Page 3 of These Deadly Vows

“Because I don’t want this.”

“Pity, because despite your bitchy attitude, I still want you. And I intend to have you, Adeline.” He digs into his pocket and produces no ordinary ring. I’d know the diamond anywhere. My mother never took it off. Not even to bathe.

I’ve always known it would one day be mine. I hadn’t been foolish enough to dream that I would receive it from a man I could one day learn to love. I’ve always known it would boil down to this.

Giving myself to a silver-tongued devil.

Roberto slides the princess cut diamond onto my finger with vile thoughts of deflowering me blazing behind his devious eyes, no doubt. Too bad for him that’s a piece he’ll never have of me.

At least not willingly.

“Perfect.” His lips brush my knuckles, and it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to vomit on his designer shoes.

“Shall we?” He holds his arm out for me to take.

“Yes.”

He leans toward me with a sinister and knowing smirk. “Big night for both of us.”

“Maybe for you.”

“I don’t know why you fight it. I will enjoy breaking you in and teaching you to behave. Your father’s been too easy on you.”

I know he’s baiting me. Hoping for a reaction. The sadistic asshole gets off on getting a rise out of me. I’m not giving him the pleasure.

“You smell divine.”

And you smell like shit.

I keep the thought to myself.

He makes me physically ill. Bitterness burns at the back of my throat as he slides a hand to my lower back, guiding me toward the main house.

I bite back the hostility that churns in my stomach and steel my nerves for the night ahead.

The first of many with a man I hate by my side.

“Adeline, you look gorgeous. Spitting image of your mother. She’d be so proud.”

“Thank you, Donatella.” I air kiss her cheeks. My mother never liked her and for good reason. She was one of the first of many to offer herself up to take my mother’s place before her body was cold.

I can’t stand her fakeness, but maybe if Father had accepted, I’d have a brother who’d be becoming a made man right about now. Then it wouldn’t matter as much who I married as long as the family benefited in some way. I don’t have the same luxury as some of my cousins. They have options and I would too if I wasn’t unable to perform the most important duty of a wife.

When I was fourteen, I woke in the middle of the night in terrible pain. They thought it was my appendix but turns out it was a cyst that had ruptured and upon further investigation a tumor was discovered. By fifteen, I’d lost an ovary and a fallopian tube. At sixteen, I had some tests that came back abnormal. My father feared I had the same cancer as my mother, and he made a decision. One that took away my choice to ever be a mother.

I hated my father for a long time, but I know deep down that he did it out of fear of losing me the way he lost her.

“Are you okay? You’ve gone white as a ghost?”

I blink away the bad thoughts and memories. “Only hungry. I haven’t eaten a thing all day. Wanted to make sure I’d fit into my dress.” I touch her arm lightly and grab a flute of champagne off a tray of a waiter passing us by.

My stomach churns and I know if I drink one drop, I’ll throw up.

“Of course.”

I leave her to make my rounds. Putting on a performance like a prized show pony eager to earn my ribbon while Father and his associates are off making deals behind closed doors. More like Roberto is using him like his personal puppet. Paying off officials. Greasing whatever palms necessary to keep business running as smoothly as possible to keep a foothold on our territory.

I smile and nod at all the appropriate times. I know my every word and move are being scrutinized not only by the wives, but by Roberto’s lackeys.

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