His gaze lifts slowly, the dark weight of it settling on me with unsettling precision.
“You were,” he says calmly. “You just didn’t phrase it that way.”
“I’m not a hostage,” I snap, heat flaring low in my chest. “Am I?” I add with a soft dare.
“No,” Giovanni agrees, unhurried. “You’re my wife. Which is considerably more complicated.”
I push my chair back an inch, the scrape loud in the quiet room.
“At the risk of sounding like a broken record, you don’t get to decide where I go or don’t go.”
“And we established, also like a broken record, that I already do,” he says, then adds, almost kindly, “You simply refusing to accept it hints at a touch of naïveté on your part, but I’m sure you’ll accept the inevitable soon enough.”
I stare at him, fury and fear tangling so tightly I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
“I’d say dream on, but we both know you rarely sleep, so I’ll settle for a ‘watch me’.”
His nostrils flare for a moment before he’s back to his unruffled best.
“And while we’re on the subject of acceptance,” I say sharply, “I haven’t even brought up the fact that you brought me into a house Isabella Bellandi apparently helped decorate.”
That recaptures his attention, but maybe not in the way I’d hoped. Something sharp flickers behind his eyes, quick and unmistakable.
“Call me depraved,” Giovanni says slowly, leaning back in his chair, a smug smile lifting the sensual curves of his lips, “but I love the flush of jealousy on you, cara.”
I scoff, loud and incredulous.
“You would. If I was even remotely jealous,” I lie brazenly.
He studies me openly now.
“Ask the question you’re circling,dragunidda.”
I don’t hesitate.
“Did you sleep with her? Back when you were considering her as your wife?”
The air shifts.
“No,” he says immediately, any trace of humour gone. “I was never tempted.”
I search his face, hating that I need to, hating more how much the answer matters.
“And she did not decorate this house,” he continues. “She offered her decorator’s services. I agreed to meet with them so as not to cause offence. But I never hired them.”
Relief hits me harder than I expect, sudden and vivid, loosening something tight and painful in my chest.
Giovanni sees it.
The smug bastard always does.
“I see that look,amuri,” he murmurs.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sì, you do. And know this. I keep giving. At some point, I expect a return.”
My mind betrays me, racing back to the way his mouth and hands have undone me without ever demanding more than I was ready to give, to the way he has wielded restraint like a promise instead of a threat, tantalising me with what that delicious devotion would feel like when his titanium control snaps.
