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He laughed, and it took everything in me not to make a dart toward him. “Are you forgetting the rules, nephew?” I knew the rules. I knew them too fuckin’ well. “I don’t see a ring on your finger.” He lifted the cane he held in his left hand and signaled to my pockets. “Or was I mistaken when I first walked in here?”
My chest heaved. “It’s under control.”
“Hmmm.” He walked around the desk, stopping several feet in front of me. “You only have eight days until you turn thirty.” He tapped the designer watch on his wrist. “Time is ticking, nephew.”
He smiled, the kind of smile that was fake as fuck. “It was nice to see you.” My muscles locked in place as he tapped my shoulder, then spun around. Each of his steps was measured, but I wasn’t sure whether it was him trying to invoke some kind of stature or whether it was because he was nearly seventy years old.
My guard was well and truly up now that he was in the country. My instincts told me whatever he was here for didn’t bode well for me.
“Oh.” He halted at the door and faced me. “Don’t forget, if you can’t meet the requirements by your thirtieth birthday, you forfeit your position…” I opened my mouth, about to tell him I was aware of that, but he continued before I could even say anything. “To me.”
I ground my teeth together, my body taking an involuntary step toward him. “That’ll never happen.”
“We’ll see,” he sang. His Italian accent made him sound like he was being polite, but I heard the veiled threat. He was here to take the business.
He was here to steal what wasn’t his.
My father had been given permission to move from Italy to America when he was eighteen so he could expand the business. And he’d done just that, making it ten times more profitable than the Italian arm of the operation. The Italian arm that Uncle Paolo was the boss of.
I wasn’t going to let him take anything from us. He’d destroy my father’s legacy.
Fuck. But he wasn’t wrong. If I didn’t meet the requirements, he could take it without a fight from a single person.
I yanked my cell out of my pocket and clicked call on Christian’s name. Two rings, and he answered, “Lorenzo.”
“I need an answer from the Ricci girl,” I gritted out, walking toward the office door and staring down the hallway, watching my uncle make his way out of the house with his two personal guards. Who the hell had let him in in the first place? “Now.”
CHAPTER 4
AIDA
“Aida?” Noemi called as she walked into our bedroom. “There’s a package for you.” She stared down at the box in her hands. “It’s from Lorenzo Beretta.” Her gaze focused on me, an expectant look in her eyes.
I’d tried to push everything to the back of my mind since my date with Brad, but it felt impossible when everyone in my family would stare at me, waiting for me to give them an answer. Every day there’d be something to remind me I hadn’t answered yet. Yesterday, a guy called Christian had come to see if I needed any more information—which I didn’t—and now I’d been sent a package.
I just wanted to be a normal twenty-year-old: attend college and get drunk at random parties. But I couldn’t be that—I’d never been that.
“Open it,” I said with a wave of my hand, turning back to my open laptop. I had another assignment due in two days. I didn’t have time to think about anything else until it was finished. I didn’t have the capacity in my brain to think about the proposition.
No. That wasn’t true. I was lying to myself. All I’d been able to think about was the offer made to my parents. A wife. He needed a wife, and he’d chosen me.
Why? That was always the first question that popped into my mind, closely followed by how much would everything change? What about college? There was no way I was giving that up, not if I said yes. If I had one stipulation to this ridiculous thing, that would be it. I winced. Maybe I should have told Christian that yesterday.
I sighed. There were only four days until the wedding took place. Four days until I could be standing at the altar, giving up my entire life.
“Aida?” Noemi sat next to me on my bed. “Would it really be that bad if you said yes?”
I blinked. “I don’t know.” I huffed out a breath and closed my laptop, knowing I wouldn’t be able to concentrate. “What if he wants me to give up college?”
“Tell him you won’t.” She shrugged as if it was that easy. And maybe it was. Maybe I was overthinking the whole situation.
“But…” I threw my head back, staring up at the off-white ceiling. “What if it doesn’t work out?”
“What if it does?” Noemi replied, raising her brows. “What if you end up having an amazing life because you said yes? What if it meant you could achieve all of your dreams?” She paused. “Plus, Ma said she’d help me pay for my own apartment.”
I laughed. “Only you would think like that.”
“I’m only saying the truth.” She chuckled, but I could see the hope in her eyes. She wanted her own freedom. A place where Vida could have her own room. “Open it.” She thrust the box at me. “I want to know what he sent.”
