He had been so insistent actually, and this was why.
He had known this could happen. This being her caught off guard by the sheer perfection that was Olivio Cannizzaro, and so he had wanted Chelsea to be prepared, just as any girl needed to be, if they were to wake up one day from a three-year coma and find themselves married to someone like him.
Note to self: thank Edgar for his concern.
But even though she now appreciated how well-meaning he had been, she also couldn't say her decision to come here "blind" was something she had any regrets over.
Because the truth was, it so easily could've been the opposite.
Instead of a billionaire, she could've been married to someone who was drowning in debt.
Instead of someone who looked like he had stepped out of the front cover of a men's fashion magazine, it could've been someone whose equally beautiful face was front and center of a Most Wanted poster.
Even with every precaution Edgar had taken to choose a husband for her, people changed all the time, and it was because of that she had been just as adamant.