The mask is complete, but beneath it, I'm plotting.
I might be forced into this marriage, but I won’t let Alessandro Dante or any man take my soul.
One last deep breath.
I straighten my spine, lift my chin. “You’re not surrendering. You’re surviving,” I remind myself.
I turn away from the mirror and toward my bedroom door, toward my future.
Alessandro Dante doesn't know it yet, but he's not getting the obedient wife my father promised.
He's getting me.
I descend the stairs slowly, as if I’m hoping something will happen to stop this.
But each step down follows the last.
My mind whirls with what’s to come.
What is Alessandro Dante really like?
In my mind, I've conjured a grotesque figure.
A smarmy man with dead eyes and slicked back hair who stinks of whiskey and leers at women like they’re his to possess.
I reach the bottom step, closing my eyes to gather strength.
This is it.
The moment I meet the man who will own me.
I round the corner into the foyer and stop dead.
The air leaves my lungs in a rush.
Alessandro Dante stands with his back to the fireplace, one hand casually tucked into the pocket of trousers that fit him like they were crafted by the gods themselves.
His impeccably tailored charcoal gray suit stretches across broad shoulders.
He turns, and his face steals what little breath I have left.
He's devastatingly handsome with sharp cheekbones and jawline.
His dark hair is swept back from his forehead, revealing gray eyes that track my entrance.
Not grotesque.
Not smarmy.
Not anything I prepared myself to face.
No. He's magnetic.
Our gazes lock across the room, and the corner of his mouth lifts slightly.
Not quite a smile.
More of an acknowledgment.
