Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 36268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 145(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 145(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
Siena’s blush actually deepens.
Chi bedda. How adorable.
“But...I just...you really want me to say it first?”
“I can’t give you a reward if you don’t say it first.”
My wife takes a breath, and I nearly smile.
Truth be told, I don’t really give a damn what she says exactly. Royal Contini Motors. 4th World Champion. New F1 Challenge. It didn’t really matter. Whatever she says, I already know I plan to give her the world—
“I love you.”
I’m already leaning forward, ready to reward her guess properly. Ready to take her upstairs and show her exactly how those three words affect me when she says them. Ready to make her say them again and again until her voice breaks from screaming them...until I register what she actually said.
Did she just fucking say ‘I love you’?
I look at her, see my wife smiling at me with stars in her eyes, and my blood goes cold.
“You think I was going to say ‘I love you’?” The words come out flat. Incredulous.
A helpless laugh escapes her. “I got it wrong, didn’t I?“
For a moment, relief floods through. She’s joking. Playing. Everything’s fine—
“I should have said it in Sicilian!”
Ah, fuck, everything’s still not fine.
“Were you going to say ‘Ti amu assai?” Her face lights up again. “Or maybe ‘Ti vogghiu beni’? Did I—”
Hearing those words from her lips, words I’ve never said, words I’ll never say, and something inside of me just...fucking snaps.
“I don’t love you.”
The words come out low but violently sharp, and I regret them instantly.
I want to take it all back but it’s too damn late, with how the light in my wife’s eyes just as instantly disappeared, and all I see now are shadows of dashed dreams and shattered pieces of hope.
“Sienah—”
“I don’t understand.” Her voice is small. Lost. “You said you’ve been waiting to talk about this for years.”
“I have.” My jaw works, trying to find words that won’t make this worse. “Gabriel and I have been in negotiations for six years. The contract—”
“But when we married, you promised my feelings wouldn’t be disregarded.” She’s shaking now. Really shaking. Like she might come apart at the seams. “You promised—”
“And I haven’t disregarded them.” The words come out too sharp. Too defensive. “I’ve always been faithful. I’ve never—”
She jerks like I’ve slapped her. And suddenly I understand. All these years. All these years, she thought...
“You thought I meant I would try to love you back?” Disbelief makes my voice rough.
Her laugh is nothing like the musical sound from minutes ago. This is broken glass. This is everything wrong.
“I know it sounds stupid, right?” Tears stream down her face now, but she doesn’t wipe them. “But yes, I thought you meant that, and it’s why I waited all these...t-ten years.” Her voice cracks on the number. “I waited and I believed that someday you’d...”
I reach for her instinctively, wanting and needing to touch her and fix what I never meant to break.
But my wife jerks away from my hand like it’s poison, and I just...freeze.
In all the years we’ve been married, she’s never refused my touch.
Never looked at me like I’m the enemy instead of her husband.
Until now.
“I want out.”
Three words. Different from the ones she expected. Different from the ones I planned.
Three words that change everything.
Ten Years Ago
SHE WAS STANDING BY the window, backlit by the garden lights. Her wedding dress was gone, replaced by something white and silky that skimmed her thighs and left far too much skin exposed. Her dark hair fell in waves over her shoulders instead of the elaborate updo she’d worn during the ceremony.
But it was her expression that stopped him cold. Fearful and expectant and beautiful. Her brown eyes were wide, pupils dilated, and when she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue—
Ah, fuck.
She was innocently and obviously aroused, and she was looking at him like he was about to either save her or destroy her.
The Cannizzaro compound had finally quieted after hours of celebration. Judge Morrison had officiated with his usual efficiency, keeping the ceremony brief and legal. No flowery speeches about eternal love. Just vows and signatures and done.
Aivan had climbed the marble stairs to the master suite with only one intention: bid his new wife goodnight and retreat to his study. Maybe review tomorrow’s training schedule. Anything to avoid thinking about the way Salvatore Ricci had stared at her during the reception, or how something violent had twisted in his chest at the sight.
His original plan had been simple: keep the marriage uncomplicated. Business arrangement, separate bedrooms, polite distance. No messy emotions, no physical entanglements that might blur the lines of what this really was.
But the woman standing in front of him wasn’t thinking about business arrangements. The hunger in her eyes, the way she was breathing, the flush spreading down her throat. She wanted him. Her body language screamed it even though she hadn’t said a word.