Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Sienna
The Present
“Interesting wedding look.” Saint releases a sardonic breath as he takes in my attire.
“Thank you.” I smile brightly beneath the funeral veil, my hands straightening the black fabric of my dress. “Where are you parked?”
“This way.”
Saint leads me to a town car, and my heart stalls when I see my soon-to-be-husband.
As if on cue, Fabien steps out of the vehicle. He’s dressed in a gray sweatsuit, holding the door open for me. “Wedding or funeral?”
“Aren’t they one and the same?” It’s infuriating, the erratic thudding of my heart. I duck inside the vehicle, and Fabien joins me.
“Hi, baby,” he says softly.
“Don’t call me that,” I say with an annoyed sigh.
Saint slides behind the wheel. “Mr. Calvani, I cannot stress to you how important it is to be on your best behavior,” he warns as we pull away from the curb. “You’re so close to your release date—”
“I’m well aware of my release date,” Fabien tells his lawyer dismissively.
“How did you score a furlong? I thought those were a myth,” I comment to Fabien, who’s taking up way too much room in the backseat. His knee bumps into mine, to the point where I’m practically having to hug the door to avoid him.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” Fabien tells me, shrugging out of his sweatshirt.
“What are you doing?” My eyes involuntarily land on the tattoo over his heart: a geometric fox that he inked for eighteen-year-old me after that disastrous family dinner.
“Changing,” he answers. “Wedding. Funeral. Either way, I want to look nice for my girl.”
Casting my gaze away from the ink, I inform him, “You can say I’m your girl all you want, it doesn’t make it true.”
“My wife, how about that?” He flashes a sexy grin.
“Legally, that would be accurate,” I tell him primly, refusing to fall for his charm. “And as your wife, you should know that I’ll have a target on my back.” I relay Angelo’s threat at Michele’s funeral.
Fabien’s eyes turn from playful to lethal in a split second. “Don’t tell anyone we’re married, and leave my brother to me.”
“Very well, but if you were planning on using my in with the family, let me stop you right there. I don’t have one, now that Michele is…”
“He got off far too easy.” Tension radiates from the man sitting next to me; a palatable shift in the vehicle. “Did he force you to become the madam?” Fabien’s jaw begins ticking like crazy.
My head falls back on the headrest. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got the time.”
Shifting to get a view of the dashboard display, I inform him, “You’ve got twenty-two hours, so actually, you don’t.”
Fabien grabs me by the chin, jerking my face to his. “What can I do to earn your forgiveness? You want me to be the one to crawl naked over broken glass? I’ll fucking punch out the window, strip, and get on my knees in the middle of the street.”
Squirming out of his hold, I remind myself I’m no longer a naive woman who falls for pretty declarations. “Your lawyer might not appreciate his window being destroyed.”
Your lawyer…
Madam…
“How do you know that I used to be the madam?” My eyes lock with Saint’s in the rearview. “You ratted me out!” I lean forward, smacking him on his shoulder. “What was all that bullshit about confidentiality?”
“Sorry, Mrs. Calvani,” he says, not sounding repentant enough in my opinion.
“I’m not Mrs. Calvani,” I correct him.
“Yet,” Fabien interjects as he buttons his dress shirt and wraps the Italian silk tie around his neck. Looping the knot, he ties it.
Crooked.
Having learned how to tie a Windsor knot just for him, out of habit, I reach over to fix it. Quickly realizing my mistake, my hands return to my lap.
“Damn, I missed that,” he tells me, emotion flickering in his baby blues.
Focusing my gaze out the window, I try to ignore the man, but it’s difficult with the rustling sound of clothes being shed.
“Afraid you’ll like what you see?” Fabien teases. “You always did.”
“Still cocky,” I say in a bored tone, hating the way my body feels like a live-wire seated so close to him.
“Still guilty.”
Refusing to banter with the likes of this man, my jaw clamps shut.
It feels like hours pass before I dare a glance. Fabien smiles, reaching over and fingering the lace edge of my veil.
I smack his hand away.
He chuckles, placing his arm over my headrest and sprawling out, his knee bumps into mine. Yet again.
“Should I move to the trunk?” I gripe.
“There’s plenty of room.” He pats his thigh with his free hand.
My attention snaps to the window as we make our way to the city, where traffic grinds to a halt. “Carnaval season might not have been the best wedding date choice,” I muse.
“Perfect wedding date choice,” Fabien counters.
“It’s your funeral.”
The deep baritone of his laugh skates down my spine, and I ignore it and go back to ignoring him.
From the corner of my eye, I catch his hand coming toward me. I shirk back against the seat, bracing for impact.
Fabien jerks the veil from my head.
“How many times did Michele lay a hand on you?” His voice is nothing but a rough whisper.
Snatching the veil away from him, I can’t help but snipe, “As usual, you’re a day late and a dollar short.”
He grabs my chin, yanking my face inches from his. “Why didn’t you reach out to me?”
“You know why.” I jerk out of his hold, hating the way my chest is heaving.
The vehicle slows, and we turn into an iron-gated drive; the house, a stunning Greek Revival plucked from a New Orlean’s post card, framed by majestic oak trees.
It’s the same property I admired what feels like a lifetime ago, completely restored.
Fabien remembered.
I hate that he remembered.
“Your new design studio. And this fulfills my end of the deal.”
I vehemently shake my head. “We agreed on cash, not real estate.”
He flashes a smile, like the cat who got the canary. “We agreed on a million; you didn’t specify cash. Although my original assessment was correct: this house is a money pit.” He laughs softly. “A million barely got me in the dilapidated door.”
Good. I hope the restoration bled him dry.
Grinning, he continues, “We’ll call what I invested above your asking price a wedding gift.”
“How noble,” I say in a dry tone, all the while I’m internally kicking myself for being played by this man.
Again.
The vehicle comes to a stop, and I reposition the veil over my head before reaching for the door handle.
“Uh-huh,” Fabien warns.
I make an annoyed sound in the back of my throat, and he hustles out and around the car, opening the door for me. “Love it when you’re a good girl.”
Like a Pavlovian response, parts of my body tingle that have no business tingling. Ignoring his outstretched hand, I exit the vehicle and march toward the house.
Fabien catches up to me, his mere presence knocking me off kilter.
He’s too big.
Too imposing.
Too sexy.
It’s bullshit.
I do a double-take. No, what’s bullshit is his crisp black suit and…my mouth falls open.
Snatching the pocket square out of his jacket’s breast pocket, I examine the fabric. It’s a salvaged scrap of my cherry dress from the auction.
The square gets shoved inside his pocket without a word.
“Our living quarters are on the second floor,” Fabien announces as I check out the lovely front porch, all the while I feel like a snow globe that’s been flipped upside down.
“My living quarters,” I correct him.
“Because of safety, I can’t have your studio open to the public,” he continues, ignoring my protests. “Design clients by appointment only, and they’ll be properly vetted first. But if you’d like a sales space open to the general public, you’re welcome to use the hotel’s lobby.”
My eyes narrow to slits. “Thanks for offering space in my hotel.”
“Yours for now. We both know you can’t afford to keep it,” he says matter-of-factly.
“And that’s why I wanted cash,” I tell him with an annoyed huff. “To save the hotel.”
“One step ahead of you.” Fabien snaps his finger, and Saint appears, handing me a manila folder.
Opening it, I scan the proposed offer. Fabien has agreed to purchase the hotel and assume its debt. “Why do you even want the hotel?”
“I have my reasons,” Fabien says cryptically.
Closing the folder, I hand it back to Saint. “A written appraisal of the property by an independent party before I even think of agreeing to anything.”
Fabien chuckles. “I’d expect nothing less, piccola volpe.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap. “What’s the address of this property?”
Saint rattles it off, and while I’d love to flash my own cat who got the canary smile, I keep my expression natural as I fire off a text.
“Everything alright?” Fabien eyes me.
“Peachy,” I tell him, dropping my phone in my purse.
He unlocks the door, and I go to step inside, but squeal when my feet are no longer touching the floor. “Put me down,” I say with an exaggerated sigh.
“After I carry my soon-to-be wife over the threshold.”
“Ridiculous,” I scoff as he carries me inside.
“Guilty.” Fabien places me on my feet. “The parlor, your meeting space for clients,” he says, watching my reaction intently.
Cozy sitting area on one side of the showroom, with a tea set waiting to serve clients.
Huge dressing room with mirrors at every angle.
Counter with a computer.
Racks waiting to be filled with designs.
But the pièce de résistance is my very first lace creation. The white veil is covering a faceless mannequin’s head, displayed on the mantle above the crackling fireplace.
He kept it. I hate that he kept it.
Fabien studies my expression. “Still on the hunt for your bobbins from Ms. Gail.”
“She died a few years back. Michele wouldn’t let me go to the funeral.” To my utter mortification, I begin to cry.
Fabien wraps me in his arms. “Shhh, baby. It’s alright.”
But it’s not alright, and the man consoling me knows damn well it isn’t. Years of practice have me bottling my emotions as I shrug out of his hold.
There’s a box of tissues on the coffee table next to the dressing area, for sentimental brides. Not a sentimental bone left in my body, I steel my spine as I march over and grab one, dabbing my eyes.
“What do you think of your studio so far?” Fabien asks softly.
It’s my eighteen-year-old’s dream.
“I hate everything about it,” I tell him flatly.
Before I know what’s happening, Fabien charges and scoops me up, hoisting me over his shoulder. Giving my ass a swat, he carries me toward the door.
“Put me down!”
Fabien places his hand on the scanner; the door opens, and he carries me to a large warehouse-type room.
Work tables, rolls of fabric, mannequins, and a top-of-the-line sewing machine are what I can make out from my upside-down vantage point.
“Your work studio. You can hate everything about it later.”
We continue upstairs to the second floor as I pound on his back.
“Our home that you will also hate everything about.”
He’s right: from what I can see, I hate that I love it. But I console myself with the fact that there’s no way Fabien decorated this lovely mix of Italianate and French Second Empire-style elements, with modern pieces sprinkled in.
Over my protest, Fabien carries me outside to a lovely, fenced courtyard. I’m placed on my feet beneath an arch illuminated with fairy lights, the priest waiting on us. Having been upside down too long, I begin to sway.
“I’ve got you.” Fabien grabs my shoulders, righting me.
“Never.” I try to jerk it away, but he pulls me closer.
“Always,” he counters.
A derisive sound is my response.
There’s a loud throat clearing, and Fabien and I snap our attention to the priest, whose wide eyes are taking us in.
“Trust me, Father, no one is more unhappy about this union than I am.” On a loud sigh, I reach over and adjust my soon-to-be husband’s Windsor knot. “Means nothing, other than I hate a sloppy look.”
Fabien’s eyes are unreadable. “Saint, go get Sienna’s veil from downstairs—”
“I prefer this one,” I inform him coolly.
“Very well. But when we renew our vows in front of God and everyone, you’re going to wear that wedding veil for me,” Fabien promises.
“Dream on,” I inform him.
“Get to it, Father,” Fabien barks, refusing to let go of me.
The priest clears his throat. “We are gathered here today to join Fabien and Sienna in marriage…”
Fabien
The present
Should I feel bad about strong-arming Sienna into this marriage? Probably.
Do I?
Hell no.
If fate’s going to be a little bitch, then I’ll have to take matters into my own hands.
“Do you have the rings?” The priest asks.
“No,” Sienna says.
“Yes,” I say, reaching into my pocket and producing her sienna-colored diamond ring with a matching stone-studded wedding band. Before she can object, I slip the set on her ring finger.
“Mine now,” I tell her quietly.
Sienna has a hell of a poker face, but the tiny sparks in her eyes tell me she remembers that proclamation.
My ring, a plain gold band, is retrieved from Saint’s possession and handed to Sienna.
“Not what I would’ve chosen, but I wasn’t consulted.” Sienna eyes the ring, clearly unimpressed.
“You can consult with the tattoo artist when he arrives,” I assure her, guiding her hand and helping her slip the ring on my finger. “I’m getting my band inked.”
“Commemorating second place?” She tries to snatch her hand away, but I hold on tight.
“Last man standing; I’d call that first place.”
“Standing for now. Pneumonia’s going around, or so I’ve been told,” she says cryptically.
“I like my odds,” I assure her.
The priest clears his throat, reminding us that he’s still here.
“You need a fucking cough drop?” I eye him down. Having already strangled my old priest, the replacement is starting to get on my nerves.
“He’s just doing his job,” Sienna chides. “Ignore my hothead of a husband. Soon-to-be husband,” she corrects herself, but I still grin like an idiot.
“Continue, Father,” I prompt him, and he switches over to Latin, blathering on. Not that I’m complaining, as it gives me time to admire Sienna. She’s so beautiful, it’s like staring at the sun after years of pitch-black darkness.
Worth risking my eyesight.
“Why do you even want to marry me?” Annoyance coats her words as she catches me staring.
“Not enough time on this furlough to list them all, but we’ll start with the basics: because I never stopped loving you.”
“A ‘nobody’ like me? That’s interesting.” She snatches her hand away, crossing her arms.
“Dammit, Sienna. I told you in my letters…” It hits me like an inmate swinging a sock with a padlock hidden inside. “You didn’t read any of my letters.”
“Your excuses didn’t interest me then; still don’t,” Sienna says hotly.
The priest tries to butt in, and I snap, “Get to the man and wife part.”
“Man and wife,” he says meekly. “You may kiss the bride.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Sienna warns as I go to lift that fucking funeral veil.
A growl rumbles in my chest as I rip the veil off and grip her by the shoulders. “It’s all I’ve thought about.” My lips slam against Sienna’s as her knee slams against my nuts. “Oof.” I double over, cupping my balls.
“Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Calvani,” Saint announces.