Page 22 of Iron Bride

I blushed. “I’m sorry, what?”

His face was suddenly serious, as a storm brewed in his eyes. Not like the one I had grown used to. It was… something else.

“Is there someone else we should be inviting on your behalf?” he asked, leaning down, until his arms boxed me into the mattress. “Another family member, perhaps? A close friend?”

I shook my head, sure that there was definitely a right and wrong answer to his question.

“Just my mother,” I whispered. That strange uneasiness coiled around me again. One that had been absent over the last two days of what I could call a honeymoon. “She’ll probably bring her staff with her, but that’s it.”

“Her staff?”

“Yeah,” I blurted out, needing to say something—anything—that could burst the bubble of this unease. “She might bring her housekeeper, Loretta. And, of course, Marco, her main bodyguard.”

“Marco?” He narrowed his eyes. Was Marco the wrong answer? “Her… bodyguard?”

“Yes. Marco Rossini.” Why did I give his full name? I wasn’t sure. “His mother, Loretta, has stood by my mother for decades. Since before I was born. So, naturally, he was hired later. Especially since…”

Fuck. I was talking too much.

It was as though the screams of passion had opened the floodgates, and the dam was broken. I couldn’t hold back thesecrets I needed to against the man who increasinglydidn’tfeel like my enemy.

“Since we lost everything.” I finally finished because it was too late to take back.

When they killed my grandfather, and the family lost its standing, we were abandoned. Everyone went underground or disavowed the Durantes. Everyone except for Loretta Rossini and her family, who stood by. I grew up alone, without friends and family. Alone, except for Marco,the only person my age who would look at me without that combination of fear and disdain.

Anyone with the name Durante had become the third rail.

“No one else was willing to be associated with us,” I said, feeling every bit the defeated prisoner that Ireallywas.

“Of course.” Cillian traced his thumb against my chin and lifted my face up to meet his. “Is that all I need to know?”

My heart skipped a beat. His eyes, no matter his expression, always stole my breath.

Chapter nine

Merry Christmas

Cillian

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Randa was pestering me again.

Did I want to do this? Did I want to upset the peace we had made inside our marital bed? No.

But at the same time, it needed to be done. Definitive action was better than bleak half measures.

I was never more certain of this than when she came out of the bedroom, looking more seductive than when she was fully naked. She wore a red velvet dress, instead of the expectedgreen. I wasn’t sure if that was a conscious choice—was she defying me? Defying us?

My mother always wore green. So did my sisters. It was an intentional choice. A homage to the family name.

The red pleased and infuriated me in equal measure. Red was the color of the Durantes. So why would she not wear it? Why would we not advertise our two families together? She wore my ring. Though, I was starting to think that she needed emeralds around her throat and dangling from her hand.

She didn’t speak much. Not on the way down in the elevator to my parents’ floor. Not when we entered the room. Instead, she wrapped herself around my arm, holding onto my hand. Like my triceps could defend her from the world.

That was fine with me. I found her silence comforting. It made it fun to watch her face and decipher the light in her eyes, the quirk of a brow. The little twitch on the corner of her lip. She was an enigma. And enigmas were interesting.

I wondered how she’d react at dinner.

I knew so little about the woman I was sharing my life with.

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