“I’m not. I’m making him exactly what he is.”
“You don’t know him.”
“Neither do you.”
“I know his father.”
There it is. The real center of the conversation. Alessandro Vitale. A name that doesn’t need volume to carry weight.
“What did he offer you?” I ask.
“Stability.”
I roll my eyes. “Men always call it stability when women are involved.”
His gaze holds mine. “You think I don’t know that?”
The answer comes up fast:no. And then I stop it, because he does know. That’s what makes it worse. If he were careless, this would be easier. If he were cruel, I could refuse and feel righteous all the way out the door.
But he isn’t. He’s careful. Especially with me. That’s why I’m still sitting here.
“I’ve kept you out of as much of this as I could,” he says.
I don’t respond.
“You think I don’t see what you do? The way you listen. The way you read people.”
“That sounds useful. You should marry me to a ledger.”
“This isn’t punishment.”
“No,” I say. “Punishment would at least be honest.”
His expression closes. For a second, I recall being a child outside this door with a glass of milk because no one had remembered dinner. He’d opened it, dismissed three armed men with a look, and taken the milk like it had been meant for him all along.
We’ve always been very good at pretending.
“You can say no,” he says.
That lands harder than anything else. Because it’s true, I could say no, and it would fracture everything before it even forms. It would humiliate him. Force him to spend blood instead of strategy. Tell every watching family that the Brennan house doesn’t hold.
No is possible.
It’s just not survivable.
I look at the contract again, my name beside Dante’s. It feels… premature.
“What happens if I agree?” I ask.
“The engagement is announced quietly. You travel with me for the introduction. The wedding follows.”
“How romantic.”
“You would remain protected.”
“By the man I marry, or the man who controls him?”
His jaw tightens. Good.
