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Angelo seats me and buckles me in. He sits down next to me without saying a word. I may as well be invisible. Ignoring me has more to do with trying to control his anger than giving me the cold shoulder, because rage rolls off him in waves. You have to be emotionally challenged not to sense it.
Trying to escape the animosity, I withdraw by looking through the window. Cape Town grows smaller as we climb in altitude. Uncertainty and fear tighten my stomach further when we finally break through the clouds and everything I know disappears.
The seatbelt light goes off.
Angelo unfastens first his safety belt and then mine. Standing, he holds his hand out in silent instruction. I swallow as I stare at that big, broad, powerful hand. I don’t want to take it. I want to run. Only, there’s nowhere to run to when you’re fifteen thousand meters in the air.
Not having a choice, I get to my feet. I don’t take his proffered hand, but even in this, he doesn’t give me an option. He wraps his fingers around mine and pulls me down the short aisle to a door at the back.
My throat closes up with fear when he opens the door to reveal a cabin with a double bed. That fear is nothing compared to the anxiety that nearly cripples me as the door shuts with a soft click. Because that click? It’s the quiet before the storm.
When he lets go, I back up until the bed forms a barrier between us. Daylight filters through the windows on either side of the cabin, but no one can look in. No one will hear me scream. No one can help me. Not even all the angels who ever lived in the fluffy clouds that pass with deceptive gaiety beyond the windows.
Unlike earlier, he watches me with a piercing gaze, focusing every ounce of his attention on me. He advances a step, but I stand my ground.
Danger bleeds from his pores. It surrounds me like thick smoke, invading my lungs and clouding my brain. I can’t think through the fog. I can’t breathe through the darkness that rolls over me, a bank of mist that swallows me whole.
When he finally speaks, it’s to give me a stark, unyielding command. “Take off the dress.”
The order is what I was afraid of. He wants to consummate the marriage. Before, when I gave myself to him, it was in the heat of the moment. This isn’t heat. It’s cold and calculated, premeditatedly staged. I can’t lose myself in passion like this.
Lifting my chin, I ask, “Why?”
Wrong question to ask. His stoic anger melts, slipping into something chillier and more brutal. “Do you really want me to look at you in a dress you put on for another man?” His voice drops an octave. “A dress I fucking chose forme?”
His words make me stagger. “What? Celeste bought the dress.”
He removes his jacket with a fluent motion. “Celeste took it from the villa where I left it when she packed your clothes.” Reaching behind him, he takes the gun from his waistband and puts it on a built-in dressing table. “Didn’t she tell you?”
“No,” I say, the sound coming out of my mouth no more than a whisper. “I just assumed she managed to buy one.”
He raises a mocking brow. “I’m afraid I lost my appetite for that dress. Now, take it off, or I’ll do it for you.”
That explains the mystery of the dress. I don’t know what Celeste was thinking, if she believed I had a wedding gown delivered, but she shouldn’t have taken it. She should’ve asked. Everything just happened so fast.
Angelo removes a cufflink, pulling my attention to the insignia set in platinum, the intertwined, snarling wolves that each has a diamond eye. The cufflink makes a clink as he drops it next to the gun.
“I see you’ve decided,” he says, loosening the other cufflink.
My gaze snaps to his. “I don’t want this.”
“This?” His smile is taunting. “Definethis.”
“Us fucking.”
“Fucking.” He says it as if the idea is a joke. “Do you think I want to fuck you after what you’ve done?”
His hatred is so blatant it steals my breath.
He rolls back a sleeve, exposing his strong, tanned forearm. “But let me share a fact with you,wife. When you begged me to put that ring on your finger and to give you my name, you promised to obey me. When you begged me to spare the lives of your traitorous family and your pathetic best friend, you agreed to fulfill your marital duties.” He folds back the other sleeve. “Any and every duty I deem fit. Is that clear? Or do you need a reminder?”
“No,” I snap, hating him as much as he hates me. No, more. I don’t think you can hate someone with more intensity.
He lifts a finger and makes a circle, indicating I should turn. Reluctantly, I give him my back. He grips the zipper above my buttocks and pulls it down slowly, his fingers brushing over my ass in the process. An involuntary shiver contracts my skin. Reversing the path, he trails his fingertips over my spine and unfastens the button at the top. The dress falls open in the front and slides down my legs before pooling around my feet.
His heat disappears at my back, making more goosebumps run over me even though the temperate in the room is comfortable.
“Turn around,” he says.
