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“He gets the point,” I say quietly. Salvatore glances at me. Though I don’t think he’s taken his pound of flesh, he won’t openly ignore me after threatening another man for disrespecting him. I take the earrings without paying, surprised by how little guilt I feel about it.
We put the store behind us, but the strange interaction swirls in my thoughts. A $275,000 necklace around my throat, and it doesn’t mean anything because it’s not a band on my finger. It doesn’t say I’m his.
When I was a very cynical teenager, full of feminist rage that I didn’t really understand but knew I was supposed to feel, I equated wedding rings to putting a collar on a dog or scrawling your name on the lunch bag in the office fridge. I softened up to the idea over time, but now, its meaning is painfully clear.
A part of me doesn’t want this kind of attention from anyone else. I want people to see from a mile away that I am taken. Off-limits. Others need not apply.
Salvatore has staked his claim, and everyone else needs to know it. I can even pretend it’s for their own sake.
For the first time, I regret leaving the engagement ring on the dresser.
“I should have torn him apart,” Salvatore says, voicing regrets of his own as I fall into step with him. He moves quick, putting distance between us and the store, as if he needs to get away before he changes his mind.
“He’s not worth it,” I say.
“You are,” he says, just as quick. His single-minded devotion hits me right in the belly.
“He disrespected you. If you weren’t so allergic to confrontation, I would have at least taken him out back and—” He cuts himself off as he realizes that saying it paints just as much of a picture as doing it.
“It doesn’t matter,” he mutters. “There are smarter ways to draw blood with a man like that,” he continues, as if convincing himself of it more than me.
“But it’s not your preferred way,” I infer, softly.
“…No,” he admits, tension radiating and posture rigid. “That’s just the type you attract, I guess.”
“…The type I attract?”
“What you said last night. About your ex. Some monster.”
I barely remember saying it at all. On principle, I don’t talk about James. I’m surprised I said even that little to Salvatore.
“You aren’t like him,” I say, instantly. “He did everything just right. He was sweet, caring, attentive. He never showed me a single bad side of him—because that was who my father was paying him to be behind my back.”
Salvatore’s gaze lingers on me, trying to understand.
“In a way, you aren’t even my first forced marriage,” I smile tightly, my voice low as people. “I thought he and I met...well, like fate.” It sounds stupid when I say it out loud. “He approached me and I was flattered and naïve. I was finally brave enough and far enough away from my father, I thought maybe it was worth the risk. I fell right for it. For months, and months, I kept falling for it. I didn’t see it for what it was until it was too late.”
Until I had fallen in love with someone who didn’t really exist.
My throat closes on the words. I can’t talk about it for too long without shutting down. Mentally, physically. On every level, I instinctively block James out as if he never happened, but I push through.
“My father had decided we would be a good match, one he approved of, and so he sent him to try and woo me, I guess. But of course, my father had his one stipulation…”
I glance to Salvatore, letting him guess.
“You couldn’t sleep together.”
I nod.
“In case the relationship fell apart, I guess. I kept trying, and he kept turning me down. In the end, that was how it all unraveled. It just wore him down over time. He started losing his temper and going out a lot. He came back late from some strip club one night, and I finally confronted him. I didn’t understand—why would he go see those women, when I was right there, begging him to be with me? He got violent enough that I went running to my father for help.”
I feel the dark tension ripple through Salvatore at the thought of someone laying a hand on me in genuine anger. That reaction tells the truth more than anything I could say myself.
“And he took care of it?”
My smile hurts.
“Oh, no. He made excuses for him. That was when everything clicked. When I knew they were in it together. That was my last falling out with my father. The final straw. Maybe you’re a monster, maybe you aren’t. But you aren’t like him at all.”
