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He swirled his glass before he sipped it. “How was your day?”
“About the same. I went to the gym, went to the market.”
“No nap?” he teased.
I chuckled. “No nap.”
He smiled, but it quickly disappeared as he looked into his glass. “Sweetheart?—”
I already knew what he was about to say based on his tone alone. “I’m not going to marry him.”
His eyes remained on his wine.
“Just being in the same room as him…was insufferable.”
He didn’t say anything.
“There’s more to life than work.”
“And for some people, life is work. And that’s us.” He lifted his eyes and looked at me, his fingers pinching the stem of his glass. “It’s more than work. It’s something that we built. It’s ours.”
Now I was the one who looked down at my wine.
“I know how much you wanted it, Scarlett. I saw you bust your ass every day to prove that you were worthy of the keys to the kingdom. And you’re prepared to just let it go? Let someone else take what is rightfully yours?”
I continued to focus on my wine.
“Marry him. Bide your time. And then hurt him the way he hurt you.”
My eyes lifted to meet his.
“He crossed us. Now, let’s cross him.”
“I don’t see how we can accomplish that?—”
“It’ll take time. A lot of patience. But eventually, we’ll see an opening and take it. We’ll remove him from the business and take it as ours.”
I continued to stare at him.
“Come on, sweetheart.”
“He said he would kill you if you retaliated.”
“It’s a bluff. He won’t kill me.”
“Why?”
He stared. “Because he would have done it already if he could. And he certainly won’t kill you. We have the blood of Romans in our veins. We don’t let someone take our kingdom. We fight to take it back.”
I looked at my wineglass again, my heart thumping harder than before.
“Make him pay for what he’s done to you—to us.”
I typed the message, deleted it, and then retyped it. It sat there for a couple minutes before I sent it, unsure if I’d just made a strategic move—or doomed myself. Let’s talk.
The three dots appeared instantly, like he’d been staring at his phone when the message came through. Let’s.
I’ll meet you at Le Conte at 7.
It’s a date.
I ignored his last message and locked the screen. There was a painful pit in my stomach, an unease that no amount of wine would drown. My nerves were balled into knots, and that made a flush of dread flow through me. I thought I could do this, but a simple text exchange was enough to make me lose my balance.
At seven, I arrived at the restaurant, wearing a black dress with matching heels, my heavy coat keeping me insulated from the cold outside. I uncinched the sash and opened the buttons before my coat was taken. Axel had already arrived, so the hostess guided me to his table.
He sat there alone, in dark jeans and a button-up with the sleeves pushed to his elbows. His eyes were focused out the window before he turned to look at me, his pupils dilating slightly at the sight of me. He gave me a quick glance over without hiding it, like he didn’t care if I saw him check out my figure in the skintight dress.
I sat across from him, and a bottle of wine was already on the table.
He grabbed the bottle and poured my glass then he relaxed in the chair, his blue eyes locked on mine with that intensity he used to show all the time. He showed it when he stared at me across a crowded room, when we had dinner together, when I sat across from him in the bathtub. He did it now, as if nothing had changed.
I grabbed the glass and took a drink. “Thanks for meeting me.”
“The pleasure is mine.” His elbows rested on the armrests, and his big hands came together, old scars over his knuckles. The cords moved up his forearms and disappeared under his pushed-up sleeves. His hair was a little longer than it used to be, combed back and out of his face.
I was the one who had asked him to meet me, but the words struggled to form on my tongue.
He seemed content to sit in silence and stare.
Since I was the one who’d called this meeting, he probably felt no obligation to speak until he knew what I wanted from him. “Why do you want to marry me?”
“I already answered this question.”
“Then give me a different answer, because that one was bullshit.”
A glimmer of a smile moved on to his lips and reached his eyes. “You’re spicier than I remember.”
“I just have a lower tolerance for lies and deceit.”
The smile disappeared. “I meant what I said.” His intense stare returned. “I want you.”
“Then fuck me for a night,” I retorted. “Why does it have to be marriage?”
