He could have made me disappear easily, I suspect, and because I don’t have any parents or family, the only person who would have noticed is Michelle. People disappear all the time, and I’m not anyone of great importance. The cops would have done their best to help, but after a few days—maybe weeks, if Michelle was dedicated to finding me—they would have closed the case as unsolved, and life would have gone on as normal.
I shake my head and dispel the depressing thought. Giulio reaches up, his hand hovering between us, and I glance to where it barely grazes the side of my shoulder, lifting a lock of the plain, sable-brown hair that hangs there. Shifting the strands between his thumb and forefinger, Giulio doesn’t respond for several long moments.
“You’re right about one thing,cara,” he murmurs almost absently. The pinch of his face and the sensation of his emotions, all darkness and repressed fury, hover in the air between us. I swallow roughly, suddenly aware that I’m standing before a man who wouldn’t think twice about snapping my neck if he wanted to—and his hand is mere inches away from said neck.
“Wh-what’s that?” I stutter.
Cool blue eyes lift to meet mine. “We don’t know each other well,” he says. “But I intend to change that. Even if you think this marriage would be easy to get out of, I am a man of my word. I was raised a certain way,cara. The men of my family—we do not divorce.”
He steps closer, and all of the air in my lungs evaporates. Myeyes widen, and my head tilts back as I crane my neck to keep my gaze locked with his.
“I suggest you erase the thought of it from your mind, darling Daisy,” Giulio says, “and accept that you are my wife now. You will live here, in this house, with me, and you will take all that I give you.”
My hands clench into fists at my side. Not because he’s ordering me around—hell, half of the world does that anyway. From cranky temp bosses to pushy salespeople at the mall. I don’t care if he tries to command me like a soldier in his mobster army. There’s just one thing I won’t give up. No matter what.
“I will still see my friend,” I tell him. “Michelle is important to me. I promise to follow your rules and to play the part.”For as long as this farce goes on.“But I won’t give her up, and any attempt to make me will be met with a hell of a lot of backlash, mister.” As if to punctuate that statement, I unclench one hand and lift it to poke him in the chest far harder than I had before.
His chest is a brick wall beneath my fingertip. Warm. Sexy. Brick.I bite down on my lip to hide the small agony of accidentally nearly breaking my own finger with the action. But damn, I’d break my entire hand for a chance to feel up on his chest without the cotton fabric of his T-shirt between us. A man ashardas Giulio must have the body of a god underneath his clothes. I wonder if he’d let me have a little peek…
For a moment, Giulio doesn’t answer. He doesn’t say a word. Then—and I’m not sure if I imagine it, but I swear—the corner of his mouth curves upward. He still doesn’t speak, but he drops my hair and takes a step back. I watch him go with narrowed eyes, sure he’s about to explode at me. He doesn’t.
Giulio La Rosa simply chuckles, shakes his head, turns, andleaves the freaking room!
“Did I just… win an argument with a mobster?” Considering there’s no one left in the room to answer me, it comes as no surprise when Mean Daisy pops up and snorts derisively in my direction.
Yeah. I have to agree with her. There’s no way Giulio would let me win an argument that easily.
But Giulio doesn’t come back, and a few hours later, when the doorbell chimes announcing the arrival of movers, I’m left to make my own decisions about where to put all my things.
Michelle is going to flay me alive when she finds out she’s living on her own, I think as I start unpacking. But I’ll make it up to her. I glance over my shoulder as I push a particularly large box down the hall. The black credit cards that Giulio gave me are still sitting on the coffee table.
The perks of marrying a mafia man.
10
DAISY
Want to be on my level? Climb, bitch.
I walk around for the next week in a daze of thinkingholy shit, I made it, Ma—which might be more meaningful if I actually had a “Ma” instead of being a foster kid reject. But that doesn’t matter anymore because I’m a rich man’s wife. ACheesecake Factory–level rich man’s wife. It’s not just surreal, it’s unbelievable.
Giulio’s guys are good. I have to give them credit. It takes me that entire week to unpack all of my belongings, but somehow, they seemed to know which things were mine and which were Michelle’s. Maybe it’s because she was the one who purchased all of our shared items—or they were purchased for us by her family—and all I own is pretty obviously mine. Books. Books. More books.
We eat together every night, my new husband and me. Sometimes, we’re silent. Sometimes, he asks me questions about my day. My first attempt at cooking dinner for him ended up being my last when he came home to me covered nearly head to toe intikka masala sauce.
He stood in the doorway, blinking at the sight of his countertops speckled with red liquid and the fire alarm blaring from the burning chicken on the stove. If I wasn’t sure he could handle a murder scene, I’d have worried he’d turn tail and run. Not Giulio, though. No, instead, he strode over, turned off the stove, and announced he’d be hiring a chef to come in once a week to cook ready-made meals for me. Grumbling and smelling like Indian spices that made my mouth water and my head hurt because I was obviously cursed to never master them, I agreed.
All the while, my phone sat in a drawer of the nightstand in the bedroom where I’d woken up. The fear I feel any time I look at that damn drawer is ridiculous, but I haven’t gone this long without talking to Michelle inyears. The last time was during college. Somehow, I developed walking pneumonia two days into the worst finals week I’d ever experienced. As soon as my last test was taken, I collapsed before ever reaching my dorm room, and she was called by the resident assistant to take me to the hospital that night—and only because I refused an ambulance. Despite what I told Giulio about not letting him cut my best friend out of my life, Giulio’s family isn’t exactly blue collar. They’re criminals—that’s the only reason why they’d hide the fact that Giulio’s original bride was murdered on her wedding day. My initial resistance was mostly because I resent being told what to do, but after some time… I have to wonder if he wasn’t right, if Michelle would be safer away from me.
It’s not like I can meet up with her at work, either. Myposition at the temp agency is kaput. No doubt, I’ve got a termination notice sitting in there either via text, email, or voicemail. Even if Giulio seemed the understanding sort—which he doesn’t—I doubt he’d let me continue to work there anyway, and now that I don’t have to pay rent, I’m determined to use this stroke of luck to my advantage.
If you can call being forcibly married off to a stranger and the son of a mafia man a stroke of luck. Glass half full. Glass half empty. It’s all about how you look at the cards you’ve been dealt. Right now, I have the opportunity to go after the job I want without having to worry about paying outrageous rent prices for a shit stain apartment, and I’m going to do it.
Even if it means it’s time to face the music for abandoning my roommate.
Biting the bullet, I march into my bedroom in Giulio’s penthouse suite and rip open the drawer to grab my cell phone with its cracked protective screen and faded pink case. It had been off when I woke up here, and I never bothered to turn it back on. Now, I do, pressing the button on the side and waiting anxiously for the thing to finish the process of waking up.
Ping! Ping! Ping!Yup, just as I anticipated, the second I get service, a million notifications come through.
