AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Who is waiting for her brothers to save her.
“Good,” Elio whisks the papers away and hands them to the only other woman at the table.
Gia. His sister.
She’s eyeing me with interest. I don’t remember much about Gia. I think that she was away for our engagement party, doing some kind of internship or something in Italy. Seeing the two of them is interesting.
The features that make Elio so striking are present on Gia’s face too, but on her, they’re feminine. Strong, definitely not delicate, but feminine nonetheless.
Her hair is a wild riot of curls that she keeps long, and she has her nails done bright red, filed to dagger-like points, and with tiny little bows on them.
She notices me looking at them and wiggles them in response.
The terror inside me eases slightly. Maybe Gia won’t be so bad.
Elio, however, looks at me like I’m scum. He’s visibly repulsed by me. Every time his eyes drift over to me (which is not very often), his lips tuck into a frown and his eyes turn hard and flinty.
Great.
His reaction brings a question bubbling to the surface.
If he doesn’t think I’m attractive, why on earth did he agree to marry me?
I had always assumed that Elio agreed to this plan because of our physical chemistry. It was, after all, a ridiculously terrible business deal for him.
Our little company, De Luca Shipping, wasn’t at all equipped to handle business at the scale of Rossi Imports. They bring in more balsamic vinegar by weight than any other importer in the country, and that’s just the legal side of the business.
They also bring in a hell of a lot of other stuff that doesn’t get reported to the tax authorities, but makes money nonetheless.
Leather, jewelry, guns, you name it, there’s a specialized Rossi Imports box that will hold a dozen gallons of vinegar on top of it.
Not that it matters. They can grease the hands of any customs official out there and call it even.
To use De Luca Shipping for anything is just plain foolish. The fact that we have to nearly double our fleet and our presence on the docks to do so?
We can’t do that.
But Elio agreed to it.
I thought it was because he…Oh god.
My heart caves in, plummeting through my feet.
I’m such an idiot. Or maybe I’m just too confident.
Maybe I’m the only one who thought that our night together was important at all.
Because I had assumed that Elio agreed to marry me to have more of me.
And it doesn’t seem like that’s the right assumption at all.
I duck my head, hopeful no one can notice the red glow of embarrassment on my cheeks. I can feel Sal shuffle next to me in his chair, so I know that he notices, but I don’t look up at him.
I can’t believe it. Am I really such a narcissist that I thought Elio Rossi agreed to a shitty business deal because he wanted to have sex with me again?
What a mess.
“Good,” Elio’s voice snaps through the empty restaurant, and I look at him. “We’ll go now.”
