“All right,” I breathed out, sighing. “I’ll take her reins and walk her and Guerriero back to the stables.”
“Her,” she said, refusing to let my hand go. “She does not have a name?”
“Not at this moment,” I said. “She’s yours to name.”
Her eyes cut to the horse, but she refused to make direct eye contact. She sighed. “Seraphina.”
I repeated the name and nodded. “Bella,” I said.
Even as we walked the horses together, my wife refused to let my hand go or lighten the pressure. After I did everything one-handed, and both horses were secured in their stalls, I swept my wife off her feet and brought her home. I set her down on the bed, then shut and locked our bedroom door.
“What are you doing, Mariano?” She popped up like something had stung her on her fine ass.
“We don’t leave this room until whatever is between us is fucking melted. My wife.” I hit my chest. “My wife set a fucking ice wall between us.”
She strangled the fabric of the dress. It seemed as if she was about to say more, but then she turned away from me. “Not now. Not here.” She had mumbled that last part.
I stared at her for a second. She glanced at me from over her shoulder. She took a step back.
“Mariano,” she said.
My name from her mouth was the only reason I responded with a nod. It was automatic, like it had been programmed inside of my brain before I even took a breath on this earth.
She pointed at me. “You have that look on your face. What…what are you doing?” She backed herself against the wall. She set her hands against my chest when I pressed against her, pushing, but it was a light shove.
“That’s what I fucking thought,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re not even fighting me.”
“You want me to fight you?” Her hands curled at her sides.
I shrugged. “If you feel the fucking need.”
She pushed against me, but it had no fire behind it. “There.”
I grinned at her, and her eyes grew wide. “Notnow. Nothere.” I sucked in my bottom lip, rolling my teeth over it. I flung her over my shoulder, her fluffy dress flailing around her.
“Mariano!” She beat against my back, trying to slap my ass. “What?!—where?! Stop! Listen!”
My hand stopped midway to the door handle. I was going to kill fucking Remo Fausti after I took her out of our house and somewhere else.
Another time. Another place.
It took a lot of physical activity to make me sweat, and I was dry as a bone, but my heart was racing like I was up against a giant.
If this was about my wife falling for that fucker, he was a dead man.
“Set me down,” she whispered.
Gently, I did as she said. My hand instinctively went to her arm when she rocked on her feet.
She opened and closed her mouth, then sighed. “What happened between you and Capri?” she blurted.
My head fucking spun. Maybe she was holding on to me in that moment. I blinked at her, brought her into focus. When her sister came here…I had set it out of my fucking mind. I had more pressing issues to contend with. Like my wife being sequestered in a house that wasn’t ours. Too much space and time between us. Her family being the people they were to her.
At our reception, which her father had to contractually attend for a while, he told me while slamming down a drink, “She is your problem now.”
