Page 8 of The Bond

“Have you ever lied to me?” I asked. Even if every word she’d uttered had been a lie, I would forgive her without question. There was nothing she could do what would get me to turn my back on her. Nothing. But, I still had to know the truth. The truth was all I wanted between us now. No more bullshit. No more schemes. Just us and our true feelings.

“The wedding...” She shut her eyes then. Let out a ragged exhale that seemed to make her tremble with regret. “I was going to go through with it. I planned on keeping my promise to my father and doing my duty by marrying you.”

“But?”

“But I decided that if I couldn’t bear being married to you, I’d leave,” she confessed. “I’d leave and file for divorce. Or an annulment, depending on what I could get.”

“So, ultimately marrying me would have been fake,” I said. “It was just a temporary solution until you got out.”

“It could have been real. It could have been fake.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “That part was up to you, Enzo.”

“So, you were using me too,” I said.

“What choice did I have?” she demanded. “You and my father all but forced me into this. Like I was livestock you could trade.”

“We’ve both made mistakes here,” I said grimly.

“No. Don’t compare what you were planning with me trying to save myself,” she said angrily. “You planned on trapping me for life. I planned on setting us both free. There’s a difference.”

She was right. There was a major difference. My deception made a cruel mockery of marriage entirely. Her deception was her grasping at a way to survive in a man’s world. We weren’t coming from equal places. Much as I hated to concede that my enemy was right, it was a coward’s move to try and shift blame for this disaster. This mess was well and truly mine and my father’s fault. No doubt about that.

I sighed. “Fair.”

There was nothing else to say. The walls had been closing in on her ever since we met and she dealt with it the best way she knew how. None of this had been her choice. If she’d been given a choice, Valentina would not have chosen to be trapped in a loveless marriage with me. Which surely meant that she still wanted out of this arrangement. Despite what I felt for her, she didn’t reciprocate those feelings. She’d hated me for years and now that she knew that I’d never intended to marry her for the right reasons, that hatred would only grow. I thought I’d glimpsed something in her that day we first slept together but I had gone and fucked it up. As much as I cared for her, Valentina would never feel the same for me. Not now that she knew I had betrayed her.

That realization was a knife to the gut. It hurt worse than anything I’d ever experienced. Worse than fire. Worse than anything doctors could ever put me through. The pain was so complete and total that I swear there was a shout of anguish in the back of my mind.

Soul-rending pain cut through me with all the mercy of a blunt, jagged knife. This was the worst thing I had ever felt in my life and I didn’t have a name for it. I couldn’t put it into words. Desperate as I was for there to be only truth between us from now on, I’d never be able to explain this feeling to her. Not only would she understandably refuse to believe me, it was clear that she would reject me. Valentina herself had said she basically couldn’t wait to get as far away from me as possible after the wedding. My lies had brought me to this. In my efforts to deceive her and maintain my family’s power, I had destroyed the one thing that truly mattered to me. Unquestioning loyalty to my family had completely fucked me over and I only had myself to blame.

All this meant that there was one final yes or no question to be answered. We would either get married or go our separate ways. Neither choice would bring us peace. If I married her, we would be at odds in a loveless marriage for the foreseeable future—maybe even the rest of our lives if I managed to win her over. But going our separate ways would bring down the wrath of both our families on us and I’d lose her for good. A loveless marriage on the one hand, losing Valentina on the other. It felt like no matter what choice I made, I’d never truly have her the way I wanted. Every choice was a loss in the long run. Failure no matter what was decided.

Best to get the ball rolling so I’d know what was in store for both of us. “Tell me, Valentina, do you want to go through with the wedding, or do you want to cancel it?”

Chapter 4

Valentina

I hadn’t expected Enzo to ask the question so bluntly. Did I want to marry him or did I want to forfeit?

None of this had been my choice. The De Lucas certainly hadn’t cared about what I wanted and my father had ignored my wants in order to secure my future. In his mind, my father had been doing the right thing, even if the means had been less than ideal. I’d been all but forced into this arrangement with Enzo.

The anger I’d been feeling died down. With more practical things to worry about right now, I was going to put my fury at Enzo on the back burner. I’d bide my time. If I came up with a revenge plan, it would on my schedule, not his.

“I kept the wedding plans going while you were recovering,” I reminded him, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. “If we go ahead with the wedding, you might not like all the choices I made.”

“That’s fine,” he said. “You did what you had to under difficult circumstances.”

At least he was acknowledging all my hard work. I was so in love with him that little scrap of validation meant more to me than it should have. I was practically starry-eyed in his presence and I would have to do everything in my power to hide that from him. Enzo could not have the upper hand here. He couldn’t know the effect that he had on me.

“If you’re truly asking what I want, I don’t have a lot of time to decide. The wedding is in little over a week.” I shifted to find a comfortable position, my knee accidentally bumping against his outstretched leg. The sudden contact flushed my entire body with heat. I was already getting flustered around him. “Is that why you wanted to get out of the hospital so urgently? You didn’t want to miss the wedding?”

“That was part of it,” he answered.

“Nobody bothered to get my opinion on this wedding before,” I said. “Why start now?”

“Better to cancel than go ahead and live in regret,” he said.

That made my heart hurt so much I nearly started crying then. Enzo wasn’t even remotely fazed by the idea of canceling the wedding. Now that his treachery had been discovered he didn’t have to pretend anymore. He could go back to being cold and unfeeling toward me.