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I guess someone’s older brother has come to pick her up from school. Boys are such a novelty to us at St. Osanna, that a group of them, or even one really cute boy, can send everyone in a fifty-foot radius a little bit crazy.
I’ve had enough of that sort of crazy. As the other students jostle against each other to get a better view, I weave my way through them, wincing as my toe is trodden on by a girl jumping up and down and whisper-screaming, “Oh mygod, he’s so sexy! Whose big brother is that?”
I’m almost out the gates when one word stops me in my tracks.
“Chiara.” He doesn’t even need to raise his voice. It lifts over the crowd and resonates in my ears.
Everyone who was staring at Salvatore turns in unison and stares at me. I grip the strap of my shoulder bag, wishing that a sink hole would open beneath my feet and swallow me up. I thought I would be safe from him at school. I thoughthere, at least, I could pretend he doesn’t exist.
Salvatore has parked a sleek gray Maserati at the front gates and is leaning against it, dressed in a black suit with a gray T-shirt underneath, cut low enough to expose his strong chest muscles. The suit hugs his body like a lover, accentuating the thickness of his biceps and the breadth of his shoulders. The heavy silver watch on his wrist sparkles in the sunlight. He draws one hand out of his pocket and slides his fingers along his freshly shaven jaw.
He smiles, and a shiver goes through the girls around me.
Looking at me but addressing them, he drawls, “Would you mind? I’d like to speak with my fiancée.”
Salvatore parts the girls like Moses parting the Red Sea with just his voice, making a path straight to him. All my classmates gawk at me.
And then the whispers start.
“Fiancée? Why didn’t she tell us?”
“She’sengaged?”
“Wait, I think I recognize him.”
“Haven’t we seen him on the news?”
“That’s Salvatore Fiore.”
The mood of the crowd changes from surprise to delirious shock.TheSalvatore Fiore is at our school gates in all his scandalous, bad-boy glory. The expressions on the girls’ faces range from envy to confusion to downright disgust.
It’s not what you think, I want to scream.I didn’t choose him. I don’t WANT him.
I can feel Salvatore’s razor-sharp gaze on me, warning me to play along. I walk slowly toward him, feeling like I’m being led to the gallows.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper when I’m three feet away.
“It’s a beautiful day. I’ve come to take my bride for a drive.”
The sun is shining on his handsome face. When he smiles, you could almost believe he’s human. I was wary of Cassius and Lorenzo from the moment I saw them, but I was drawn to Salvatore immediately. That kiss he bestowed on my mouth was better than anything I’d felt before. People say that a first kiss is often a let-down, but mine was a little piece of heaven in the arms of a devil.
I remember Lorenzo showing me my wet G-string, humiliating evidence that at least one of those men turned me on. Until he wrapped his hands around my throat and snarled in my ear I would have been happy to accept that I was attracted to Salvatore.
But not now. Never again. It was some weird fluke that I was turned on.
“Sorry, I have homework.”
“My bride doesn’t need good grades. I’ll take care of anything she needs.” He gestures at the open-top sportscar, inviting me to get in.
“I’m your bride in forty-eight weeks and not a moment before.” Not even then, if I can help it.
I know how to distract him. I glance around the parking lot. “Where are your friends lately?”
Salvatore’s face hardens. One moment charming and mellow, the next brimming with malice.
I remember Cassius’ words that night.By your eighteenth birthday, you better have learned what it means to take your place by our sides. Whichever one of us marries you, we all expect the same obedience.
So much forusandour.
