I loved my family, but we were a lot. I had wanted her to see them, to see the devotion my father had for my mother and the love that lived at the center of this house, proof that even men with blood on their hands could still become good husbands and fathers. I had wanted her to understand that I could make her happy.
That did not mean I wanted her left alone with the full force of a Benetti family gathering before she had finished digesting breakfast.
“Emily is just fine, Pietro,” my father said. “She’s with your mother and sister in the winter garden. Lily decided she couldn’t leave her alone with Victoria to overwhelm her future daughter-in-law.”
He shot me a sidelong look full of long-suffering annoyance.
“Thank you for that, by the way.”
I shrugged, feeling only the faintest trace of guilt.
The day before, when I watched Emily disappear upstairs with Victoria and my mother, I had told them the truth with perhaps less restraint than usual: that I intended to make her my wife.
My mother had been delighted.
My father had been rather less so.
And I had the distinct impression the explanation for that difference was about to arrive now.
I sighed. “Fine.”
I followed him to his office.
“Drink?”
I raised an eyebrow. “It’s not even lunchtime.”
My father kept his eyes on me as he poured himself a tall glass anyway.
Ah.
So it was going to be that kind of conversation.
I waited until he had taken his seat across from me, then crossed one leg over the other and rested my ankle on my knee.
“So.”
He let the silence stretch, then nodded once. “Marriage. Don’t you think it’s a little soon? You’ve known her, what, five minutes?”
“Five months,” I corrected. “And when you know, you know.”
“As a normal man, perhaps.” His gaze stayed on mine. “Not in our world.”
I frowned. “What makes it so different?”
He scoffed softly. “Don’t insult me by pretending to be naïve. I know you asked your uncle to investigate her.”
“I also asked him to stop,” I said, more defensively than I intended. The shame of that still sat badly with me.
“Foolish of you,” he said. Then, after a beat, “I asked him to keep going.”
That gave me pause. I studied his face, trying to decide whether he was mocking me.
“You had no right.”
“Of course I did.” His tone never rose. It didn’t need to. “I keep my family safe. You are my son. My heir. I never had the moral hesitation you’re currently displaying, and sooner or later, neither will you.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know her.”
