Page 11 of Dangerous Deception

So why does it feel so strange?

Music flows around the banquet hall of the Varricchio estate, where we retired after the wedding ceremony. It’s three times bigger than my father’s estate, and walking up the steps to the front door, I was in utter awe of how many windows lined the walls. I couldn’t even count how many rooms this place must have.

The banquet hall is draped in colors similar to those of the wedding hall. Men and women I scarcely know mill around the dance floor, swaying in time to the music while alcohol flows from bottles to glasses as easily as one breathes. My father sitsthree chairs down from me at the head table, but he’s buried deep in conversation with a man I don’t recognize, leaving me with no one to talk to. Raffaele hasn’t spoken a single word to me since the kiss, but he lights up like a beacon in the middle of the crowd with a glass of Scotch in one hand and a small pastry in the other.

Monster.

The word bursts through my mind the next time I catch sight of him, and my stomach twists into knots, threatening to dislodge the few bites I had of the chicken that sits on my plate in front of me. It is too lemony for my tastes and it’s difficult to maintain an appetite in this situation. Raffaele smiles widely at something the man next to him says, displaying a row of perfect white teeth. They gleam against his golden skin and he raises one hand, pushing back a few strands of his ear-length blond hair. Despite his best efforts, a few strands escape forward once more. They skim along his forehead, waving back and forth as he laughs and throws that same arm around the shoulders of the man beside him.

How can he laugh like this?

How can he smile knowing he’s responsible for the deaths of countless of our own people? Does he have no conscience? Is there no part of him that even acknowledges the monstrous acts he commits that we all know him for?

Yet every person here treats him like a regular guy. Even my father didn’t seem particularly concerned when they met briefly at the limos after the wedding. I don’t know what they said to one another, but my father has been in a good mood ever since.

He keeps telling me how proud he is of me, and normally, this would warm me infinitely.

But I can’t get past Carlos.

I was supposed to marry him. We were going to get married somewhere sunny and warm. I would wear a pink dress, andhe would wear a brown suit. We would eat all our favorite finger foods because finger foods are so much easier to eat on a stressful day.

I glance down at my plate.

Instead, I’m eating lemony chicken with small potatoes, some asparagus and a dollop of something orange, and marrying his killer.

Warmth beads behind my eyes as the urge to cry rises, so I try to distract myself by focusing on the single normal thing about this wedding.

Marie.

She’s utterly oblivious to everything else that’s going on, and while she murmured in my ear that she thought the color scheme was strange, in her eyes, Raffaele and I have married so swiftly because of passion.

She dances around the dancefloor in a peach-colored dress with a glass of sparkling champagne in one hand. Her hair flows behind her, her smile is wide, and her eyes sparkle with the gloss of one too many drinks. Marie has no idea she’s surrounded by one of—if not the—most powerful families in the city. Every single person except me and Marie is armed in some way. Countless guards posed as guests eye one another with suspicion while waiting for someone to make the first move. Even the wait staff who serve the food and wander the party offering refills are highly trained. I can tell by how they move and the speed at which my personal waiter caught my glass of wine when it nearly spilled on my dress.

My perfect wedding dress.

It feels more like a cage than anything.

“You haven’t eaten anything.”

While distracted by my turbulent thoughts, I hadn’t noticed that Raffaele was no longer on the dancefloor. Now, he standsbeside me with his glass in hand and fixes me with a piercing look from his alarmingly intense green eyes.

I stare up at him, studying how the candles flickering on the table change his eyes from a hard jade green to a softer, mossy green. It would be attractive in anyone other than him.

“Not hungry.”

“Not to your liking?”

“Like you care.”

“You are my wife. Of course I care what you like to eat.”

“Bull crap.” I raise my voice slightly and attract the attention of a few nearby guards. “If you cared about that, you’d have involved me in even a fraction of the wedding planning. I’m as relevant as the toppers on top of that damn cake.” I glare briefly across the room to the three-tiered cake that’s as basic and generic as everything else about today. It’s as if he picked a package from a catalog and I just slotted into my role.

“Your father sent through a list of your likes and dislikes,” Raffaele replies quietly. “Was he wrong?”

Just as I’m about to look toward my father, I catch Marie’s eye. She’s stopped dancing and is watching me and Raffaele with a slight frown on her face. The last thing I need is to make her worry about me, so I quickly force a bright smile to calm her, then turn to face Raffaele.

“I don’t know,” I reply tightly, keeping my voice low. “Why don’t you ask my father?” Standing abruptly, the world around me sways dangerously and the several glasses of wine I drank on an empty stomach suddenly make themselves known.

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