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But why didn’t she tell me about it?

Why didn’t she come to me?

Anton must’ve come in his pants like an excited teenager when he saw my wife out in public with no protection.

I push the rage away because I refuse to touch my wife with hands that feel murderous.

I let out a rough breath, then go get my wife.

John Marco reads my face across the ballroom before I've taken five steps inside, and his eyebrow lifts a fraction. Later, I tell him with a look as I approach. He spins Sunny and delivers her to me with a bow.

"Your husband dances better than me," he tells her. "But I'm prettier. Remember that."

He melts into the crowd, and I take her in my arms as the music begins again and we move.

"What's wrong?" she says.

"Nothing's wrong."

Her eyes move over my face. "Something happened. Just now, on that phone call."

I turn us slowly through the dancers and bring my mouth close to her ear.

"This morning," I say quietly. "Out the front of the jewelry store."

Her step falters only a fraction, but enough to show she knows what I’m talking about.

"You know about that?" she whispers.

"I know about that," I say softly, pulling back enough to see her face. "And I know my wife said nothing to me."

She lifts her chin. "Are you angry with me?"

"No."

"You look angry."

"My anger belongs to the man who cornered you. Not to you. Never to you." I keep my voice as gentle as I can make it. "But I need to understand why you didn't tell me."

She looks at my collar.

"Because I knew what would happen," she says. "The walls of my world would close in tighter, just like they have before, and I would be even more trapped than I am now."

The word trapped guts me. But it’s true. I have trapped her in so many ways, and it’s starting to weigh on me.

But something else gets my attention. Just like they have before.

“What do you mean, just like they have before?”

Her eyes widen a little, then she composes herself. “I simply meant that my world was bigger than what it is now. Since the night you⁠—”

I cup her jaw. I don’t want to hear her say it. The night I took her from her home and made her marry me.

Because that crime feels so much bigger now.

And less forgivable.

“I’m sorry I’ve made you afraid of me,” I say. “But you can tell me anything, little rose.”