Page 81 of The Arrangement

Again, he was stunned speechless. It took him an entire minute to regain his thoughts so what he said didn’t hurt her more than she already was. The last thing he needed was her running to hide again.

“It only happened once. Nicoli gave me very little details because he was a private man in that regard. Just the once … bad timing and random circumstance. They didn’t see each other again until you turned two.”

When Viviana didn’t speak, Anton took it as his chance to keep talking. “No one knew but a few choice people that you weren’t Roman’s. Christina told him the moment he returned home; he wanted you, despite the fact that you weren’t his blood. She didn’t know, and neither did he because she couldn’t give him a last name, who Nicoli was. They didn’t meet under circumstances that led her to think he was a high-ranking member of the Bratva. It wasn’t anywhere near Brighton Beach. Like a perfect storm, that’s all.”

“But that doesn’t make sense.”

“The only thing Roman wouldn’t do, Viviana, was risk having you marry a Cosa Nostra man because your children wouldn’t have been full Italians,” Anton finished quietly. “He couldn’t do it because he believed, respected, and followed his creed.”

“How?” she asked, brown eyes daring to flick up to meet his.

“How, what?”

“This … us,” she said, waving.

“Sonny. A mix up happened between trucks and Nicoli’s guys stepped in to take what wasn’t theirs; Sonny’s guys got in and some lead was tossed. A meeting was set up, and because they didn’t want it to end violently, the wives were brought along. Or the ones that were alive, anyway.”

Anton felt his chest grow with that painful pressure again. God, he wanted so badly to reach out and touch her, but he was terrified that wouldn’t do him any good. He settled for shoving his shaking hands in the pockets of his pants, instead.

“Again, the perfect storm. Shitty circumstances. Christina could have just not told Roman and he wouldn’t have known the difference, but they’d changed a lot in those two years after your birth. They weren’t the same people. She wouldn’t lie, so she was honest, and Roman … he was good man, Viviana. Decided to give Nicoli the chance to know he had a daughter.”

“And then this happened,” she assumed, her bare shoulder lifting before it dropped back down.

“Basically. Nicoli didn’t want to take you from the man you already loved, but he did want the chance to someday know you as a different woman. When he noticed how well you and I seemed to take to one another, he was quick to throw the arrangement on the table. It served to fix Roman’s issue of not marrying you to his side, but instead, the one you were more suited to because of your bloodline. And, it served Nicoli’s purpose of having you close to him at a different stage in your life. Not everyone was happy with that.”

“No?”

Anton shook his head. “Sonny again. Everyone already thought you were Roman’s, so what difference would it make? He didn’t want to be mixed up with Russians. By Nicoli and Daniil’s accounts, it was pretty clear those brothers weren’t on good terms even then. I think Sonny was planning a long time before you came along to get rid of Roman, he just needed a reason to.”

Viviana sucked in a harsh breath. “I was that reason.”

“It’s not your fault, baby.”

When tears slipped over her cheeks, she was quick to swipe away the glimmering wetness. Anton stood stoic and silent as he let her digest everything he’d said. He knew it was a lot and that she’d probably have a dozen more questions, but what he really wanted her to do was just sleep. The dark circles under her eyes and tremors rocking her small hands had him worried.

“Come to bed, please.”

A simple shake of her head had him sighing. “What about you, Anton?”

“I’m going to shower and then, if you want, I’ll join you.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh.”

His heart kick-started with another painful rhythm.

“Just … when did you know?”

His lips wet under his tongue. It was the truth he’d been avoiding even more than the history of her paternity. “That morning you left Barbados. I couldn’t figure out why Nicoli was so fucking mad at me. Roman, I got. He was your dad and there was that tiny spot of blood on my sheets that said what I wouldn’t. But, Nicoli? I couldn’t get it to click. And he slipped … in his anger, with his Russian. I heard my father kind of choke and my mom just made this awful sound. I got it then. His princess, he’d said. My dad called me the little prince my whole life, Vine. I knew what he meant when Nicoli said that about you.

“And then he went really quiet, but I finally recognized the eye color when he just sat there and stared at me. Nicoli didn’t ever show his emotions, but the pain in his eyes was unbearable,” Anton admitted, frowning. “He was so torn because I was finally getting it together. I was happy, healthy, and I wanted you, but I’d disappointed him because I’d taken something from his daughter. It didn’t matter that you were going to be my wife, in his eyes, what you gave to me wasn’t mine to take at that time.”

Her voice was just a breath when she said, “That long.”

“It didn’t matter to me,” Anton rushed to say. “I already wanted you. I wanted you because I loved you. But Nicoli was clear and so was Roman, I couldn’t tell you. Neither of them wanted you to know, unless there was no other way around it, but there was the big issue of safety, too. They just wanted you to love the life you already had, not the one you could have had. I decided after Sonny made it pretty obvious that he wanted to all but eradicate the truth of his involvement in hiding your paternity that when the time was right, and we were safe, I would tell you.”

“But … I do.”