I froze, nausea crushing my head and tightening my stomach. His response was one of his cold smirks before he grabbed my left hand. This was it. My opportunity window was closed, and Enzio was on to me. I was about to marry a murderer, and he knew I was planning to kill him.
“Take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. Nel nome del Padre, e del Figlio, e dello Spirito Santo.” He slid the ring on my finger.
Bile filled my throat, blackness swarming around my head. I placed the ring on his finger, my vision a big cloud.
“You may kiss the bride,” the priest announced.
Enzio grabbed hold of the back of my neck and leaned in. I was going to cry, or worse, I was going to faint.
“Get a grip,” he whispered before his mouth came closer.
“I’m gonna faint. If you kiss me, I’m gonna faint. I’m gonna faint, Enzio,” I said, the words fast, panicky, barely audible. It wasn’t a threat. I was begging him, the man who murdered my husband and stole his wife and son, to save me. I was that desperate because I knew if I fainted, the family would never be convinced, and my chances of survival would drop to nothing.
His eyes flickered with a glimpse of understanding or unwelcome doubt, I couldn’t be sure. “Close your eyes and pretend I’m him.” His lips, invasive, masculine, crushed mine.
I stiffened, closing my lips to keep him away as much as possible. I tried to take his advice, but he tasted of whiskey, cigarettes and heartache. Nothing like Cosimo. I closed my eyes, thinking it would help, but the second I did, the fucking blackness swallowed me, sentencing me to a destiny worse than death.
Chapter 5
Enzio
As if bitten by a snake, she collapsed in my arms when I kissed her. Fuck this shit. I didn’t want to kiss my precious sister-in-law—now turned my wife—as much as she didn’t want me to. If anything, I wanted to vomit a little in her ugly mouth, but I sucked it up and kissed her like any man would.
But she had to fuck things up like she always did.
I shook her, gently tapping her cheeks, wanting to slap her instead. She still wouldn’t cut the bullshit. “You’d better not be faking it because if you are, you’re going to pay,” I whispered in her ear as people started to gather around us, but she remained unconscious.
I lifted and cradled her in my arms, laughing it off, blaming it on wedding jitters, the nerves of the inexperienced bride. Bianca was a virgin before Cosimo. She only had sex with him; he’d made sure of it. It must have been hard to imagine herself with someone else.
Women laughed, some men, too. I pushed the jokes and the loyal widow talk as much as I could, but my mother and my uncles, the ones who mattered the most, didn’t buy it.
Keeping a solid face, I told Uncle Vincenzo to get a doctor to the suite. Alfarez tried to take Bianca from my arms, but I stopped him. These two had planned something stupid together. I wasn’t going to let him near her. Enough damage already. “She’s my wife now. Why don’t you go have a drink? I’m sure she’ll be up in no time.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He followed me into the elevator and was about to enter the suite, when I nodded at the guards to keep him out.
Alfarez yelled and swore as I kicked the door shut, but I couldn’t care less. I placed Bianca on the bed, her face as white as her dress, her breath a slow rhythm on my face. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she looked like an angel. The little pixie looked even more vulnerable and innocent than normal, but I knew more than anyone she wasn’t innocent, and her vulnerability was nothing but a weapon.
A strange feeling revisited me, something I’d felt once before and could never have explained. She didn’t know it, but I carried Bianca in my arms once, and she was unconscious like now. Before she’d fainted, she thought I was Cosimo. I’d let her. That was the plan. Even though I had been only doing it for my brother, when I’d looked at her face, only one thought had taken over my mind; I had to make sure this girl was alive and safe whatever it took.
Maybe it had something to do with instinct. We were wired to protect. A big man like me and a small thing like her. But there was something else that night, something I’d pushed away and hadn’t thought about twice. It ticked in me now, and I remembered how unpleasant it was. Destructive.
A surge of anger jolted in me. Cosimo’s little contessa was small but dangerous, and I hated her for it. I never hated a woman more than I hated Bianca Zanetti. I poked her arm. “Wake up, contessa. I know you’re here.”
She didn’t move.
“Fuck it. You know what? I’m gonna kiss you again. Maybe then you’ll cut the bullshit.” I sat next to her and bent my head down to her lips, expecting her to flounce like a fish out of water, but not even her eyes moved under the closed lids.
My arm accidentally brushed against her thigh, and I felt a solid lump under her dress. Brows hooked, I lifted the layers of her dress, exposing her garter, and the knife in it.
“Che cazzo?” I chuckled. Innocent and vulnerable my ass. “What were you planning on doing with this, dolcezza?”
I had to admit it was amusing. Stupid and infuriating, too. Not that she could do anything with that knife if she ever decided to use it on me. And I’d been busting my ass to make everyone believe our marriage was real…
What if someone found that knife tucked in her garter like that? The fucking doctor who was about to come here or Marta if she decided to help her out of her clothes?
“You’re not helping, dolcezza.” I inspected the knife once more before I hid it in my pocket. “All logic says I shouldn’t save you. If anything, I should uproot you from our lives, eliminate the threat.”
Gazing at her, I no longer believed she passed out. That little devil. Was that her plan with Alfarez? To fake this shit so she could stab me here?
