Page 71 of Vow

“Did they choose the salad for you, too?” Andino asked. “Because I wouldn’t willingly eat that without some kind of steak to weigh it down.”

The hint of a smile graced Ginevra’s lips.

Battle almost won, he thought.

“They did—heaven forbid you thought I ate too much.”

Andino made a noise in the back of his throat. “I prefer women who enjoy themselves, actually. Not that it’ll matter what I prefer from you. Some other man, perhaps, but not me. You would do well to remember that.”

She glanced up at him again.

Andino simply smiled back.

He just needed this woman to trust him. The rest would come easily after that.

• • •

“How was your dinner with the girl?”

Andino glanced up from the work on his desk to find his father leaning in the doorway of the office. Just beyond where Giovanni stood, the hustle and bustle of the restaurant continued on. Gio waited with a measured expression for his son’s reply.

“Bearable,” Andino chose to say.

Gio’s mouth quirked higher at the edge as he said, “That’s not the answer I want to hear when you’re talking about your wife-to-be.”

“Seems like a fine enough answer for me.”

“And why is that?”

Andino pushed away the work on his desk to give his father the attention Giovanni was so clearly looking for. Obviously, or his father wouldn’t be here at all. Andino was not the only one with business all over the city, and his father’s days were often busier than even his own. If Gio made a point to make time to come here and see Andino today, he did that with a purpose.

Clearly, information this time around.

Maybe for his mother, who knew?

“What do you want to know, Dad?” Andino asked. “If we talked, or if she’s happy? If she’s willing to meet Ma—frankly, she’ll do whatever she’s told because she’s terrified of what might happen if she doesn’t. What is it you want?”

Giovanni blinked. “Is she?”

“What?”

“Scared of you.”

Andino scowled. “It’s not me—it’s them.”

His father nodded once. “Her brothers, then.”

“Calling them that in reference to their relationship with Ginevra seems like a stretch considering all she is to them is a pawn, Dad. She is something for them to use to get where they want to go, and very little else. They don’t actually give a shit about her. I could be the worst kind of trash, and they wouldn’t give a single fuck about it. Okay?”

Gio didn’t bat an eye at Andino’s statement. It was almost like that was exactly what his father expected to hear, and so, it didn’t really come as a surprise.

Nothing in this life was a surprise, now.

“And none of that seems like a problem to you,” Giovanni noted.

Jesus Christ.

“Don’t mistake my apathy for a lack of empathy,” he countered. “But I also know what’s expected of me, and what I have to do.”