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‘But we agreed, as your wife I would have a role here. It’s important to me to have a purpose.’

‘Your purpose is to be my wife, and do as I tell you…’

His expression remained completely unmoved while my heart felt as if it were being ripped from my chest… Each word hitting me like a punch to the gut.

Someone else approached us. Thank God it was an older woman this time, and Dante made an effort to at least speak to her. But I found myself talking on autopilot, as the beautiful granite walls of the venue collapsed around me and the scent of expensive perfume and cologne suffocated me. Nausea rushed up my throat from the grinding pain in my stomach and the crushing weight which had landed on my chest.

Other people came and introduced themselves, but I was barely functioning, my mind spinning at the implications of what Dante had said.

Had this been his intention all along? To find some excuse to cut me out of this part of his life. Because it wasn’t these men he didn’t trust or respect. Ultimately, it was me.

‘I—I have to go to the powder room,’ I murmured when there was a break in the conversation. I didn’t want to make a scene in front of all these people I didn’t know. But his arm only tightened, preventing me from leaving his side.

‘Stay here,’ he said, his voice a husky purr, but the demand—no, the command—clear. I was to obey him.

The rest of the evening passed in a fog as the brutal realisation began to dawn on me: how he had manipulated me into this marriage by promising me a partnership, when he had always seen me as nothing more than a convenient bed partner. He had used my innocence and naïveté against me. Mia had been right—he was not the man I’d thought, and now I was married to him. Not for better, but for worse.

The sickness churned as he paraded me around like a possession. Needless to say, no other men there spoke to me without his express permission, and not one of them let their gazes stray anywhere lower than my chin—because the man he’d threatened earlier had obviously been busy informing everyone there of what a Neanderthal he was, especially where his wife was concerned.

But with him standing guard over me, it didn’t make me feel protected any more. It made me feel isolated and alone.

His dark charisma in this setting seemed a far cry from the moody taciturn man I had thought I knew—who had needed me. And the terrible feeling of inadequacy, of nothingness that had dogged me as a child returned.

But as the night dragged on, a burning resentment built under my breastbone—every time he touched me with that possessive look in his eye and introduced me as his wife, treating me as if I were a trinket he owned.

The event seemed to last forever, and was a roaring success—for everyone but me… By the end of the evening, I felt broken and hollow inside.

Why had I trusted this man so easily, so wholeheartedly? How could I have believed I had any power in this relationship? And how could I have been such a spectacularly bad judge of character? Again.

I’m sure some of the guests might have noticed how quiet Dante Malvini’s new wife was, but in a blue silk gown made especially for the occasion and ice-pick heels, my face a porcelain mask, I guess I fitted in surprisingly well with this uber-elegant crowd who were devoid of genuine emotion—and were bending over backwards to impress a man who had no scruples, no ethics, no morals.

At last, Dante called it a night and escorted me to our waiting limo.

He climbed in behind me, then closed the partition. Lifting my numb fingers as the car pulled away from the kerb, he kissed my knuckles and murmured, ‘You did well, Eva. Your beauty and class made me proud to call you my wife.’

I snatched my fingers from his and stared at him, shellshocked by the comment.

My resentment started to choke me and helped cover the grinding feeling of inadequacy.

‘You say I’m your wife. But you never intended to treat me as an equal, did you?’ I murmured, my anger like a lump of radioactive waste helping to seal off the devastating feeling of loss.

While he’d paraded me at the party, I’d remembered in galling detail how I’d revealed my feelings for him, so many times. And worse, all the times I’d tried so hard to get him to communicate with me, and he’d blanked me, or belittled me… To know that every time he’d understood exactly what I wanted, exactly what I’d been hoping for, and had pretended to care so he could get me to do exactly what he wanted was the deepest cut of all. Had he intended to propose marriage between us as soon as he’d kidnapped me? To smooth things over with Vito and ensure a merger that would make him an equal partner in Italy’s biggest crime syndicate? And all he’d had to do to ensure my compliance was give me a ton of orgasms and pretend to need me as his wife.

One dark brow rose, and then he frowned, apparently unmoved by my agony.

‘You bear my name, and you are in my bed, and one day you will bear my heirs. What more do you expect?’ he said, shocking me into silence again with his callous disregard for my feelings, my needs.

I wondered in that moment if he had ever been made to pay for his cruelty. I knew from the scars on his body that he’d experienced a great deal of physical pain in his life, but how could he ever understand how much he had hurt me, when he was so detached from his own emotions?

I turned away from him to watch the night-time traffic along Madison Avenue—and the sights which had seemed so glamorous and exciting on the way to the party now seemed gaudy and alienating, because all the dreams I’d filled my head with about Dante, about us, had died tonight.

‘There is no need to sulk,’ he said. ‘If you behave yourself, you will want for nothing.’

I swung round, the callous comment too much. ‘You son of a bitch!’ I hissed.

The violent reaction came from nowhere, driven by fury and disillusionment and hurt. I’d never struck another human being before in my life, not even him when he’d deserved it, but the desire to slap the dispassionate look off his face was visceral. And all-consuming.

I balled my fingers into a fist to hold back the urge to slap him, my nails digging into my palm. But then he snagged my wrist.