Because if I pick it up, I'll text her. And if I text her, I'll say something I can't take back. Something that reveals how completely she just destroyed every wall I spent two years building.
Angel.
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes.
This changes nothing.
She's still a transaction. Still a test. Still someone I need to keep at arm's length until Pietro is satisfied and I can take my rightful place as Don.
I don't want her.
I don't know her.
I won't want her.
I refuse to want her.
Antonella
The door rattles in its frame from how hard I slammed it.
My hands won't stop shaking.
I press my back against the wood and slide down until I'm sitting on the floor. The pillow is still clutched against my chest. My wedding dress pools around me like a white puddle.
What was that?
I've been stared at before. Men look. They always look. I learned to ignore it years ago.
But Bruno didn't just look.
Hesaw.
His eyes moved over my body like he was trying to learn every inch. Like he was taking inventory. And then when he looked at my face?—
I shiver.
His expression didn't change. That's what unsettles me most. His face stayed frozen. Unreadable. A mask carved from stone. But his eyes...
His eyes burned.
I pull my knees up to my chest. The silk of my dress rustles against the hardwood floor. Cold seeps through the fabric.
I'm not scared.
That's the strange part. I should be scared. A man I barely know just barged into my room while I was undressing. A man who controls an empire built on violence. A man everyone in this house warned me about.
Don't cross him.
Stay out of his way.
Giulia said it when she showed me to my room. Vittoria said it in the car. Even the guards who escorted me through the compound said it with their eyes. Everyone in this house walks on eggshells around Bruno Sartori.
And I just slammed a door in his face.
A laugh bubbles up in my throat. Hysterical. Wrong. I swallow it down.
I knew what this marriage might mean. I'm not naive. I understood the implications. A wife has duties. Obligations. I prepared myself for the possibility that my husband—whoever he turned out to be—would expect things from me.