‘I can give you some freedom,’ he says as if I’ve forced the words out of him. ‘I can make sure any bodyguards give you space, and I’ll—’
‘No.’ I don’t care that I’ve interrupted him. ‘That’s not what I want and you know it. All my life I’ve been a thing, a pawn for my father, not a person, and I’m tired of it. I was told that if I wanted the deaths of Mama and Alessio to not be in vain, I had to do what he said. He made me responsible for fixing our entire family, and I’m tired of it, Vincenzo. I’m tired of having to do what everyone else wants me to do.’
‘You’re not a thing or a pawn, Caterina,’ he says fiercely, leaning forward all of a sudden. ‘And you don’t have to fix anything here. You don’t have to do anything but what you want here. That freedom I can certainly give you.’
My throat closes entirely, because I can see he wants to give that to me. But while it’s something, it’s not everything, and that’s just not enough for me.
‘That might be enough for a while,’ I say. ‘But what about in a year? Two years? What about in ten years?’
‘What about it?’ His gaze searches mine. ‘What is scaring you so much,gattina? Is it only that this wasn’t your choice? Or is there something more to it than that?’
I blink and take a breath. Having choices is very important to me since I’ve been deprived of them for so long, but I know he’s right, that it’s not only the lack of choices that bothers me. I have to face that thought now, the one I wanted to ignore, about how being his wife and being in his bed isn’t really aboutme.Because what will happen as time goes on? When our physical hunger for each other fades? When we have children? When the march of his crusade goes on and on and on? What will our marriage end up being like then?
I take another shaky breath. ‘I meant what I said, Vincenzo. Where will we be in five years? In ten? What about this crusade of yours? And if we have children, what about them?’
He frowns, not understanding me. ‘The crusade will end eventually and I’ll keep our children safe. I’ll keep all of us safe, believe me.’
‘I’m not talking about safety.’ I don’t want to have this discussion, but I need to.Weneed to. My feelings are confused because all of this has happened so quickly. He’s so much more than I ever imagined he’d be.
You’re not falling for him already, are you?
No. No, definitelynot. Again, he’s not what I want in a man. There’s too much death around him, too much violence, no matter how kind and caring he’s been to me. I have to make him see reason about this marriage of ours, because I don’t want to be tied to him forever.
‘I’m talking about a relationship. About us being together.’ I swallow, my mouth dry as I remember something else he told me. ‘You said that love can never have any part in our relationship, and I… I don’t want that. I don’t want our children looking at us and seeing that we don’t love each other.’ My eyes prickle. ‘I don’t want a child of mine to ever look into their father’s face and see only anger and resentment staring back.’
Shock crosses his face—he clearly didn’t expect that—but just as quickly, his expression is wiped clean. ‘Our children will survive,’ he says in a hard, flat tone. ‘Children can be remarkably resilient.’
‘The same way you were resilient when your father laid his belt across your back?’ I snap before I can think better of it.
Fury ignites in his gaze. ‘I willneverbe like him.’
‘No, but children being resilient sounds exactly like the kind of thing he’d say.’ As soon as the words leave my mouth, I know I’ve gone too far.
Vincenzo shoves his chair back violently, the legs scraping on the stone, then rises, his eyes gone molten with anger. He puts his hands on the table and leans in on them, the force of his will battering at me. ‘I put a bullet between that man’s eyes for what he did to my mother and I. Did you know that?’
I heave in a breath, shock flickering through me. Not that I hadn’t heard the rumours about him, and he’s alluded to it before. But it’s different to hear the truth he’s flinging at me now.
My mouth goes even drier. ‘I’ve heard rumours. But what did he do to your mother?’
‘He beat her down.’ The Wolf’s voice is sharp as a knife, his gaze stony. ‘She loved him and he cut that love out of her heart and ground it into the dust. She was a beautiful, fiery, amazing woman and by the time she died, she was a broken shell. Because of him.’
I go cold. The only thing I knew about Stefano’s wife as I grew up was that she’d died in a car bombing that my father had engineered. Yet it’s clear from the look in Vincenzo’s eyes that she was so much more than that. She was his mother and he loved her very much, and he loves her still.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say huskily, another little piece of my heart turning into glass and cutting me.
‘Don’t be sorry.’ The bitterness in his voice is painful. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Caterina. Her death can be laid at Giovanni’s door, it’s true. But she died long before that. And that’s no one’s fault but my father’s. That’s why he had to die.’ His mouth twists. ‘Can you see the irony? I killed my father while you spared the life of yours.’
Oh, I can see it. Just as I see the shadows of grief and guilt and pain in his eyes. It cost him. It cost him to end his father’s life and I suspect it costs him to end every life.
‘Again, I’m sorry,’ I say, my heart hurting for him though I’m not sure why. He shouldn’t matter to me, not at all, yet somehow he’s become more important to me than I ever thought possible. ‘Not that he’s dead. I’m sorry that there wasn’t another way for you.’
Vincenzo’s eyes widen slightly, as if he’s not expecting the comment, then I see flashes of other emotions. But they’re gone too fast for me to understand. ‘Are you worried for my soul,gattina?’ His voice has fallen back into that dark, cynical amusement again. ‘If so, don’t be. That’s why I have a family priest, after all.’
He shoves himself upright, then rounds the table, pausing by my chair. I’m tense, my heart racing. I want to touch him, tell him it’s okay, comfort him in some way. Anything to coax out the man behind that silver-eyed mask.
‘Vincenzo,’ I say softly. ‘Please…’
He ignores me. Instead he reaches down and carefully, with a certain deliberateness, picks up the ring box with the beautiful rings in it. ‘If you don’t want these, that’s fine. Annika might like them instead. She always was very fond of emeralds.’
