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I wanted to marry him, but I didn’t want to marry him for the wrong reasons. His words from last night were already scaring me. I swallowed and held his gaze. “I will marry you.” His lips twitched, but I didn’t let him speak. “But if I marry you, I don’t want a fake marriage. I don’t want to marry you just for a truce, an alliance. If I marry you, it has to be a real marriage. You have to give it to me.”
“What does a real marriage entail for you?” He asked in his usual logical form.
I decided to start with easy things – things he already mentioned – and work my way up. “I want date nights, companionship, children, and to be good parents to those children. I want us to have sex forus,not just to produce Mazzoni heirs. I want honesty and compassion.” I swallowed thickly. “I want love.”
Until the last one, he was in his perfect cold mask. Perfect marble statue. But the last one twisted his face as much as Antonio Mazzoni’s face could twist. He shook his head, his jaw hard enough to snap. “I can’t give you love, Priscilla. I can give you every other thing that you want. I can make a great husband to you. I can pretend like I love you, but I cannot really do. People call me Heartless for a reason.”
I desperately put my hand on his chest. “I can feel your heart. It is beating Antonio.” I hated that my voice cracked.
Antonio softly brushed a strand of hair off my face, tucked it behind my ear. He was so careful, so tender to make me feel better. He took the hand over his heart and kissed my knuckles. “It is beating, but it can’t feel, Priscilla. That is the one thing I want you to accept. I can give you anything you want but not this. You have to understand.”
I didn’t want to understand. I was not going to understand. He didn’t need to believe in himself. I believed he could love me. I didn’t want to accept it, but I also couldn’t let go of him. Both options were unbearable. I needed something to unsee, unhear this.
“Why?” I asked again. “Why don’t you lie to me?”
“What?” This time he was confused. Oh, the all-mighty Antonio Mazzoni was confused.
“You can just lie to me,” I explained. “You can tell me you thought you couldn’t feel, but I melted all your ice walls and made your heart fill your chest with warmth again. You could tell me I was like a sun to your life, and you lived in darkness until I came along. You know I’ll believe you. I am a hopeless romantic. You can just lie to me to agree to the marriage, have your truce and then just fuck up everything. Break my heart all over the floor.”
He didn’t even flinch, which was normal considering who he was, but I still got hurt. His throat moved up and down. “There are two reasons.”
“What are they?” I was going to die.
“Firstly, you said you wanted honesty in the marriage, and that is something I can give you.”
It was not good enough. “And the other?”
“Other is that I don’t like the idea of lying to you one bit. I am very hard to disturb. I can watch people getting tortured and eat a full course meal at the same time. I can torture someone myself and then sleep like a baby. Things that can traumatize other people don’t even make me flinch. But honestly, lying to you disturbs me. I don’t like it one fucking bit. And for the record, breaking your heart all over the floor disturbs me more than ripping someone’s heart out of their chest with my bare hands.”
I looked at him, my eyes wide and my lips parted. Did he even see how romantic his words were to me? How much it made me sure he could love me? It was better than good. It was perfect. It was damn close to an “I love you” in my eyes.
I couldn’t help my huge grin, so I had to look down to hide it. “Ask Gabriele for my hand,” I choked out. “Just convince him to run it by me, and I’ll handle the rest.”
When I looked up, he seemed slightly shocked. It was probably the equivalent of wide eyes and an open mouth. “So, you are accepting that I can never love you?”
I could say yes and keep manipulating him, but I was the one that wanted honesty, and he did his part. I needed to do mine. Of course, there was no way I was telling him I believed he could love me one day, and maybe even he did right now and just didn’t realize it. Instead, I opted for an escape answer. “I decided to ignore it. Your words are enough for now.”
“But-” he started, but I pressed a finger to his lips. “Antonio do you want to marry me?” he nodded. “Good. Then go and convince Gabriele like you convinced me. Only with less fingers and tongue, hopefully.”
His lips twitched again, and I couldn’t help but kiss him. He needed to lean in for me to reach him, but still, I was the one that kissed him. Just a peck.
Then I simply left, hoping there was no hickey on my neck and my lips were not too swollen. But more than anything, I hoped he could convince Gabriele. I was ready to make a truce with the devil to do my part, but if Antonio failed, it wouldn’t matter.
Chapter 8
Antonio
Gabriele Falzone was really not happy about my proposal to marry his baby sister. For some reason, I thought he would just act like how Alessio and I acted when Mia was promised to Salvatore. I missed a part, though. Gabriele was not forced to accept an arranged marriage for his sister.
Looking at his flame-filled eyes, I knew it was going to be hard. I wished I could just tell him about my relationship with Priscilla and that she wanted the marriage. Unfortunately, that would most likely cause me a broken jaw since I was sure getting into a fistfight with my future brother-in-law was very unneighborly.
“I would prefer to handle this without getting my sister into it,” he said between gritted teeth.
“Of course, we can, but marriage will make it stronger. It will tie our families together,” I explained even though I had no doubt he was aware of everything I said.
“Do you really believe I will give you my little sister? You are the same age as me, for fuck’s sake.”
I was ready to tell him eight years was not a horribly big age gap and his sister was an adult. Unfortunately, Valerio’s careless words beat me, “Do you think your sister can find someone better?”
