The priest kept the service mercifully short. When it came to reciting their vows, it was a toss-up between which of them made theirs with the least meaning: Tommaso with his mocking tone or Gabriella with her belligerence. She needed to be belligerent, in body language and mindset. It was the only way to get through it.
The ring Tommaso slid on her finger felt like a handcuff. She hated that she felt…not resentful, but something she couldn’t pinpoint…when his wedding finger remained bare.
And then came the immortal words. “You may now kiss the bride.” Not from the priest but from Siena.
As quick as a flash, Tommaso turned to his sister and drawled, “I only ate an hour ago, so I’ll give that part a miss.”
Tommaso couldn’t stop his mind from recalling Gabriella’s flinch. He hadn’t even been looking at her, but he’d noticed it, just as he always noticed everything about her.
He would not feel guilty about it. He’d rather kiss a baboon’s arse than put his mouth to Gabriella’s, no matter how deeply his lips ached to feel their succulency. Kissing was an affection that had no place in their marriage.
Her eye makeup had smudged since she’d applied it. He had a feeling she’d deliberately left it smudged and that the streak of red lipstick she’d smeared when wiping her mouth had been deliberate too. With her grubby, wine-stained dress, she looked like a bride from a Gothic horror film. ‘Celebrating’ their marriage as they were with his family over a meal prepared by his mother’s chef, she picked at the food on her plate as if worried it had been poisoned.
She was right to be worried. She was sharing a meal with three people who’d treated her like blood from the moment of her birth and now despised the air she breathed
Four people, he corrected himself. There were four of them dining with her. It would have been five had Rico not refused to attend.
“Why is the rat eating at the table with us?” Siena asked, breaking the oppressive silence with pointed malice. “Shouldn’t it be locked in a cage?”
“A tempting thought,” Tommaso agreed. “But as she is now my wife and the news of our wedding has been released to the world, it is best not to give our enemies any unnecessary ammunition.”
The Espositos’ enemies, and possibly some friends, were circling. Their father’s death without a chosen successor for the empire he’d created meant an anointing was needed. Rico had ruled himself out and wanted nothing to do with the choosing. Their mother’s involvement in the empire had only ever been limited. Which left Tommaso, Mattia and Siena. Between them, they ran the components that made the celebrated public part of the empire. It was the shadowed part that their father’s lack of a chosen successor threatened. Whoever controlled the shadowed part controlled the public part. The latter couldn’t exist without the former.
Now that their father had been laid to rest, their period of mourning was over. It was time to decide who would be the new empire figurehead. Any enemy wishing to make a move for control would be preparing to strike.
Tommaso had fed the news of his marriage through the media channels he controlled as a means of bolstering his public profile. Being married added gravitas, something he was very much aware that his volatile, hard drinking and womanising reputation needed. That it gave additional protection to Gabriella against his family’s malevolence was purely coincidental. If it would have been difficult to make her disappear without questions being asked before, now it would be impossible.
“Speaking of our enemies…” Mattia said.
Tommaso raised an eyebrow.
Mattia looked at Gabriella. Of all the Espositos, he had the best poker face. “Not in front of the rat.”
Tommaso turned to the woman at his side. Gabriella’s stony face was nearly as good as Mattia’s. Her plate still had as much food on it as when it had been presented to her.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his phone and called his driver. “Edoardo, I need you to take my wife home.”
The three women sat around the table cringed in unison atwife.
Gabriella absently rubbed the gold band resting on her wedding finger. She was sitting on the velvet chaise longue in Tommaso’s dressing room, staring at the racks of clothes that had been added to it in the hours they’d been gone.
While she’d been pledging her life to a mockery of a marriage, her new husband had arranged for half his dressing room to be turned over to her and filled with more clothes than she could wear in a lifetime. Clothes for all occasions. Jewellery too. Lots of it. Makeup. A department store’s worth. The only singular item of anything was a bottle of her favourite perfume. Every time she looked at the bottle, her heart raced. She couldn’t begin to explain why.
The vast majority of the clothing was stuff she would have chosen to buy. There were even three drawers full of oversized hoodies. Not only that, but the bathroom had been filled with toiletries identical to the ones in her own home.
How had he done it in such a short space of time? More importantly,whyhad he done it?
She didn’t dare assume that all this clothing meant she wasn’t going to be kept a prisoner in the bedroom. When she’d risen to leave with Edoardo, Tommaso had caught her wrist andwhispered in her ear, “Wait in the bedroom for me. Keep the dress on.”
Maybe the evening dresses were to be worn for his eyes only, paired with the sexier underwear for her to perform a striptease for him. Totantalisehim. She didn’t like the flush of heat that thought provoked.
She looked at her new slimline watch, the only item she’d put on since Katya, Tommaso’s housekeeper, had led her upstairs and opened the dressing room door. Although not openly rude, Gabriella had sensed the older woman’s coldness towards her and guessed that she knew the truth or a version of it.
White gold, the watch’s clockface was ringed with tiny diamonds. It was beautiful. It also showed that she’d been back in the villa for five hours.
Which of the Espositos’ enemies were circling? And what were they circling for? One facet of the empire? Or the whole lot of it? Gabriella knew enough of the workings of the legitimate side to know it couldn’t just be taken from them, but the shadowed stuff was built on different foundations, one where the real world of legal contracts and insurance didn’t operate. Breaches of non-existent contracts in the shadowed world weren’t punished through the courts. They were punished with the brute force her treachery would have warranted if Tommaso hadn’t shown her his twisted form of mercy.
A distant noise made her straighten. Padding softly back to the bedroom, she strained her ears.
