“If you’re so worried about money, you should have dug a little deeper into my betrothed’s family.” The Conti family was in debt. Urgent debt. And the loss of their heir apparent threatened to expose it.
I’d done my research. With my personal wealth and the family wealth, Dianora Conti could extinguish the rumors about her father’s inconsistencies and her dead brother’s ineptitudes.
In America, I’d offered to bail out Adelmo’s debt in order to spare my family's fortune from Dianora’s greedy clutches. But he was too timid to take my offer without talking to his father first.
And for that, everyone thought I’d taken his indecision as an insult. I hadn’t. It was sheer chance he’d run that red light.
But whoever hit him didn’t stick around. And that damned me.
My father paced. “Someone has to worry. I can’t afford to simply murder anyone who irks me.”
“Careful, Father. You might worry yourself into an early grave.”
“I suppose you’d put me there?”
As tempting as the idea was, I would never do that. “That would be against the code.” Honor the family and your elders were some of the first lessons.
His eyes narrowed. “Let me remind you that breaking a marriage contract goes against the code as well.”
“I didn’t offer a contract to the Contis, nor did I sign it.” This was not my dishonor.
“You didn’t have to,” he reminded me. “All it took was my word.”
“Yes, yours. Not mine.” I leaned in to drive home a point that was sorely necessary. “My signature binds me to a different marriage contract. What a shame. You’ll have to eat crow.” I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic, but my father’s disrespect irritated me. He had only married into the family, therefore was not bound to the code.
My father had an answer at hand. He pulled a document from its binder. “The annulment agreement.”
It dropped in front of me. I read the words and understood all too clearly the game afoot. I’d handed him the key myself. Father knew I wasn’t in any shape to cement the union. He’d secured the doctor himself, not the family’s more discreet physician.
Damn Ringo all to Hell. Without even wanting to, he’d delivered me to the noose. I needed to find him, convince him to lie about the timing of his attack. If it happened after the wedding, I could argue the marriage could not be annulled so easily. But what would that prove?
Nothing.
All my father needed to do was to hand Allie this piece of paper. The terms were clearly spelled out in both English and Italian. We hadn’t consummated the marriage, and the annulment was as simple as signing on the dotted line.
My life, my fortune, and my fate was in the hands of a woman who barely knew me.
And with Allie’s signature, she’d deliver me to someone worse. My money was a side dish to Dianora’s true intent. She adored power. Marrying me would consolidate her hold on the region.
And Dianora would demand heirs. Plural. At least two, in case one met an untimely demise like her brother had.
The thought of fucking that woman made me ill. Especially now that I’d tasted something sweet.
I placed both hands on his desk, being meticulous about their distance from the page staring at me. I stood up, using the leverage of leaning across the furniture to stare my father in the eye. “You’re too late. I’ve slept with Allie.”
The corner of his eye flinched. “Lie all you want. Until there’s a grandchild, this marriage did not happen.”
My fingers curled under, forming fists. “If there is a grandchild, you will never meet it.” I didn’t storm out. That would indicate I cared about him.
But I couldn’t be in his presence any longer. I left him to his papers and diplomacy.
Loppa joined me on the terrace. He took point, scanning the surroundings for threats.
The rooftops of Milan spread out in a patchwork of old world and towering glass. The multiple spires of the Duomo poked upward with their marble saints stoically watching the city. The Maddonina glittered golden above them all. I stared at the shining symbol, wondering whether I’d always been my father’s cat’s-paw, or if this was some new torment I’d somehow earned through my lack of faith.
Loppa’s low baritone broke into my musing. “It’s cold up here.”
I nodded, barely acknowledging his attempt to coax me inside. I’d rested as much as I could, and was no longer burning up from the inside. Now, I prepared for a battle. My body might not yet be ready, but my mind was.
