Page 7 of Claimed By the Silver Fox

“Take Julia to the guest quarters. Send someone to Andreo’s apartment to collect her things.” He looks over at me. “Anything in particular you need?”

I shake my head, not quite able to speak yet. He tilts his chin in acknowledgement, and Marcia steps forward, gesturing along the corridor.

“This way,” she tells me, and I allow her to lead me out of the foyer and to my room. I need to be alone right now, anyway—it’s probably better for me.

But as my dress drags along the floor, I feel a lump leap into my throat. No matter how bad things were with Andreo, how scared of him I found myself over the years, I had convinced myself—perhaps stupidly—that things would shift when I had that ring on my finger. That all the pain and all the suffering and all the mess that I went through when I was growing up would fade to nothing when I had this picture-perfect life laid out ahead of me, that all I had to do was see it through and I would be alright.

“Do you need anything? Something to eat? Water?” Marcia’s curt but not uncaring tones cut through my reverie, and I look up to realize that I’m standing in a bedroom—an empty bedroom, one that is clearly not kept for anything other than those passing through, devoid of detail or personal effects.

I shake my head. “No, I’m okay. Thank you.”

She nods, and pauses for a moment in the doorway before she leaves, as if there’s more she wants to say, but she thinks better of it. She pulls the door shut behind her, and as soon as she’s gone, I sink down onto the bed, tears brimming in my eyes.

I don’t even know what I’m crying about.

I look down at my arm again, to the bluish bruises that are fading on my skin. I could be married to the man who gave me those. As much as I might have wanted to think he would change, what chance did I have of really seeing that happen? How many women have been in the exact position I was, praying and hoping against hope that the wedding would make everything better? I was a fool to think things would change, as much as I had deluded myself—as much as I had known that he’d have made my life hell if I’d tried to say no when he got down on one knee for me.

But now Andreo is just someone else who has turned his back on me. Someone else I have been abandoned by. Someone else who decided that he had a better option than me, and went after it.

The rejection seeps deep into my bones, not just from Andreo, but from Antonio too. I thought I would spend my wedding night tangled up with the man I loved, but instead I’m sitting here, in this beautiful wedding dress, untouched lingerie underneath, knowing that nobody wants me. At least, not enough to give me what I know I need.

I curl up on the bed, lay my head on the soft pillow, and stare at the bedside table beside me. I have no idea what happens now. But what I do know is that I have never felt more alone.

I run my thumb along the wedding band on my finger, and realize I still have on the engagement ring that Andreo gave to me last year. Angry, I sit up, pulling it off and dumping it in the drawer, shoving it shut so that I won’t have to look at it. He doesn’t deserve to have me wearing it anymore, that symbol of his commitment to me, given that he refused to even see it through.

As I lay back on the bed, I hold my hand out in front of me and look at the band Antonio slid onto my finger. And something, deep down, shifts.

Antonio…he was there for me when nobody else was. He doesn’t seem to care what people will think of him, how they might judge him for stepping in to marry the woman his son was meant to make an honest woman of. He didn’t do it because he wants to get me into bed, but to protect me.

And as I stare at that ring, and think on everything it symbolizes, that strange feeling deep down in my belly begins to get the better of me once more.

It is my wedding night, after all—and there are certain things that a bride should never be left waiting for…

4

ANTONIO

I pour myself a generous glass of vodka and toss it back in a single gulp, the sharp burn at the back of my throat enough to remind me that, yes, this is all really happening.

Jesus fucking Christ. I still can’t believe it.

I look to the heavy oak door of my office, as if she might appear there at any moment, as stupid as I know that is.

Julia. Julia Gattuso, if she takes my last name.

I turn that over and over in my head, trying to make sense of it, what it will mean for her to take on my name like that, to be a part of this family. She might have agreed to it on some level, but the reality of it—especially via a marriage to me and not Andreo—is clearly enough to shake her to her core.

She should be resting now, or at least, I hope she is. I could have sworn she looked a little let down when I told her that there would be nothing happening on our wedding night, as tempting as it might have been to tell her otherwise. What kind of asshole would I be if I demanded that from her?

No, when I’m with a woman, it’s because she wants to be with me, not because she feels like she has to be…

And besides, there are other things that need to keep my focus for the time being. Most importantly, perhaps, the fact that my son has ducked out on his wedding day and vanished off the face of the fucking earth. I haven’t heard a whisper from him since I kicked in the hotel room door to find him gone, his groomsmen milling around outside, their only concern whether the open bar would still be available even though he’d made a break for it.

His phone has been dumped in a car not far from the hotel he was supposed to get married in. One of my men discovered it a few hours ago. I’ve been doing my best to keep track of everything we have on him, but it’s hard to stay straight when I have a sneaking suspicion I already know what happened.

I’ve noticed it a few times with him lately, the way he seems to have a foot out the door, the distraction when he’s with me—the late nights he’s spent out on the town, not at the usual bars and clubs that belong to the Gattuso family, but at places owned by other families. Other businesses. Normally, they wouldn’t have allowed a Gattuso to set foot in one, but clearly he has done something to convince them he’s worth making an exception for.

I don’t want to believe that my son could be capable of something like this. Jesus, what father would? I have raised him all his life to be ready for the role that I currently have, to step up and take over the family business when the time is right.