Chapter 2
EVI
My heart stutters as I take in the tall, powerfully built man who steps into the room ahead of my parents. Then my lips curve into a genuine smile as my shock melts unexpectedly into relief.
“You must be Sandro,” I say, my voice finding strength as I turn to face him fully.
He’s not at all what I expected. But somehow, that’s a good thing. Dressed in a sweat-stained T-shirt and what appear to be bloodied boxing shorts, he looks quite literally like he just came from a street brawl.
His dark hair, cut in a high fade, looks as reckless and extreme as the rest of him, shaved close at the temples while the longer strands fall into his eyes.
He runs his fingers through them as if to tame the chaos, but the sweat that still clings to his skin and curling locks makes them stick up at odd angles.
Dirt and blood coat Sandro’s sweat-slicked skin, masking portions of the tattoos that seem to cover almost every inch of his exposed arms and neck.
Even the cheek beneath his right eye is marked by a black nautical star. His left eye looks slightly swollen and discolored, hinting at the start of a fresh shiner that will match his split lip once it’s filled in.
The bruised and bloodied beast of a man clears his throat as he stops before me. He gives a gruff “Yeah,” his voice as jagged and broken as his appearance, and it makes my heart flutter.
Comparing Sandro to the clean, sharply dressed, relatively tattooless man who stands behind his right shoulder, I’m more than a little relieved to know I couldn’t mistake one twin for the other even if I tried.
Their features might be astonishingly identical, but their personalities are visibly night and day, their lifestyle choices worn like a badge of honor in every stitch of fabric and drop of ink beneath the skin.
While my father casts looks of distaste toward my betrothed from behind Sandro’s shoulder, a strange thrill of excitement rushes through my veins.
This is the man I’m supposed to marry, and while I’ve spent ages fretting over this moment, suddenly, I feel a deep sense of calm.
I’ve been so worried about failing to impress my future husband, but from the looks of it, he couldn’t care less about this meeting. And as odd as it might sound, that puts me at ease.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I say, meeting his stormy hazel eyes with a confidence I didn’t know I possessed.
He studies me with a silent sense of confusion, his guarded expression making me wonder if I’ve already said something wrong. In the blink of an eye, my anxiety returns, my palms sweating as my father’s words of warning ring in my ears.
I need to make this arrangement work—for all our sakes.
“I hope I didn’t pull you away from anything important,” I add lightly, the corners of my lips twitching with the effort to keep my smile in place.
Behind him, Sandro’s twin, Rafael, makes a soft noise—something halfway between a scoff and a snort—and his eyes dart toward Sandro in a meaningful way.
Sandro doesn’t even have to look at his brother for the subtle communication to take place, but I can tell it must have meant something to him because Sandro shifts uncomfortably, rolling his shoulders as he holds my gaze.
“It’s fine,” he says curtly, his tone indicating that he would rather be anywhere but here, and I can’t help the flicker of amusement as I realize I must be spot on.
No doubt, he would rather have finished whatever fight he was clearly in the middle of before he came to meet me. But I won’t let that discourage me.
“Well, I hope I’m worth your while,” I say sweetly, intrigued by the man I’m supposed to win over.
If I had to guess, I’d say Sandro has little interest in marriage—if any. And perhaps that’s not a bad thing.
This way, I won’t come as too much of a disappointment to him when he learns the truth about me. It will be better for everyone involved if his expectations are low from the start.
And judging by the amount of effort he’s put into this meeting, I’d say they’re somewhere in the basement right now.
Moving with the grace only my mother possesses, she comes to stand beside me, touching my arm, her fingertips lightly prompting my attention. “Evi, why don’t you show Sandro the garden? Maybe you two could talk—get to know each other.”
It’s a rather obvious ploy to give me a moment alone with Sandro, where I could further the cause and prove I’m worthy of his interest. But from his stoic expression, that might be a harder task than I anticipated.
Swallowing my nerves, I nod and gesture toward the side door that leads out into our sunlit courtyard.
Without a word, Sandro follows, his heavy gait almost a prowl as he walks beside me like an enemy might leap out of the hedges at any moment.
His gaze shifts in the same poised, watchful way as he carries his body, taking in every detail of the garden all the way out to our property line but only sparing me a glance.
The garden smells like roses and freshly turned earth, and I inhale deeply, soaking up the familiar nature and drawing strength from it.
Sunlight glints off the fountain at the center of the walkway, casting shards of light across our path despite the sun’s slow descent.
It could almost be peaceful—if the man walking beside me didn’t feel as tight as a piano wire.
And the longer the silence stretches between us, the less I think he likes me.
But now that we’re alone, I suddenly feel shy. Sandro seems to have zero inclination to carry the conversation, so if I want this night to end in anything but utter failure, I need to pull myself together.
Steeling my nerves, I stop and turn purposefully to face my betrothed.
He mirrors my body language, and the movement is so natural, it reminds me of a fighter squaring off with his opponent.
My breath catches as I take in the way his shirt fabric strains to contain the muscles beneath it, and I just glimpse the chapped skin of his split knuckles before I drag my eyes back to his.
“So. My parents tell me you’re the man I’m supposed to marry.” I sound way too breathy, and I pray that he doesn’t see me blushing beneath my thin layer of makeup.
But I can’t help noticing that, even in his dirty, disheveled state, Sandro is… gorgeous. And he’s suddenly standing close enough to me that I can smell the faint scents of salt, leather, and natural musk that cling to him, making my stomach quiver.
His mercurial hazel eyes transform into polished hematite as he studies my face in the soft light of sunset, and it makes my mouth go dry.
“So I’ve heard,” he says dryly.
I’ve never met anyone so challenging to read, and I feel the sweat gathering along the nape of my neck as I scramble for another topic of conversation.
Sandro, it would seem, does not intend to make this easy for me.
My eyes drop instinctively back to his hands—his raw knuckles that, upon closer inspection, look bloody, probably from the fight. “You’ve been boxing?”
It must be a naive question—or maybe just so obvious, I’m clearly grasping for something to talk about—because I see the first hint of amusement tugging at his lips. But he doesn’t laugh at me, and his tone warms as he says, “Something like that.”
That’s all it takes to melt my insides—the suddenly soft edge to his deeply masculine voice.
I hadn’t noticed the curling edge of an Italian accent in his curt responses before, but now that he’s strung more than two words together, it’s unmistakable, and it rolls off his tongue like golden honey.
The familiarity of it immediately makes me feel more at home.
Warmth sparks inside my chest, and I cling to the topic like the olive branch I pray that it is. “I like it,” I say, perking up—perhaps a little too enthusiastically, since his dark, powerful brows lift in a skeptical expression.
“You like… what?” he asks slowly, doubt and confusion tinging his tone. He gives me the distinct impression that he finds me vexing. At least he hasn’t told me to stop talking yet.
“That you came as you are,” I say, hoping he might let down his guard if I tell him something honest. “No pretending. No hiding the fact that you were somewhere else, doing something you actually care about.”
“I didn’t exactly have time to change,” he says, as if taking my comment as some kind of demand for an explanation.
But that’s not how I mean it at all. In truth, meeting Sandro when he’s not all put-together relieved a massive amount of tension I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying.
And it leaves me more curious about the man I likely would have found terrifying otherwise. “Would you have?” I ask. “If you had the time?”
He pauses, his brows buckling into a frown that somehow looks more natural on his bold Roman features. “Probably not.”
I suspected as much, and the reward from guessing right about my soon-to-be husband brings a smile to my face. “Good,” I murmur, daring to reveal a bit more about myself in return for his candor. Just because I can’t tell him everything about myself doesn’t mean we can’t get to know each other.
And I would like that very much—to understand the man I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with.
Sandro’s bold choice to come today in the state he’s in tells me more about him than any brief walk in a garden ever could.
It leaves me with a sense of optimism about the future that I hadn’t dared hope for until now.
I don’t care if my husband is refined or even charming, really. I want someone I can trust, and I find Sandro’s blunt transparency far more appealing than any display he could have put on for me.
“You don’t have to say yes, you know,” he says suddenly, the words rushing from him with a note of exasperation.
Stunned at his sudden outburst, I stare at him in genuine confusion. “I’m pretty sure our families have already come to an agreement,” I point out when I finally find my voice again.
“They have,” he says, his tone darkening. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t walk away.”