Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
My father had done it. He’d married me off to a powerful, wealthy man—just like he told me he would when I was a little girl.
You’d think by age twenty I’d be used to the thought. But it was one thing to know something was going to happen; it was quite another to have it actually happen.
“Leila?” A soft hand landed on my bare arm, and my Aunt Rosanna gave me a smile. “Come sit down for a minute. You look tired.”
I followed her gratefully to a round table, nodding at some second cousins as I took a seat.
One of the many waiters circling the ballroom showed up with a tray of champagne flutes, but I waved him away. Normally, I enjoyed the bubbly drink, but tonight it seemed likely to add to my feeling of disbelief. “Can I have some water?”
The waiter nodded and left. I smoothed back my hair and looked around the room. My mother was watching from a nearby table, where she was sitting with her friends. I probably wouldn’t be seeing her until the wedding three months away, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to go over and join her.
Besides, maybe she needed a break. Her duty was to raise me to be a good wife, and she’d done that. My duty was to marry a perfect stranger.
“I like the look of your Massimo,” Aunt Rosanna said as she sipped a glass of red wine. “So tall and handsome. And the face of an angel.” She studied the group Massimo was talking with and slightly altered her assessment. “A dark angel.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Massimo was gorgeous. That was my first thought when I’d seen him tonight. The pictures I’d been shown hadn’t done him justice. But now, as I watched him from across the room, it was as if I were seeing him in two different ways. Kind of like how the blue of the sky looks different depending on if you’re wearing tinted glasses or not.
Objectively, he was really good-looking. Tall. Slim hips. Flat stomach. That much was clear even though he had his suit jacket buttoned up. My father had a stomach that strained the buttons of his dress shirt, and his men were all bulky muscles under their suits. Massimo was strong—I’d felt the rippling muscles of his arm as I’d clung to it for photographs—but lean. More like a movie star than a bodyguard.
His even skin was tan, his eyes dark, and his jawline sharp. In short, he was the embodiment of a tall, dark, and handsome man. The sight of him should have filled me with pleasure, but that was only when viewing him one way. The other way filled me with dread, because I recognized the powerful manner in which he carried himself. The authority. The confidence. The obvious wealth. And most of all, the power.
I’d been around such men my entire life. My father was one, in fact. Men who were in charge. Men who commanded other men. Men who were at the head of very powerful organizations.
Illegal organizations.
Mafia organizations.
The word was never said aloud, but I knew. I’d known since I was a child. And that was the reason I was here tonight. Young women in my position didn’t marry for love. We didn’t choose our own husbands. No, we were part of a business transaction in which two powerful families both got something out of the deal.
My family was gaining wealth. Though my dad was still powerful in the New York underworld, his enterprises had been bleeding money in recent years. And the Morettis? I didn’t know what they were getting out of the deal, but I knew we weren’t here because Massimo wanted me as his wife.
His manner and body language had already made that quite clear.
The waiter came, bringing me a crystal flute. I gulped the water down gratefully, feeling it cool my dry throat.
A shadow fell across me, and I looked up to see my mother. “The dancing is going to start soon,” she said, sitting on my other side.
I nodded. I’d been told to expect this—my first dance with my fiancé. Of course, I’d envisioned the handsome man from the photos coming over and holding out his hand as the string quartet played a waltz. Instead, I had my mother telling me to get ready.
Then again, my father had been the one to hand me the large diamond I wore on my left hand. It was a Moretti family heirloom, but apparently proposing—and the groom placing it on the bride-to-be’s hand himself—wasn’t part of the deal.
“If you don’t want to dance with him, I will,” Rosanna said. She was joking, trying to lift my spirits, but my mother still gave her a frosty look. Normally, my mom and my dad’s sister got along pretty well, but it was clear that for my mom tonight was all about appearances, not levity.