But inside, I was a churning mess of confusion.
The kiss had changed something. I couldn't stop thinking about it—the warmth of his mouth, the gentleness of his hands. Every time Dante touched me now—my hand, my waist, the small of my back—I felt it like electricity crackling across my skin.
It was terrifying.
I watched him work the room between our shared obligations. Commanding and controlled, moving from conversation to conversation with the easy authority of a man who had been born to this. He shook hands with politicians and nodded at soldiers and made everyone feel like they had his full attention, even when I knew his mind was cataloging threats and calculating angles.
He's just like Enzo, I told myself. They're all the same.
But even as I thought it, a small voice whispered from somewhere I couldn't quite silence.
Enzo never looked at you like that.
The voice was treacherous. Dangerous. Exactly the kind of weakness that had destroyed me once before.
I pushed back against it. Built walls around it. Reminded myself that charm was a weapon, that tenderness could be a trap, that I had believed a man's gentle words before and it had nearly killed me.
The first dance was torture.
Dante's hand settled on my waist, warm through the silk of my dress, and his other hand took mine with that same impossible gentleness from the altar. The music swelled—something classical and romantic that my father had probably chosen without consulting me—and we began to move.
He was a good dancer. Confident, leading without pushing, adjusting to my smaller steps without making me feel clumsy. His eyes stayed on my face as we moved, dark and unreadable, and I couldn't tell what he was thinking.
"You're doing beautifully," he said quietly. "I know this is exhausting."
I blinked. "I'm fine."
"You don't have to be fine with me. I know you don’t want this."
I felt a chill.
"I'm—" I started, and then stopped, because I didn't know how to finish the sentence.
Dante's thumb brushed once across my waist. "We'll talk later. When we're alone."
The music ended. We stepped apart. The moment passed.
But I felt it lingering on my skin for hours afterward.
Santo glowered in a corner near the bar, watching everyone who wasn't family with the suspicious intensity of a guard dog who smelled intruders. Every few minutes his eyes would sweep the room, cataloging exits and threats, before returning to the guests with barely concealed hostility.
Marco had collected a cluster of elderly aunts around him, making them laugh with some story that involved expansive hand gestures and what looked like an impression of someone I didn't recognize. He caught my eye across the room and winked, and despite everything, I felt my mouth twitch toward a smile.
These people were my family now. These loud, complicated, dangerous people.
I caught Dante watching me.
He was standing near the family table, speaking with one of his father's old associates, but his eyes had drifted across the room to where I stood by the cake. Something in his expression made my breath catch—not possession, not the calculating assessment I'd expected from a man who had just acquired a strategic asset.
Wonder. That was the closest word I could find.
Like he was looking at something unexpected. Something that surprised him. Something he didn't quite know what to do with.
Our eyes held for a moment across the crowded room. Heat crept up my cheeks. I looked away first.
The rest of the reception passed in a haze of small moments. Donatella pressing another champagne glass into my hand. A soldier whose name I didn't catch telling me I was lucky to havemarried the best man he'd ever known. An elderly woman with the Caruso nose pressing my hands between hers and saying she was glad Dante had found someone with kind eyes.
Through it all, I felt the walls I'd spent a decade building crack a little more.
