Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 125243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
As Antonio scoffs at my idea of a view, I reach for the salt. He doesn’t notice. He’s too busy telling me how I won’t be interested in the view once he finally makes me his.
I sprinkle a small amount of salt into his coffee, stir it gently, then slide the cup back where it was.
“Here,” I say softly. “Drink your coffee. It’s getting cold.”
He takes a sip and immediately spits it out. Hot coffee splashes across the table and my hands. I jerk back, but not fast enough. The liquid burns when it seeps into my nightgown. I don’t flinch, though. Not in front of him.
“What on earth is wrong with you?” He slams the cup down so hard that it rattles the plates. “Are you trying to poison me?”
I blink at him, my expression perfectly blank. “No. Why would I do that?”
“Because you blame me for that bitch’s suicide.” He thrusts his hand at the door as if my best friend were waiting beyond it. “It’s not my fault she walked off a building.”
The world closes in on me as his words echo through my head on repeat. I was never told how Hattie died. I only knew that she had taken her own life.
For a moment, I genuinely think I might hit him. Consequences be damned. I want to hurt him as much as his words hurt me. But I swallow the rage burning in my throat and portray the woman he needs me to be.
Submissive. Controlled. The very definition of a traditional wife.
“Of course it’s not your fault,” I say, the words bitter in my throat. “Suicide is no one’s fault.”
He narrows his eyes, scrutinizing me like he’s attempting to figure out whether I’m lying.
I continue before he can speak. “It’s a tradition in my home country. Like not wearing shoes inside.” I glance pointedly at his shoes—polished, expensive, and very much on.
He follows my gaze, then snarls.
“And staining the sheets,” I add, my voice soft but steady. “It’s tradition.”
His jaw tics before he tries to hide it by scraping his hand along his cut jaw. “And I just failed, didn’t I?”
I fake a laugh. “No. I didn’t realize the lid on the saltshaker was loose. I dropped almost half the canister into your coffee.” Standing, I sashay to his side of the table and plop myself onto his thigh. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit of a klutz when nervous.” I pretend not to notice how he thickens under my ass when I murmur, “And you can’t fail the staining-the-sheets tradition. That’s on me, not you.”
He knows exactly what I’m referring to, but instead of fanning his peacock feathers like most men do when they wrongly believe they’re claiming a woman’s purity, his eyes flicker with suspicion.
“He didn’t touch you?”
“Who?” I ask, well-versed on acting daft.
His back molars grind together before he blurts out a name that stops my heart. “Matteo.” His eyes bounce between mine, searching for deceit. “That’s why he dragged you into the manager’s office at the nightclub last night, right?”
I lie without hesitation. “No. He just wanted to talk.”
“About?”
“Um…” I moisten my parched mouth before adding a sprinkling of truth to my reply. It is always easy to be deceptive when you include a handful of truths. “He heard you had moved the wedding forward a week and wanted to know if it was because we had broken the non-penetration clause of our marriage contract.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t tell him anything.”
He scoffs.
“I didn’t. I told him I didn’t answer to him, and then he left.”
“He left?”
I nod, preferring to lie without words.
“And that’s all that happened? You just talked.”
Again, I nod.
Antonio twists his lips. His reaction isn’t what I expected. He doesn’t look relieved or satisfied. He shows no signs of being reassured. He works his jaw side to side, as if Matteo not touching me is an inconvenience, and he’s irritated his paranoia didn’t pay off.
The realization sends a chill down my spine, but before I can prod for information, he stands abruptly. “Finish your breakfast. We have a schedule to keep.”
Even the makeup artist’s eyes widen in surprise when he leaves without another word shared. He doesn’t even kiss my temple in fake excitement that we’re about to become husband and wife.
I sit in silence, staring at the coffee stain spreading across my nightgown, feeling the burn on everything and nothing all at once. I can’t decide if I’m angrier at Antonio for failing the coffee test or at Matteo for leaving last night with someone else.
If the pain in my chest is anything to go by, I would say it is the latter.
Chapter 34
Matteo
I’m dead asleep on the couch, the only place I’ve been sleeping since the fight with Azra, on the verge of a coma from too much alcohol and drugs, when a freezing, violent blast of water nearly tears my shirt off my chest.