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There’s breakfast waiting for me in the informal dining room, which still feels much too large for just me, too large even for two people. I have no idea exactly what time Alessio is arriving, and I pick at the French toast and fruit that the cook fixed this morning, anxiety twisting in the pit of my stomach. I barely know Alessio, but he was supposed to be my husband, and he refused. I barely know him, but he’s about to be living here with me, sharing the same space and meals and—
My head snaps up, and my heart leaps into my throat as I hear the front door open, the sound of a low male voice giving instructions. I hear heavy footfalls across the floor, walking towards the room where I’m sitting. I swallow hard, setting my fork down as whatever small bit of appetite I had flees—and it wasn’t much to begin with.
Alessio steps into the doorway, and my mouth goes dry.
In the morning light, standing in the dining room of the house I’ve lived in all my life, he’s every bit as gorgeous as I remember—every bit as handsome as I thought he was yesterday. His dark hair is swept back away from his face, neatly styled, and those green eyes fix on me as he stands there, watching me from across the table, his hands in the pockets of his perfectly tailored suit. It clings to him in all the right ways, and I have a sudden, heart-pounding vision of running my hands over him—over the crisp fabric of his button-down, my fingers curling around his tie, pulling him into me for a kiss.
“Good morning, Gianna,” he says, his voice rich and deep, and while it does very little to dispel my fantasy, it does pull me out of my thoughts.
“Good morning,” I manage, feeling as if I might trip over my words at any moment. Three years, it seems, did nothing to dispel the way seeing him makes my heart flutter and leap, and the feelings I had yesterday weren’t only a temporary madness caused by my grief. Even after a night’s sleep and in the full light of day, I still want him every bit as much.
And none of that matters, because he doesn’t want me.
“I know this is awkward.” Alessio clears his throat, shifting slightly. I get the impression he’s also uncomfortable with the situation, as strange as that seems to me. “I also know I’m invading your space, and I—”
“This was your home, too.” I blurt it out before I can stop myself, knotting my hands anxiously together in my lap, my breakfast forgotten. “You grew up here,” I remind him. “You have every right to live here.”
“I think I forfeited that some time ago,” Alessio says quietly. “But it does seem that I’m the only one who feels that way.” He takes in a slow breath, nodding at the table. “May I sit? I didn’t eat much this morning. I thought of having this discussion with you in what is, now, I suppose,myoffice—but given the circumstances—”
A lump rises in my throat at the memory of finding my father dead in his office, and how it would feel to go back in there right now. It’s been cleaned, of course, but I would still look at the floor and see the blood, remember—
“You could make a different room your office,” I suggest. “I mean—whatever conversation it is that you want to have, we can have it now. That’s fine. I just meant, after—” The words tangle up on my tongue again, making me feel slow and foolish, and I press my lips together. “You can do whatever you want, of course, but—”
“Gianna.” Alessio’s voice is gentle now, as he walks to the table and pulls out a chair. “If you want me to move the office to a different room in the house, you only have to ask. If you want anything at all, you only have to ask. All I want is for you to feel safe, comfortable, and protected.” He takes another slow breath, reaching for the glass carafe of orange juice in the middle of the table. “It’s why I agreed to stay.”
“Not because it will make you one of the three most powerful men in the city?” The question comes out more biting than I mean for it to, and I see something flicker across Alessio’s face, an emotion he quickly hides before regaining his composure.
“I’m here because of you, Gianna,” he says simply. “I had every intention of turning down all that your father requested of me,includingthe title and responsibilities of don. But Don Fontana’s other plans for you were unacceptable. I couldn’t allow him to follow through. So here I am.”
“My knight in shining armor.” I didn’t intend for so much sarcasm and bitterness to drip off of my tongue, but it did anyway, and to my horror, I could feel my eyes getting glossy and hot with tears. “What was Fontana going to do, anyway?”
Alessio hesitates. “Gianna, I know this is all hard for you.” He reaches out, his fingers hovering over the back of my hand as if he’s uncertain whether or not he should touch me, and then his hand closes over mine, warm and solid and as comforting as he means for it to be.
Like a brother,the bitter voice in my head hisses. A brother he’s never been to me and that he’s never felt like. He left when I was born and came back when I was so much older, and all I see in front of me is a devastatingly handsome man who rejected me when I and everything I have was offered up to him on a silver platter. It shouldn’t make me so hurt, so angry, but itdoes. “Just tell me the truth.” I pull my hand back, knotting them in my lap again, my breakfast long since gone cold. “What was it that made you agree to stay?”
Alessio’s hand lingers for just a moment where mine was before he pulls his back, and I see an odd sort of restraint on his face, like he’s holding back some emotion that he doesn’t want me to see.Just let me see!I want to shout at him, the grief and frustration and hurt of the past days welling up.Just let me in.But I don’t think he’s going to. He’s as poised and elegant as ever, exactly the man that I remember from when I was a teenager, a man who barely so much as gave me the time of day. And now, he’s here. Living with me.Protectingme, supposedly.
“Don Fontana wanted to marry you to Andre Leone,” Alessio says wearily. “The Leone family would have absorbed your family name and wealth, making it a part of their own empire, which would have pleased Enzo Leone greatly, I imagine. I wasn’t going to let that happen, even if marrying you myself, as I’m sure you saw that your father wanted, is out of the question.”
Why? Why is it out of the question?It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t know if I want the answer. I’m not sure that I want to hear it, whatever his reasons are for rejecting me. “And you’re staying here until—”
“For as long as I need to,” Alessio says firmly. “Ihavetaken on the position of don, now. But that also means it’s mine to relinquish, if I choose. And if the man who marries you—who I willalsochoose—is up to the task and willing to take on the Mancini name, then yes, I will relinquish it and return to New York.”
My eyes instantly brim with tears, for reasons I don’t understand. I sink my teeth into my lower lip, trying to bite them back, feeling as lost as ever. “So that’s it, then. You’re going to watch over my father’s estate, watch overme, and then leave.”
“It’s not as cold as you make it sound, Gianna.” Alessio’s voice has that weary quality to it again, as if all of this has taken something out of him, too. “I’m here to ensure that no one takes advantage of either you or your fortune. Your father would have preferred to wait until you were a bit older for you to marry, and I agree, but the Family is insistent that this be resolved as soon as possible. So I am here to help continue what your father should have taught you.”
“Should?” I stare at him. “What should my father have taught me? As far as I’m concerned, he taught me everything I need to know—”
“He expected to live longer than he did,” Alessio says gently. “And he expected me to marry you, despite the conversations we had on the matter. So what you need to know in order to marry someone that the Family will approve of—how to be a good mafia wife, for one—are things that, yes, he neglected to teach you.”
“Agood mafia wife.” The words roll as sarcastically off of my tongue as I mean for them to, this time. “And you’re going to teach me?”
“Yes.” Alessio sits back in his chair, still looking calmly at me. “It was your father’s greatest wish that you be cared for and protected, Gianna. It’s mine, as well.Icare for you, and I want nothing more than to ensure that the husband who’s chosen for you is aware of what a treasure he’s been given by being allowed to marry you. I will make certain that the man who marries you is someone that I trust, thatyoucan trust, and who will never harm you in any way.”
I look at him as he speaks, trying to sort through the jumble of emotions welling up inside of me. What he’s sayingsoundsgood, genuine,right, even. He won’t marry me himself, but he wants to be certain that not just anyone is allowed to, and certainly not Andre Leone—who I have met before, and would not want to wed. It’s clear that Alessio plans to have a great deal of control over it all—but who else would Iwantto have that kind of control over my future, besides myself? Certainly not the old man I sat in front of yesterday, who has no idea what I want, or what my father wanted, beyond the will that’s clearly already been compromised on. And I don’t think that old man, Don Fontana, cares all that much about what my father wanted in the first place, if I had to hazard a guess.
“That sounds—” I don’t know what to say. The emotions are all too much, and I bite my lip, looking at Alessio across the table. He seems so calm, so collected, and all the while, I feel as if I’m coming apart at the seams. Everything has been turned upside down so quickly. “I have time, right? Before I have to get married?” My voice quivers on the last word, and there’s a flicker of sympathy in Alessio’s gaze.
