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More thantook part in, if she was being honest. Given thatshehadn’t known what she was doing.
It had been clear that he did.
“Make no mistake.” And Ago’s voice was as close to ragged as she had ever heard it, at least when he was not touching her. It almost made her imagine that he felt as she did, somewhere beneath his stern exterior—but she knew better than to allow herself such fantasies. “The fault is mine. The blame is also mine. I betrayed myself that night. And I will never forgive myself for the stain I have brought to bear upon my family’s legacy with such a thoughtless, reckless act. I, who have dedicated the whole of my life to keeping my name and my honor washed clean.”
“That seems a bit harsh,” she found herself saying, though she knew it was unwise to argue with him. And then, as if that opened up the floodgates, she continued on when she knew the best strategy was silence and seeming acquiescence. “We can make the best of it, can’t we? I always knew that a marriage—any marriage—was the only way to escape my father’s hold. You said yourself that you once considered me a good candidate for the position I now occupy. Surely, somewhere between those two poles, a pleasant marriage that serves us both can exist. We need only be rational about this, surely.”
Ago did not move any closer to her, and yet, once again, the clatter of her own heart threatened to drown out the world. And the way he looked at her, almost too intent to bear, made everything in her seem to shake.
“Rational,” he repeated, as if she’d hurled curses at him. “What, pray, do you consider a rational solution to this issue?”
“If the issue you’re concerned about is the scandal,” she said—quite reasonably, to her mind, “what scandal can there be now? The child is yours. I assume you had no doubts on that score, because you did not demand a battalion of tests.”
An expression she could not begin to define moved over his beautiful face then, making it darker. Bleaker. “What does it matter what a test might say?” His voice was a harsh scratch over the space between them. “I know what I did that night.”
Then, to her astonishment, he moved as if he meant to put his hands on her again. And everything inside her seemed to tilt and whirl about, spinning out in an overwrought sort of hope—
But he dropped his hand.
And she despaired of herself.
“Besides,” Ago said, the bleakness that had been on his face now a heavy roughness in his voice, “I know full well that the only time your father ever permitted you to wander outside the sight of your guards was at your uncle’s house. And I also know that I’m the only guest your uncle has ever had while you were in residence. I am as reasonably secure in the fact you carry my heir as any man could be in the absence of a blood test. Which we will also be sure to conduct,mia mogliettina, never you fear. Just as soon as the appropriate medical team arrives. But we will do this quietly, far beyond the reach of any enterprising paparazzi.”
“Wonderful,” Victoria said with a serenity that cost her, especially when everything within her was still on fire with that longing for his touch. “I do like to remove doubt about my trustworthiness wherever possible.”
Ago reached over then, his hard fingers a sudden brand against her chin. And she had wanted his touch, hadn’t she?
You do, came a voice from within her.No matter what kind of touch it might be.
“There will be no doubt, Victoria,” he said, his words quiet, but intense. His gaze alight. “One way or another, there will be no doubts between us at all. I promise you that.”
He seemed to remember himself then, because he dropped his hand and stepped back, though all those sparks between them seemed to blaze all the higher.
Or maybe she was the one who could not keep herself from spontaneously combusting. Because Ago turned and left the room, and despite the clamoring inside her that bordered on frantic, Victoria knew it was the better part of valornotto follow him.
Notto chase after him and beg for things she couldn’t even name.
Because tonight was her wedding night and there was no need to sleep with the groom, because she’d already done that. Though there had been precious little sleeping indeed. And it was difficult not to marvel at how strong Ago had been and how he could lift her this way and that, so that she felt as light as a feather—
Another memory she did not need to dwell on.
So instead, Victoria sat back down in her seat at the foot of her new husband’s table. And she ordered herself extra desserts when the staff made their way back in.
Because no one else might wish to celebrate what had happened today, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t.
She helped herself to an enormous slice of cake and dug in.
“Well, little bit,” she murmured to the baby in her belly, “we had high hopes, it’s true. But it turns out that all men really are the same.” She forked in a mouthful of cake, chewed thoughtfully, then patted her belly. “If you’re a boy, I apologize. I’m sure you’ll be spectacularly unique.”
And she polished off the rest of the cake. And the rest of the desserts too, because some women had bridesmaids, but Victoria had learned long ago to content herself with sugar and butter instead.
Happy wedding day to me, she thought later, when she was still on a sugar high but safely locked away in her charming little guest suite that was nowhere near Ago’s rooms.
But the wedding wasn’t what stayed foremost in her mind. Because what she couldn’t help returning to from Ago’s little rant on the subject of herdisappearancewas that he hadn’t mentioned guards. When in her experience, men who planned to set guards on her liked to tell her so. And guards were the reason that Victoria had remained so seemingly biddable.
That and the fact that her father’s whole intention was to give her to someone else, which would necessitate him no longer having the slightest say in what she did or where she went—so why fight it?
She had not anticipated that her new husband would suggest that she secrete herself in Tuscany for the remainder of her twenties, but again. The way he’d said it, he had seemed to suggest that he anticipated that she would obey him...simply because he was Ago Accardi? Or perhaps because he was used to asking for things and having them come true, fully formed, right there in front of him.
