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‘You are overreacting,’ he said, but his evident shock—that even for a moment I had wanted to strike him—felt validating, because at least I’d made him feel something.

It wasn’t enough though to soothe the pain scouring my insides.

I twisted my wrist free because his touch still made my pulse jump—which felt like the biggest betrayal of all.

‘Do you really have no idea what you’ve done to me? To this marriage?’ I murmured.

He didn’t say anything, simply stared at me, his expression so controlled, I had to force myself to stumble on. But I soon realised I was talking into a void.

‘You knew I was falling in love with you… That I wanted to make a life with you. You knew. And you pretended you wanted that, too—when you never did.’

‘Your love is wasted on me,’ he said, as if that made his deception all right.

‘Evidently,’ I said, my heart shattering at the dismissive tone.

I controlled the agony, determined to be as closed-off and cruel as he was, because all I had left now was my pride.

But when we entered the house and I tried to head to the guest bedroom next to ours, he clasped my wrist. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m not sharing a bed with you,’ I said.

Instead of looking annoyed, or even surprised, he grasped my other hand and tugged me into his arms. I struggled, but it was no use, when he found the galloping pulse in my neck with his lips and sucked on the sensitive skin. I couldn’t contain the shudder of response, the need sinking like a hot brick into my sex.

He slid caressing fingers under the gown’s plunging back to cup my backside and knead my aching flesh.

I arched into his chest, pressing my rigid nipples against his shirt, the desire as visceral and instant as it always was between us. I could feel him hardening against my belly, and my panties dampening as my body prepared to accept him.

He let me go, and I stumbled back. Our ragged breathing echoed off the marble surfaces of the hallway.

‘You are my wife, Eva,’ he said. ‘And if I chose to fuck you now, you would not want me to stop.’

I wanted to deny it, but I was shaking too hard to say anything and we both knew he was right, that I was addicted to him and everything he could do to my body. The hideous feeling of vulnerability—the sense that he controlled me, that a part of me still loved him and might always love him—was even more devastating, though, than the need I couldn’t contain.

He touched his thumb to my cheek, cradled my chin to lift my face to his. ‘I will give you twenty-four hours to deal with these emotions…’ he murmured as if my anger and pain were a pointless indulgence.

Was that what my love was to him, not just something he didn’t want, but something he saw as a problem to be solved, an inconvenience to be managed?

‘But tomorrow you will return to my bed, as this is where you belong,’ he finished.

I brushed his hand away, the lump of pain and humiliation in my throat threatening to choke me. I rushed past him into the guest room, finally letting the tears fall as I stripped off the gown and scrubbed the make-up away that I’d spent an hour applying that evening, because I had wanted to be perfect… For him.

I crawled into the large bed and curled into a ball. And sobbed uncontrollably, even as my body still yearned for the feel of his arms around me…

Hopelessness engulfed me.

I slept in short, fitful bursts until the tears had all dried up. Groggy and shattered as dawn lit the treetops in Central Park opposite the bedroom window, I found my phone in my purse and tapped out Mia’s number with some vague plan to get the marriage annulled.

Neither Vito or Mia would blame me, not once I told them of Dante’s deception. That he didn’t care about me at all, that I’d been wrong to believe he could ever love me.

But as my finger hovered over the call button, I sucked in a painful breath… And the brutal dart of self-realisation hit me square in the solar plexus.

How could I call Mia, get her to bail me out of my marriage, when this wasn’t her fault? I was the one who had been living in a fantasy of my own making. Yes, Dante had manipulated me, but Mia had warned me he wasn’t the man I thought he was… And I hadn’t listened.

Deleting the text, I dropped the phone on the bed and scrubbed away yet more tears with my fist.

‘Time to man up, Evie,’ I said, my voice still shaky with tears. ‘Or woman up… Whatever.’

I hugged my knees to my chest, rocked back and forth. Then I spotted my reflection in the mirror of the room’s antique dresser and winced.