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And I want Amalie in my bed again badly enough to risk it.
I start to lean down to kiss her again, her hand still firmly trapped against my cock with my fingers wrapped around her wrist, when I hear a hard knock at the door.
“Fifteen minutes.” Marianne’s warning voice comes from the other side of it, and I let go of Amalie, taking several steps back as I give her a moment to compose herself. Shelooksas if she’s been pinned up against a wall and kissed—her dress wrinkled, her hair wild around her face, her cheeks and lips flushed. I see her take a deep breath, and I give her a wink that’s returned with a glare as I call out to her mother.
“We’re finished talking,” I say clearly. “You can come in.”
The door opens and Marianne Leone steps in, giving her daughter an appraising glance before turning back to me. “Well?” she asks coolly. “I hope the conversation was satisfactory?”
I smile tightly at her, the poise and calm inherent to my station in life returning to me in a moment as I let out a slow breath, ignoring Amalie entirely. “It was,” I tell Marianne calmly. “And my worries have been assuaged. I’ll be happy to marry your daughter, as we discussed.”
I hear a small gasp from Amalie, and I see the horror on her face at the same moment that I stifle the smile that threatens to spring to mine.
She thought she’d gotten out of it.
But I already let her go once—and I have no intentions of doing so again.
12
AMALIE
Ican’t believe this is happening.If he really doesn’t believe I was a virgin, that he’s the only one I’ve been with, howisthis still happening?I’d been furious that he’d challenged me on it, that he’d made such wild accusations, but a small part of my mind had been shouting that if he didn’t believe me, it would mean he wouldn’t want to marry me.
I’d have my freedom for a little while longer. Maybe longer still, if the news that I’m nowruinedspread. My mother might not be able to arrange a marriage for me at all. There would be consequences to that, of course—but at this particular moment, I’m not entirely sure that I wouldn’t rather suffer those.
The idea of marrying David terrifies me. I don’t know him, but my body responds to him in ways that I know gives him the upper hand over me—even more of an upper hand than he would have simply by virtue of being my husband. And there’s something about him—
He’s different, here. Stiffer, colder, angrier. He’s more like the man who coldly asked me if I was still in the room after he dismissed me, when I left Ibiza, and nothing like the man who spoiled and fucked me senseless for a week straight. That, too, frightens me—that kind of duplicity in a person. It was one thing when I thought I would never see him again.
It’s something else altogether when I’m facing the prospect of being his wife.
I barely hear what else David and my mother talk about. He says something in a low voice, and I see her mouth tighten, and then she nods. “I’ll speak to my daughter,” she says. “If you don’t mind waiting here, we’ll just step outside.”
When her hand closes around my elbow, I nearly yelp with pain. Her fingers dig into my flesh tightly, pinching, a clear sign of just how angry she is with me. She marches me out of the room before I can do much more than look at David, and the expressionless look on his face is almost more frightening than his anger from earlier. The door shuts heavily behind us as my mother walks us down the hall, well out of earshot of the living room.
“What the hell was he talking about?” she hisses, and I wince. My mother never curses; for her to do so now means she’s more furious with me than I think she’s ever been.
“He’s lying.” I force the words out. “He must not really want to go through with a marriage to someone from our family, after—”
The slap comes so fast that I don’t even see my mother’s hand move. Red-hot pain bursts over my cheek, and the fingers of her other hand crush my elbow a little tighter. My mother has never struck me before, but if there was ever going to be a first time, I suppose today makes sense.
“Ifyoulie to me again, the next one will be worse,” she snaps. “Now tell me the truth, Amalie Leone.Whatis he talking about?”
Briefly, I consider doubling down. But I’m not sure I see the point. David, whether he believes me or not, seems inclined to marry me anyway.And, I realize with a sudden flood of something very close to hope,there might be some part of the truth that gets me out of this after all.
“I slept with him in Ibiza,” I mumble, glancing away from my mother’s accusing glare. “I met him in a club, like he said. I didn’t know who he was. He never told me his last name, and I never asked. Istilldon’t know it,” I add with no small amount of sarcasm. “And apparently, I’m going to marry him.”
“Carravella.” My mother says it flatly. “That’s his last name. You littleslut. Do you have any idea what this could have done to us? This could have ruined our last chance at—”
Vaguely, I recognize the name, and my stomach turns over, until I think I might be sick with the irony of it all. I remember thinking in Ibiza that David was so far removed from my life here, the sort of man who had no ties or connections to what I’d left behind, and I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Carravella. A Boston-Italian mafia family with ties to Sicily and the leading mafia family there, the Riccis. I remember vaguely hearing about some scandal related to them in the past, but I hadn’t cared enough to really pay attention. They’ve never shown up to any of the galas or events that I’ve been present at here with my family, and I’ve never gone to Boston. Still, David and I orbited each other without ever knowing it—and now we’ve been abruptly pulled into a union that I don’t think either of us wants.
He wants it enough to agree to marry me, even if he doesn’t think I was a virgin.My stomach clenches again, and I lick my lips nervously.
“I didn’t want my first to be whatever man I wasforcedinto marrying.” I do my best to glare back at my mother, as intimidating as she is at this moment. “I wanted it to be my choice.”
“My god!” She lets go of me, shaking her head as if she can’t believe what she’s hearing. “How did I raise such a stubborn,stupiddaughter? You don’t getchoices. Women in our world don’t getchoices. Do you think I chose to marry your father? Do you think Iwantedhim? Do you think I wanted to be left with all ofthisto deal with, after his machinations went wrong? Do youseriouslythink this is enjoyable for me, Amalie?”
