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“This is ridiculous.” I feel my jaw clench tighter. “Just because you’re not being pampered and waited on here, treated like a princess—”
“I don’t need that! I just want some freedom, so—”
“So what?” I grab her by the shoulders before I can stop myself, pushing her back into the wall. I don’t know if I intend to shout at her again or kiss her; my entire body is wound tight with frustration and desire, but something in Amalie’s face stops me from doing either.
She looksafraid. I feel her shrink back, her eyes going wide and her face bone-white except for the small pricks of red high on her cheeks, and her hands drop to her stomach, protectively pressing against it. As if she’s afraid I’ll hurt her.
As if she’s afraid I’ll hurt the baby.
I drop my hands instantly, startled as I back away from her. “Where did you go that was so important, Amalie?” I try to ask it as calmly as I can, and I see her suck in a breath, still glued to the wall. I can see her trembling faintly, and I let out another slow breath, trying not to upset her more. I’m frustrated with her, but it upsets me to see her shaking like a leaf, as if she thinks that I’ll truly harm her in some way.
“I went to the graveyard.” Her hands are still flat against her stomach, her mouth tight at the corners. “I wanted to see their graves. Since you won’t tell me anything.”
She says the last almost defiantly, as if she’s daring me to yell at her again, to tell her that she shouldn’t have gone. But in that particular moment, as I stand there looking at her cringing against the wall with her hands protecting her baby—ourbaby, possibly—I can’t find it in myself to say anything at all. My past is catching up with me, colliding with my present, and I no longer know if I recognize myself.
I no longer know if I have any idea what kind of life it is that I want to build here.
So instead, I turn around, and walk away.
—
Sequestered in my office, away from Amalie’s accusing glares, I’m able to think more clearly. I sit down behind my desk, rubbing a hand over my mouth, trying to consider what to do. She won’t leave it alone, that much is clear.How much more poking and prying will she do?My frustration with the woman I’ve married wells up once again—a good mafia wife, the kind I was supposed to marry, the kind I would havechosen, would understand to leave it alone. A wife isn’t meant to dig up her husband’s skeletons. She’s meant to keep others from doing the same, while leaving them buried herself.
I could tell her the truth.It’s not the first time I’ve considered it. I wonder if I would have, if I had married the sort of calm and capable woman that I imagined making my bride, when I knew I would be obliged to marry again after Bria’s death. Someone who could take the information in stride, who would understand all that happened and not lose her composure. I don’t trust Amalie to do that. I don’t trust her tolisten, to not throw it all back in my face, to not accuse me of secrets and lies.
I spent a week with her in Ibiza because I wanted her, but not as a wife. I never, not even for a moment, considered something more with her in those last days before we parted. Even though I wanted her, even though I felt as if I’d keep thinking of her long after she flew back to Chicago and I went home, Iknewshe wasn’t a suitable partner for me. And yet I ended up married to her anyway. I tried to put space between us after the marriage, too, and yet every time, I found myself pulled back to her, magnetized by frustration and desire.
We can’t stay away from each other. And in the moments when she’s not driving me insane, I’ve found myself starting to care for her—which is the worst of all.
I don’t want to get close to her. I don’t want to have any feelings at all for her, which is why I’ve tried so hard to force myself to see her as stubborn and spoiled, rather than determined and brave enough to keep standing up to me again and again. I’ve forced myself not to see how she’s pushed herself through the difficult beginnings of a pregnancy she didn’t want, how she’s done her best to please me when she can, how she’s behaved admirably at the events I’ve taken her to.Except for that stupid fur,I remind myself—but when it comes down to it, I know my fury over that was more because Iwantedto be angry with her than because I truly was. She was right that no one would have known about it. And even if they had, older wealth respects the ability to find something valuable without spending excessively. She might even have been admired for finding such a piece.
If I treated her better, if I cared for her, if I encouraged her—Amalie could be the wife I need. The wife I wouldwant, even, which is precisely why I pull away again and again, because I don’t want towantanyone.
Before I can stop myself, I slide open the drawer on the right side of my desk, reaching for a picture inside. The woman in it is laughing, her dark hair thrown back, her eyes bright. There’s a ruby necklace around her neck, glittering like blood against her olive skin, and my chest clenches at the sight of it. I feel a swelling wave of sadness and resentment, the only feelings I ever have when I look at a picture of my late wife. When I remember Bria, and how much havoc this family wrought on her.
I set the photo down, tapping my fingers against the desk, lost in thought. I didn’t want to get married again at all. I would have remained a bachelor if I could—but that was never an option for me. An heir needs another heir to follow him, and with my brother gone, it’s my responsibility to provide that. I had simply thought that I would manage it with a woman more amenable than Amalie.
Leaning forward on my elbows, I run my hands through my hair with building frustration, a feeling that I’ve come to associate closely with thoughts of my present wife. I find myself wishing, more than anything, that we could have left things back in Ibiza. That my memories of her could have remained happy—memories of fun and pleasure, rather than what they’ve become, inextricably tied up with my real life until the good is entirely swallowed up by it.
I touch the picture again, brushing a fingertip over Bria’s cheek. I can remember life with her clearly, and this picture so rarely reflects it. What I remember is her fear and sadness over Lucio’s death, her crippling guilt, her refusal to look at me or touch me at first. The way she laid in our bed, stiff and still, unable to touch me in ways that made our marriage a cold one, lest I feel like I was violating her. We’d fought over it. I’d told her, again and again, that we needed another child. That Marcus wouldn’t be enough for my father, that he would want our line better solidified than that.
I remember the way she turned away from me, telling me to take what I wanted, then. As if I ever really wanted her like that. As if I everreallywanted her at all.
The time when that picture was taken, when I remember her happy, was so brief. Brief enough that, without this to remember it by, I might not be able to at all.
I can see my life with Amalie going in the same direction. And I feel a spark of fear that, if something doesn’t change, our time together might meet the same end.
27
AMALIE
David doesn’t speak to me again for the rest of the day. He isn’t downstairs for lunch or dinner—both of which I cobble together out of takeout leftovers that I reheat—and he doesn’t come up to bed. Or at least, I’m asleep when he does, and he’s gone by the time I wake up.
I have to do something to mollify him, at least a little while I decide what to do. He wanted me to go to one of his board meetings—which I obviously can’t accomplish without leaving the house—so I decide to, at least this time, take some security with me. David’s head of security is a tall, burly man who makes me feel miniscule the moment I walk up to him, and he looks at me as if I’m an annoyance that’s interrupting his day.
“I need a car and some of your security to take with me to a meeting,” I tell him, doing my best to address him as if I have the right to ask for those things. Ido, of course—but my time as David’s wife so far hasn’t made me feel as if that’s true. “I have a board meeting to go to on David’s behalf.’
It’s notentirelytrue, but I manage to say it with enough confidence that he does as I ask. Ten minutes later, an SUV pulls around front with three of the security team inside—men who will, no doubt, keep an eye on me and report back to David as much as protect me. But I don’t care. I don’t intend to do anything today that I’ll care if he knows about.
