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We’re back in the neighborhood. Lucian swerves into a spot and grabs the engagement ring box. He pops it open, and I shy away from him, shaking my head in denial.
“You’ve gotta wear this.”
Lucian removes the huge diamond ring from the surrounding black velvet and holds it out for me to inspect. My breath hitches. I can’t help but lean forward to inspect it. It’s an opulent round-cut diamond centered over three thick bands encrusted with yellow diamonds. Even in the dim light of the cab of the car, it throws out ferocious sparks of light.
It’s massive. Ginormous. And…utterly gorgeous. I bite my bottom lip. My fingers twitch and I clasp my hands together to stop myself from lunging for it.
“It’s a Buccellati. I chose the most iconic one I could find.”
He cants his head to the side, frowning as he examines it critically. The way he speaks, one would think he’d taken his time and looked over many rings before he chose this one.
A ridiculous notion, I know.
“It’s the closest to Renaissance I could find,” he continues. “I figured you wouldn’t want to go modern on something like this.”
My mouth is agape; I’m speechless. He’s right, and I have no idea how he could possibly know something so personal about me. My head is spinning. It was only tonight that he stared at the map on my wall and asked me why I loved Italy. Yet, he got me the perfect ring, as if he already knew my taste.
But that’s not possible…
Too distracted to continue with that line of thought, I greedily pluck the ring from between his fingers.
The ring is outrageous…but it’s stunning. It’s hard to express the jumble of emotions battling inside me. No, I can’t marry him, but I was brought upmafie, and nomafiegirl who has spent half her life dreaming about her big wedding could resist an engagement ring like this one. Then there’s the pure artistry and uniqueness of it. If nothing else, I can gush over that.
Let’s face it, it’s the only silver lining in this whole debacle.
“I’m not marrying you,” I insist again because there’s something unmistakably grave about this moment. Not only have I fantasized about it for years, but I’ve fantasized it specificallywith this man.
My chest hurts when he draws my hand toward him and reverently slips the ring over the last knuckle of my finger. His head is bent as if in prayer, as if he’s immersed in a sanctified act. He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses the ring on my finger. The soft, dry touch of his lips jolts me like an electric shock.
Rattled, I snatch my hand back and cradle it against my chest.
Sizzling heat hangs in the air between us.
Sheesh, why do I feel like we went through a ceremony or something? Why do I feel like something passed between us from his simple act of placing the ring on my finger? It’s not like he even proposed, I remind myself firmly. This means nothing. It’s nothing more than a way of protecting me until the danger passes. Then, I’ll go back to plotting my escape.
I wrap my hand around the ring and promise, “It’s a stunning piece. I’ll make sure to keep it safe for you so you will have a chance to give it to your…real wife.”
Hurt and confusion crosses his face, but it quickly morphs into defiance. Dammit, that’s not good. He slams the steering wheel hard, grabs his Glock, and swings out of the car. Scanning the street carefully, he comes around to my side and opens the door for me. He blocks me and wraps a hand around my throat.
Tilting my head up until our eyes clash, he declares, “Precious, you are my real wife. My only wife.”
“I am not,” I rasp.
As if I hadn’t said a word, he goes on to warn me, “And don’t you dare twist the ring around on your finger and hide it when we’re at school.” He points to it threateningly. “To make this convincing to the Bratva, it must be convincing to everyone. Remember that.”
With that final warning, he releases my throat and gestures for me to get inside the house.
* * *
Since our fake engagement,my life has changed quite a bit. In many ways, I grew up like an only child. With Tatum being so much older than I am and working so much, I’ve had lots of alone time to study and feed my growing obsession with art.
But in one day—poof!—all that privacy vanished like a puff of smoke.
Sunday was calm enough. Lucian took me with him to work and to visit his mother and explain why he was temporarily moving in with me.
But come Monday, everything changed. First, I woke up to Lucian’s tongue on my clit.
Waking up to an organism is a definite perk, but then there are the not-so-great moments. Like no more subway rides with Crina and Gabby. Instead, Lucian drives me to school. And the hovering doesn’t stop there. He seems to think he should flaunt our engagement like it’s a billboard in Times Square. You know the one? The one that stands twenty-two stories tall with a series of high-def LED screens.
