His gaze cuts over the water as he releases me. “Trust is a luxury you’ve already lost. Don’t test my tolerance for betrayal again.”
My eyes move over his face, searching for a glimpse of the man I used to know. The one I mortally wounded. But there’s no trace of him anymore.
“You have more money than you could ever spend in a thousand lifetimes,” I choke out. “Is a million dollars really worth being miserable with someone you hate?”
“Karma is a funny thing,” he says. “You wanted me in prison, and now this marriage is yours. Except, in your case, you’ll have a life sentence.”
An uneasy feeling grabs me by the throat and doesn’t let go. Does he truly believe I had something to do with his prison sentence?
“Angelo—”
“Let me be clear.” He pins me with his cold gaze. “This mutually beneficial arrangement will keep us both alive. You can despise me all you want, but you’ll do it from my bed.”
“So what?” I scoff. “You’re going to hate fuck me every night until you get me pregnant? Is that it?”
A mask of indifference settles over his face, and he shrugs. “As it turns out, I am a curable romantic. Don’t mistake me for the man you once knew, Abella. I’ll have no problem hate-fucking you until my goal is achieved. Once a reasonable amount of time has passed, we can have more children until we’ve produced a sizable family. After that, I’ll take my pleasure elsewhere if that’s what you prefer. But you should know that you’ll never have that option. For you, it’s me or nothing.”
A hollow ache pulses in my chest as I imagine the bleak future he just painted for us. It’s no different than any other marriage in our world, but I know I won’t survive it.I need more.
“And if I say no?” I ask.
Tension winds its way through the muscles in his neck. “You may be foolish, but I know you aren’t stupid. You know what’s at stake here. Do you really want to start a war over your precious feelings for a dead man?”
I swallow my argument because he’s right. The reason I ended up in this mess in the first place was to avoid a war. IfMatteo had been here with me tonight, I wouldn’t have asked for anything more than a business arrangement between us. But Matteo didn’t have the power to destroy me.
Angelo always has.
Beneath that barbed wire exterior, I have to believe there’s still a part of him that feels. He’s lost his mother, his father, and now his brother. His anger is justified, but what he describes is a fate worse than death.
“You should have just killed me too,” I whisper, silent tears streaking down my face.
“Come now, Abella.” His thumb grazes my cheek. “Do you think I’d let you off that easy?”
“What you describe isn’t a marriage.”
“No, it’s not.” He brushes my tears away. “It’s penance. You can accept it, or we go to war. Those are your options.”
My eyes fall shut on a ragged exhalation. I’m exhausted, sad, and slightly drunk. But I know there is a third option, if I really wanted to consider it. The truth could set me free.
Except, if I had any sense, I would have told him before I took my vows. What can be done about it now? It would only blow another shotgun-sized hole through both of us. We have enough of those already. The reality is, when I saw him standing at the end of the aisle, I was too selfish to do the right thing. I didn’t want him to set me free. Not when it took everything I had in me to walk away the first time.
Logically, I know there’s only one way out of this. I can’t stay. But I can’t bring myself to leave just yet either. I need more time before I implode my entire life.
In the meantime, I’ll have to guard my heart.
Against my better judgment, I find myself nodding my concession. I’ll give it a month.
Thirty days of penance.
“Use your words.” There’s an edge of irritation in his tone that makes me open my eyes.
When I look up at him, his entire body has gone rigid. Angelo isn’t a man who has to wait for responses. But I don’t think that’s what this is.
Or maybe I really am just a fool.
“Yes,” I answer. “I agree.”
“Good.” A shallow breath leaves him. “I’ll give you a few days to cry about my spineless prick of a brother. Then I never want to hear his name from your lips again.”
