Chapter 7 #2
He folds his hands on the desk and I watch his fingers lace together the way they do when he's about to deliver a verdict that spells my doom. "I've been in conversations with his father about strengthening that alliance for a while now."
My stomach tightens. "What does that have to do with me?"
Harrison looks at Lorenzo. Lorenzo looks at me and that same creepy-ass smile returns.
"Your father and I have come to an arrangement," Lorenzo states like he’s reading off the weather forecast to me. His voice is smooth, modulated, every syllable placed like a chess move. "A union between our families. One that benefits everyone involved."
I stare at him. Then my father. Then back at Lorenzo.
They gotta be kidding. "A union." I repeat the word like it doesn't belong to any language I speak. "You mean a marriage. You know, it’s okay to spell out your ill intentions plainly."
I splay the palm of my hand across my stomach to ease the quivering.
"I mean a partnership." Lorenzo leans forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him. "One built on mutual respect, shared interests, and the consolidation of two powerful families."
Bullshit.
He's talking about me like a merger. Like I'm a column on a spreadsheet that needs to balance.
I turn to my father. "Dad. What is this? I don’t even know this man and you want me to marry him?"
My father's jaw tightens and for half a second the mask slips and I see the truth underneath. Shame. He's ashamed. But not ashamed enough to stop.
"I’ve kept you apart from the dealings of my business.
It’s time for that to change and for you to stop your silly boutique business and step into your intended role.
For the family. We have debts, Sloane. Significant ones.
The Ferraro alliance resolves them. Lorenzo is a good man, from a powerful family, and he's offered a generous arrangement that protects all of us. "
A good man. From a powerful family. The words land on me one at a time, each one heavier than the last. My father is sitting behind his desk telling me he sold me to settle a debt. He's using the same voice he uses to negotiate contracts and close deals, like I'm a line item. Like I'm collateral.
I grip the armrests of my chair because my hands want to shake and I will not give either of them that.
"How long?" My voice is quiet. Too quiet. "How long have you been planning this?"
"Sloane, it's not like that."
My gaze darts to Lorenzo and then to the man who raised me. "How long, Dad?"
Dad picks up his glass. Drains it. Sets it down with a crack against the wood. "Six months. You happy now? Can we get on with this?"
A darkness I can't control smothers out the light I’ve worked so hard to fill my life with.
Six months. He's been arranging my marriage for six months and never said a word.
I had dinner with him three weeks ago and he asked about the boutique and laughed at my story about a customer who tried on fifteen dresses and bought a scarf.
He sat across from me eating steak and making small talk while my future was already signed away.
"You should have told me." My voice doesn't waver. I'm proud of that.
"I'm telling you now." Dad corrects me roughly, cocking his dark brow.
Raw fury threatens to explode inside me. "No,” I seethe between gritted teeth. “You're presenting me with a done deal and calling it a conversation."
Lorenzo reaches over and grips my elbow. His fingers dig into the bend of my arm hard enough that I feel each one press against the bone, controlling my movement.
My body goes cold.
Every muscle locks from my shoulders to my feet and I’m suddenly thrown back to the last time a man tried to physically control me.
My skin tightens under his fingers and a wave of nausea rolls through my stomach so fast I have to press my tongue against the roof of my mouth to keep from gagging.
I don't breathe. I can't. My lungs refuse to expand and my vision narrows and I am frozen in this chair with this man's hand on my arm and every cell in my body screaming at me to get his fingers off my skin.
I pull my arm away. Slow and deliberate so it doesn't look like a flinch even though every nerve ending in my body is on fire.
My eyes narrow into murderous slits. "Don't you dare touch me," I rage. I speak to Lorenzo but I'm looking at my father. My voice comes out low and even and made entirely of steel. "We've known each other for five minutes. You don't get to touch me."
Lorenzo's fingers release my arm but he doesn't pull back. He stays in my space, close enough that his cologne fills my lungs, and the smile that crosses his face tells me everything I need to know about how seriously he takes a woman's refusal. “You'll warm up to me, Sloane. They always do.”
Puke. "You think?" I sling back with a healthy dose of ire.
I push to my feet. My heels sink into the rug and I grip the back of the chair because my knees are not as steady as my voice. Dad mirrors my movements, and the guilt on his face makes me angrier than the deal itself.
My father plants a heavy fist on the desk. "Sloane, sit down. Let's discuss this."
Acid pours over the rage bubbling up inside me.
"There's nothing to discuss. You made a deal without asking me.
You sat across from me at dinner for months and said nothing.
And now you're introducing me to the man you sold me to and asking me to sit down and discuss it, like a good girl. Fuck that and fuck you. You don’t respect me, why should I respect you?
" I press my lips together hard enough to feel the waxy bite of my lipstick against my teeth.
"I need air. I'll call you when I'm ready to talk, and I am not ready to talk.
" The fury my father poured into my bloodstream is going to eat me alive if I don't get out of this room.
I swallow all the emotions running rampant through me and turn toward the door.
I gasp. Coming to a full stop.
Massimo Santoro stands in the doorway.
My lungs empty. The floor tilts beneath my heels and I lock my knees to keep from swaying.
He's in a dark navy suit, no tie, the top button of his shirt undone.
His jaw is tight, the close-trimmed beard sharper than it was last night, like he cleaned it up before coming here.
His broad shoulders block the doorframe.
And his whiskey eyes are locked on mine with an intensity that pins me where I stand.
The way he's looking at me is not how Dad's lawyer looks at a friend's daughter.
He's looking at me like he knows.
How long did it take him? The wish? The shoe? The scent on his sheets matching my perfume right this minute?
My stomach drops. No. I'm overreacting. The fury my father just poured into me is warping everything. Massimo didn't see my face clearly. It was dark. I was careful. He can't possibly know.
I stop struggling to hold his gaze and that is when I feel the web of my emotions gently seek his.
His eyes don't move off mine and my body responds before my brain can shut it down. Heat floods my body, my pulse hammers at every point, and every inch of skin that he touched last night burns with the memory of every rough callus on his hands.
My fingers grip the back of the chair hard enough to have my nails bend against the leather.
How long has he been standing there? What did he hear?
"Sloane." His voice is low. Careful. He says my name the same way he said tesoro last night, like it matters, like the word itself costs him something, and I can't do this.
I cannot stand in my father's study with Lorenzo Ferraro behind me and Massimo Santoro in front of me and hold myself together. I don't have enough armor on for this.
"Excuse me." I push past him. My shoulder brushes his chest and the contact sends a jolt through my body so hard my step falters. His hand reaches toward my arm and I feel the air shift as his fingers brush over my skin. It’s brief and then he lets me go.
My heels ring hard against the marble. I keep my spine straight and my chin up through the foyer, out the front door, down the steps. I don't look back. If I look back I will see his face and I will break apart in my father's driveway and that is not happening today.
I make it to my car. Close the door. Grip the steering wheel with both hands and squeeze until my forearms burn and the leather creaks under my fingers.
“Don’t you dare shed a single fucking tear, Whitmore!”
The burn sits right behind my eyes, but the water doesn’t flow. Thankfully.
I am so far past crying that tears feel like a luxury I can't afford.
What I feel is a cold, quiet fury that starts in my chest and spreads outward through my body until my fingertips tingle with it.
My father just handed me to a stranger like a business card.
Six months of planning. Six months of looking me in the eye and saying nothing.
And Massimo was standing right there. Watching. How much did he hear? Did he even care?
I turn the key. Pull out of the drive. Make it three blocks before I reach for my phone at a red light.
I open my contacts. Scroll to his name.
Massimo.
No new messages. No missed calls. He was ten feet away from me and he let me walk out without a word. I don't know what I wanted him to do. Stop me? Tell me he knows? Tell me he doesn't care that I'm his best friend’s daughter and he loved every minute of our time together.
Dreams can come true, right? At least I would have that going for me.
Tears warm the edges of my eyes. I’m just not that lucky, but damn. Can’t a girl catch a break?