“I’ll book myself a rabies shot in the morning,” he deadpanned before getting to his feet and shrugging off the robe. Now she could see the deep scratches on his arms made by her nails.
Though the entirety of their circumstances meant she shouldn’t, Siena couldn’t stop herself from quietly saying, “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t answer, walking around the bed and climbing beneath the sheets on his own side. Only then, when he was propped against the headboard next to her, did he say, “You were frightened.”
She swallowed. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.”
Her arm aching from where she was holding the cold tea towel to her forehead, she swapped hands and turned her cheek to face him. “Why do you even care?”
“I don’t.”
She looked away. “Then I don’t care to answer.”
A long passage of silence passed between them.
“Did you mean it when you said you only chose Francesca to box me into agreeing?” she asked, staring at the dresser in her eyeline.
He made a noise that could have been a grunt or a laugh. “I thought I made it clear earlier that it was always going to be you.”
“Yes, butwhy?”
They turned their cheeks to face each other in unison. The silver eyes glimmered before he said in a low voice, “You already know why. You’re Lorenzo’s most precious possession. His princess. And now you are mine.”
“Hardly precious to you.”
He rolled onto his side and traced his finger over her jawline. “You are more precious to me than you could ever comprehend. Your life has always been entwined with mine.”
She shivered at both his touch and the thought. Elio had watched her and her family since she was a baby, but until their eyes had locked in the nightclub, she’d not even known of his existence as a person. She’d barely been aware of there being survivors on the Ranieri side of the great war between their families.
While always implicitly believing the victor’s version of the Esposito-Ranieri war, it had always made Siena feel slightly sick to know she’d been born amidst such bloodshed. It didn’t matter that she’d been raised to believe the war just and necessary; there had always been something queasy-making to think of her life starting while so many others were being taken.
She stared intently into Elio’s eyes. If it made her sick to think of herself being born amongst the bloodshed, how must it have made him feel when the vast majority of the blood spilt had been his family’s? “Is our marriage really the end of your vendetta against my family?”
How could it be? He’d lost everything.
He stared just as intently back. “Do you think it deserves to be?”
“I think if it was, you would have just said so.”
“You think so little of yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
He captured a lock of her hair. “Your father loved you more than anyone.”
“My father is dead.” Dead of natural causes rather than the hail of bullets that had destroyed Elio’s family.
“Yes, but I can hope he’s chained up in hell and spitting fury at his beautiful daughter being married to Ranieri scum like me. He’s not here to witness it, but your mother’s still alive, yourbrothers, your extended family, all the people who’ve grown rich on my family’s blood and spent decades cursing my family’s name. Many of them were involved in the massacre of my family, and now they have to welcome me at their tables and at all family events as a member of their family, knowing the part they played in the destruction of mine.” His smile was faint. “And they have to welcome me on the arm of the most beautiful and respected Esposito of them all.”
Siena shook her aching head. Maybe she was developing a concussion because a part of her suddenly hoped her father was chained up in hell too, a thought so heinous and disloyal that she felt sick with herself.
“By anyone’s judgment, you’re beautiful,” he said slowly. “And of all Lorenzo’s children, you’re the one held with the most respect. People trust you, and we both know that trust in our world is everything.”
