And deliberately ignore every beautiful, expensive, familiar piece of clothing laid out for me.
Instead, going to the cheap case holding the things my husband had packed without my consent, I pull on a simple yellow seven-dollar island dress I’d bought months ago from a street vendor.
Cheap. Soft. Mine.
Pair it with an equally cheap pair of thonged sandals.
The bedroom is empty when I step out of the suite, breath held.
There’s a maid arranging flowers in a massive vase in the hallway. She’s not familiar but I return her bright smile.
Until she says, “Evenin’, ma’am, Mr Dragoni is awaiting you in the living room.”
My smile holds until I’m halfway down the sweeping stairs, then turns into a scowl that hopefully hides my absurdly thumping heart.
Giovanni is standing, glass in hand, gaze fixed on the horizon when I enter, and the sight of him, hair damp and broad shoulders restless beneath his black linen shirt, does things to my insides I actively despise.
“Comfortable?” he asks without turning.
“I didn’t come here to get comfortable.”
He turns slowly. Appraises me. The cheap dress with visible lack of accessories, hair damp and unbrushed, tossed loosely around my shoulders.
I’m a far cry from the woman who took pride in dressing up to impress him, watching his expression blaze every time I chose a piece of clothing I knew would drive him wild.
My stomach dips at the memory, even as he shrugs.
“Good,” he says. “Neither did I.”
Starting as I mean to carry on, I step closer, chin rising. “We need to talk.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “You need to talk. I will listen.”
I fold my arms, deciding to jump straight into the centre of the chaos. “Okay. Let’s start with the lies. About the fact that you’reCosa Nostra. And yes, let’s talk about my father.”
The word lands between us like a loaded weapon.
His jaw tightens. The only sign that he’s displeased about my attempt to strike at the heart of everything that’s wrong with the very false picture he painted, the clever words and subterfuge he used to coax me into his world. To drag the wool over my eyes until it was too late to do anything about it.
“What about your father? I never met the man, remember?”
“Oh, I remember. But I told you everything about him. Foolish me,” I say quietly. “Because we both know it was the reason you used his death, used my grief, my fear of that… violent and deplorable world, to shape how much you told me, and how much you didn’t.”
His fingers curl a fraction tighter around his glass, right before he lifts it casually to take a sip of his cognac, then lowers it. “You’re wrong, baby. You chose what you wanted to believe and what you wanted to turn conveniently blind to. You wanted to see me as the man you concocted in that perfect little head, and sure, I let you, because it suited me, at the time. But I didn’t tell you a single lie.”
“You absolutely did,” I fire back. “You curated what I knew. You controlled the narrative of my life. You made sure I was never in a place where I would see who you truly were, orinteract with people who would paint the true picture. You set the stage to fool me. While all the time—” I stop. Suck in a shocked breath.
Because after all this time, I’d thought the sharp blade of betrayal would have dulled.
But no.
Apparently not.
And it cuts a little deeper because he doesn’t look ashamed. Not even faintly.
There’s no guilt in his expression. No flinch. Just a calm, immovable certainty that my feelings are my own fault for having them.
“While all the time?” he echoes softly and the deadliness in his tone makes my belly flip once.
