Page 20 of Iron Bride

Because it never felt right.

“Because sunlight reaches the Earth’s atmosphere and is scattered by gases and particles,” she whispered. “Blue light is scattered more than other colors at a broader angle because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. It’s called Rayleigh scattering.”

I smiled to myself, as I tucked my nose into her hair.

“I’ve been in school as long as possible to delay our marriage,” she admitted. “I learned a thing or two.”

“That you did,” I chuckled.

I knew she was reluctant to marry. My parents delayed our initial marriage date until she and I finished university. Then afterwards, she went for a masters, requesting an additionaldelay. She would have gone for a PhD had my father not put his foot down and said we had waited long enough.

“Will you still be finishing your doctorate, then?” I asked, casually twirling a finger in her chestnut-colored hair.

She flinched, looking up at me. “I didn’t think that was a choice.”

“Of course, it’s a choice.” I shrugged. “When things calm down, you should tell me if you want to.”

“Only in New York, I imagine,” she whispered, forlornly.

“For now,” I admitted. “But if things calm down, if you’re willing to wait, then you could go anywhere you wish.”

Her face was stuck in a mask of confusion. Like I was throwing too many curve balls at her at once.

“But,” I said, dramatically. She almost looked comforted with that single word—the one that could contradict all that came before it. “You must be honest with me.”

Her face closed again. Expressionless. Cold.

I liked this version of her the least. This was the one she presented to me all those years. To my parents. To the world. The one that had no feelings, and an impenetrable surface. Like a frozen lake with all the activity hidden beneath the still surface.

“We don’t have to be enemies, Gia,” I whispered, almost desperate to reach her. “We can be allies. We can be friends. We can work together in this world if you let us.”

She turned away again, and I grabbed her chin to turn her back to me.

I liked doing this—controlling where her gaze landed and ensuring that it stayedon me.Was I a narcissist? Maybe.

“We were thrown into this together, love,” I whispered against her lips. They parted, her tongue darting out to wet that plump bottom lip. “We had no choice. We canchooseto make this marriage work.”

“Would you let me choose to divorce you?”

“No.” The word came out stronger than I meant it. The disappointment in her eyes had me back pedaling. “At least not yet. I have no interest in the Mafia-Irish war resuming. That’s bad for business. That’s bad forus.But if we ever get to a real situation of peace… if you were truly unhappy… then we’d talk about it.”

Over my dead body.

We’d talk about it. The answer would still be no, but she didn’t need to know that.

She looked at me and smiled, sadly, as if she could read my every thought. As though she knew each and every deception in it but appreciated my attempt.

She lay silent for a moment, and my eyes couldn’t help grazing down the long lines of her lithe body. Sensual, curved, and perfectly formed. I was developing an unhealthy obsession with the way her hip rounded, as she lay on her side. The beauty of theslight bend in her knee, and how I wanted them parted on either side of me as I drove myself in her again.

I needed to ask her about Marco. About the man in the footage. The man who followed her like a limping, love-sick dog.

But he wasn’t her lover. She had never had one. In some way, we were fated to only be each other’s. And there was comfort in that. One that heated my blood with a possession I never knew.

My cock throbbed with lingering desire, reignited.

Surely, we could discuss the important things tomorrow.

Or better yet, after Christmas.

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