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“I was chased by a dog once when I was little, okay? I was at the park with my mom. I was running around and then this dog started running behind me. I tried to get away from it, but it just kept chasing me. It was huge and kept barking wildly and I was terrified it was going to attack me. The owner afterward apologized and said the dog was just playing. But it scared the living daylights out of me, and I haven’t liked dogs since then.”
“I’m not the biggest fan of Juliana’s dog either, but he’s pretty harmless,” I said dryly.
She bit her lower lip. “I don’t want to live in a house with a dog.”
I could tell that she wasn’t telling me the full truth. She might be scared of dogs and what she said had really happened to her when she was young, but I knew that wasn’t the reason she didn’t want to live in the mansion.
The real reason was that she didn’t want to live with me. She was trying to put some distance between the two of us. It pissed me off, but I wasn’t going to argue with her about it.
I was still standing at the front door. “Fine, you can live here.” My voice was emotionless—I wasn’t going to let her know how much this bothered me.
“I can stay in my own apartment?” Her voice heightened in surprise, as if she hadn’t expected me to concede so easily.
“You obviously feel happier here, so why not?” My bride was playing games with me. I could feel my blood pressure rising again and I clenched my jaw.
“Okay, um…well, goodbye.”
She went to shut the door, but I put my foot out and the door bounced against it, preventing her from closing it. I pushed past the door and forced my way into her apartment.
“What are you doing?” she cried out, her eyes wide with panic.
“What does it look like? I’m going to spend the night here with you.” My tone was hard, and I fixed my gaze on her, letting it travel from her face flushed pink from her shower, down to her beautifully rounded breasts under her thin, strappy top.
“What do you want with me?”
“I would have thought that was obvious given that I’m your husband now.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
I looked at her thoughtfully. “Not yet.”
She looked at me in alarm. “You’ve proved your point. Everyone in the Fratellanza knows that I have been made to pay for my father’s betrayal. I’ve married you, but I’m not living with you. So please leave or I’ll call the police.”
“And say what? I’m your husband now.” I closed the door behind me.
“You may be my husband by law, but you’re not welcome here. This is my apartment, and I don’t want you here,” she said as she backed into her living room.
“You know that the Fratellanza doesn’t involve the police in our matters. Or it will bring trouble to the doorstep of you and your family.”
“I’m not part of the Fratellanza anymore. I left that life behind when I moved out of my father’s home.”
“You’ll always be a part of the Fratellanza,” I say harshly as I stalked toward her.
When I had almost reached her, she wrapped her arms around her torso as if to put up a barrier against me. “Go or I’ll scream. The neighbors will hear me and come help me.”
“You won’t scream. You don’t want anything to happen to your nice neighbors, do you now?” My words were deadly soft, but she knew I meant what I said. “I’m here in your life for good, so you should get used to it.”
She made a run for the front door.
I caught her wrist, and she cried out as I wrenched her back toward me. I roughly grasped her arms and marched her into the bedroom.
This was the first time I was touching her since kissing her at the church ceremony, and this wasn’t how I’d imagined it would be. I didn’t know exactly how I’d thought this would go, but I knew I wasn’t going to stand for her defying me.
She kept struggling as I dragged her into the bedroom, her proximity to me making me inhale her sweet scent with its trace of berries.
I spun her around to face me, keeping a tight grasp on her. “Stop struggling! I’m not going to do anything to you—I don’t expect anything from you yet.”
She was panting from exertion, and I watched her eyes dart around in confusion. “What do you mean?”
