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The interior of the restaurant is beautiful. Worn brick walls, a large fireplace at one side, small black tables with matching chairs, and dark wooden booths with soft-looking black leather seats at the other. Further back, there’s an area with tables more spaced out, in view of the kitchen, and Salvatore leads me there.
“This restaurant was a concept that I designed myself,” he says casually, as he pulls out a chair for me. “The kind of comfortable, rustic atmosphere that you’d get in a restaurant in Italy, with warm textures and old-fashioned decor, but with the very highest quality food. All imported and prepared by an expert chef.” He moves to sit opposite me at the table, and I look for a menu. “The dishes have already been selected—Emil said he wanted to design the menu tonight for us himself.”
Another thing chosen for me. I start to bristle, and Salvatore lets out a small sigh. “It’s meant to be a pleasant night out for us, Gia. Can you try to see it as that, maybe?”
I press my lips together. “Why?” I give him a challenging look. “Why do you care? You married me—according to you, Pyotr can no longer have me. I’m confined to your house and estate—according to you, the Bratva can’t possibly get to me there. Your only goal in all of this was to prevent the Bratva marriage and ‘protect’ me. So why bother with all of this?” I wave a hand, indicating the restaurant around us, the kitchen where the food is being prepared. “What’s the point?”
Salvatore looks at me, and I can see a glimmer of frustration in his eyes, but he appears to try to rein it back in. “Normally, we would have had a honeymoon, Gia. But the circumstances of our marriage have made it too dangerous for us to do anything like that. And beyond that—” He lets out a slow breath, and I see him briefly frown, rubbing a hand over his mouth. “I frightened you this morning,” he says simply. “I’m sorry for that. I was frustrated, but it doesn’t excuse my handling you roughly, or shouting at you. That’s not the way I want to behave as your husband, and it doesn’t befit my reasoning for marrying you in the first place—which was to protect you.”
It’s very close to what I was thinking, after he left this morning. I nod slowly, feeling a little caught off balance by his admission, and his apology. It’s touching—more so than I want to admit. I don’t want to let him see that he’s made me feel something other than hateful anger towards him.
“We’re both on edge,” I start to say. “But?—”
“It doesn’t need to be that way.” Salvatore sits back as a waiter dressed in all black brings a bottle of red wine and a plate of assorted charcuterie, pouring us each half a glass and then melting away into the background. “We can find a way to live happily, Gia, if?—”
“You’re wrong.” I cut him off abruptly, refusing to allow my walls to lower enough to even consider what he’s saying. “You cheated me out of both my chosen husband and my wedding night. You cheated me out of the marriage that I wanted. And, as you’ve pointed out, you cheated me out of a honeymoon. Pyotr and I—” I break off abruptly, because Pyotr and I never actually discussed plans for a honeymoon. But that doesn’t matter. I’m sure that he had something planned, some surprise that I would have discovered the next morning, when he whisked me off to whatever destination he had in mind. “I don’t even think that was the right call,” I add haughtily, reaching for a piece of cheese. “Leaving the country might have been safer, if the Bratva really are such a threat.”
I say the last sarcastically, still not believing that Salvatore has any real reason to think that the Bratva wants to harm me, only a desire to make me think that he needed to save me. But instead of replying sharply, Salvatore goes quiet, appearing to think for a moment as he reaches for his wine and dips a piece of bread into the herbed olive oil that the waiter brought.
“Why do you feel that way?” He looks at me curiously. “That it would have been safer to leave the country.”
“If this Bratva threat is real, then wouldn’t it be better to get me as far away from them as possible?” I make sure he can hear the doubt in my voice, that I don’t really believe any of this. “They’re going to know you took me home. Where I am. And maybe your mansion is difficult for them to attack, but that’s what they’re going to be planning for.” I shrug. “But of course, I’m sure you know best.” My tone is sickly sweet, but there’s not a hint of actual affection in it.
To my surprise, Salvatore still appears to be thinking. “Maybe you’re right,” he says slowly. “My instinct was to put you behind a high fence and thick walls, with a heavy guard, and simply make it impossible to get to you. But maybe it would be better to take you somewhere else entirely, until I’ve managed to smooth this over.”
Shit. I realize that, inadvertently, I’ve potentially given Salvatore a reason to take me even further from Pyotr’s reach. I wanted to argue with him, but I argued a little too well.
He’s listening to you, though. I can’t help but feel myself soften, just a little. For the first time, Salvatore isn’t dismissing my opinion or ignoring it. He seems to actually be taking what I’m thinking into consideration.
If Pyotr really wanted you back, wouldn’t he have tried again? Wouldn’t he have demanded you back from Salvatore? I bite my lip, wondering if he has, and I just don’t know about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Salvatore simply didn’t tell me.
“Has Pyotr tried to meet with you?” I ask suddenly, as the first course is taken away and the second brought to us—a Caprese salad with thinly sliced circles of mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, and basil arranged artfully on a patterned china plate. “Has he tried to bargain for me back?”
Something almost like sympathy glimmers in Salvatore’s expression, and I feel a stab of anger in response. I don’t want pity. I don’t want him to feel sorry for me. He shakes his head slowly. “The communications from the Bratva are threats of violence, Gia. Pyotr is not bargaining for your return. If they want you, it’s not for marriage. Pyotr has no intention of taking your hand any longer.”
My chest tightens painfully. “I don’t believe you.” My voice cracks the tiniest bit, and I clench my teeth, hating it. I don’t want Salvatore to see my hurt, my weakness. I want him to regret what he did, but I don’t want him to see how fragile my heart feels right now. “You wouldn’t tell me even if he did. You wouldn’t want me to hope that he’ll come for me. You want me to believe your lies about him, about the Bratva?—”
Salvatore runs a hand through his hair. “Can we go even one meal without this argument, Gia? We’re at an impasse. I know the truth—both about the Bratva and why I married you instead of allowing Pyotr to have you. You refuse to believe me, and I truly don’t know what proof would change your mind, short of handing you over to them and letting you experience their cruelties first-hand. And that, of course, is not something I’m willing to do. I married you to spare you what your future with them would be.”
“What future would that have been?” I spear a bit of the salad delicately, lifting it to my lips and following it with the wine. I watch Salvatore’s eyes flick to my mouth, and I resist the urge to moan at the flavor that rolls over my tongue. Rich and salty and sweet all at once, it’s some of the best food I’ve ever tasted. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the meal has in store—but I’m not about to let Salvatore know that. I don’t want him to know that I’m enjoying any of this.
“I’m not going to go into details, Gia,” Salvatore says sharply. “I refuse to sit here, over a dinner that was meant to be a pleasant evening for us both, and regale you with horror stories of the Bratva’s cruelty. Of the things your supposed love might have done to you. Of the things they would do to you now, if they got their hands on you. The example that they would make of you, to hurt me.” His mouth tightens, and I see real anger blaze in his eyes for a moment. It makes my stomach tighten, cold flickering through my veins.
I don’t believe him. I don’t. All of my feelings about this marriage are predicated on the idea that Salvatore stole me for himself, because he coveted his best friend’s daughter. That the Bratva threat is overblown, even a flat-out lie, to cover for what he’s done. That without his interference, the marriage treaty would have gone off without a hitch, and I would currently be a blissful bride, loved up in Pyotr’s penthouse as we discovered all the secrets of wedded happiness together.
But either Salvatore is the best liar in the world—or he truly believes what he’s saying. I might be innocent and a little naive, sheltered by my father, but I’m not stupid. There’s no artifice in his face or in his voice. His expression is hard, cold, his voice sharp, his eyes full of anger at the thought of what could happen to me. And it’s the possibility that the latter is true—that he really believes I was threatened by the arrangement—that sends ice crackling through my veins.
What if it is true?
The thought is awful. It makes me set my fork down, swallowing hard as I dab my lips with my napkin and try to hide what I’m thinking from Salvatore. If what Salvatore is saying is true—if the Bratva would have hurt me, if they want to hurt me now, if all of this was a ploy—then it shifts my entire world on its axis. If that is all true, then Pyotr never loved me. All of our romantic afternoons together, the whispers and promises and fantasies, were lies. If it’s true, then my father was a fool for making the treaty, not a crafty diplomat. And if it’s true, then Salvatore really did save me from a terrible future, instead of stealing me away and ruining my life.
I’m not ready to face that. I can’t. Just the thought of everything shifting so dramatically makes me shudder, a panicked feeling flooding through me. I’m only just recovering from the grief of losing my father. I can’t deal with my world being rocked so thoroughly all over again.
I have to cling to what I’ve believed all along.
Across from me, Salvatore lets out a slow breath. “I want to shelter you from all of this unpleasantness, Gia,” he says finally. “I would like to make it so that you can simply be happy, without fearing the complications of the Bratva or dealing with the knowledge of our current negotiations.” He holds up a hand before I can say anything, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t say that you can’t be happy, on account of all of the nefarious ways I’ve ruined your life. I’ve heard that speech enough to have memorized it by now, Gia, so I think we can accept that I’ve heard you, and understand your position, even if I disagree with it.”
He pauses as the server brings the next course—a veal bolognese in an elegant white serving bowl—and spoons it onto a plate for each of us. A new vintage of wine is poured, and Salvatore waits until the server has walked away before he looks at me, reaching for his wine.
