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He raises his dark eyes to mine. “Please explain to me why my fiancée is acting like a bitch in heat around her family.”
The other times he spoke rude and offensive words to me he had a smile on his lips and sparks in his eyes. Then, he was turned on and trying to provoke me. Now, his eyes are dead and cold.
I rip my hand off his sleeve, humiliation and hurt welling up inside me. “I just thought—”
Nero speaks quietly, but there’s anger in every syllable. “Did you really go straight home after our date like you said you were going to?”
I start to say that of course I did before I remember that I stopped in to see Isabel on my way home. Is that why he’s so cold and angry? “Well, no, but… How do you know I didn’t? Did you follow me?”
“I wanted to know if you’re the kind of woman who keeps her word or if you’re a liar.”
My breath comes faster, and there’s a sharp pain in my ribs with every inhalation. He did. He followed me. What kind of apsychopath is he? “Don’t you think stalking someone is worse behavior than visiting a sister after a date?”
“Apologize for lying to me, Rieta,” Nero seethes. “Beg for my forgiveness, and if you make it good, I’ll consider whether I can accept a liar as a wife.”
Silence has fallen in the living room. The six or so people present have heard Nero’s raised voice. More guests are appearing in the doorway, drawn by the sound of the happy couple arguing with each other.
I feel my mother’s eyes boring into the side of my neck, but I don’t turn to look at her. If I let Nero walk all over me now, I’ll be sending a clear message that it’s fine for him to treat me like this after our wedding. I’ve let Mom push me around all these years, and I’ve had enough.
I lift my chin and speak loud enough for everyone to hear. “You know what, Nero? Forget it. I didn’t like you the first time I met you, and I should have trusted my instincts instead of agreeing to this engagement. You’re cold, paranoid, and crude, and I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.”
I tug the diamond ring from my finger, slam it onto the side table next to him, and stride away, triumph flickering in my heart.
As I pass Mom, I catch sight of her expression as she glares at me. Her face is twisted with rage, and her eyes are so stormy they’re nearly black.
5
Rieta
“You ungrateful, disagreeable little bitch.” Mom is purple in the face as she shrieks with fury amid the ruins of my engagement party.
Everyone has gone home, including Nero, and he’s taken the engagement ring with him. Maybe I should feel guilty about causing a scene at my engagement party and publicly dumping my fiancé.
But I don’t.
I feelgreat. Putting my foot down was exhilarating. I should have done it sooner.
Mia sits on the stairs and pulls a silly face at me behind Mom’s back, making me smile, but I quickly squash it. Mom’s one provocation away from a nuclear meltdown.
“Three ungrateful, stubborn daughters,” Mom rages. “Isabel won’t marry. Rieta won’t marry. Who will even want sullen little Mia? I’m cursed to be humiliated by my own family again and again.”
“Oh, Mom. We’re stubborn? Who do you think we get it from?” Isabel breezes in from the kitchen, where she’s been cleaning. She comes over to where I’m sitting and hugs me. “How are you doing?”
“I’m—” I start to say.
“Oh,she’sfine.” Mom picks up a handful of forks from the buffet and hurls them across the room. We all wince as they hit the wall and clatter to the ground. “It’s my nerves that are shot to pieces.”
Isabel collects plates with half-eaten food and scrapes them off into a trash can. “Calm down, Mom. It’s not the end of the world.”
Mom glares at her eldest daughter and ticks off my misdeeds on her fingers. “Rieta has refused the most eligible man in the city. She’s broken her promise to him. She’s behaved unconscionably in front of our entire family. She doesn’t get this behavior from me. I was an obedient daughter for my mother and father, and I was married the moment I turned eighteen.”
“Only because it suited you,” Isabel replies with a shrug. “You loved Dad. It’s easy to be dutiful when you’re in love. If you give Rieta the same chance, everything will work out.” Isabel contemplates me with a smile and adds, “I think you did the right thing. A man should be rejected at least once. It deflates their arrogant heads. Bianchi women won’t be walked all over, will we?”
“It would take a falling ton of bricks to deflate Nero’s ego,” I mutter.
“You wait, he’ll be as sweet as a puppy the next time you see him.”
I frown at her. “Next time?”
