Page 52 of The Scandal Behind The Italian’s Wedding

“Well, you did marry a billionaire. Normal may not exactly be in the cards.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Fine. I’ll take your normal.”

She smiled, and it tugged something in his chest. “We’ll leave immediately.”

“I guess I should get packed...”

“No need. Everything will be waiting for us when we get to our home. And anything you need here will be sent.”

“Oh.”

“The pilot is already on his way.”

They were in the sky only an hour later.

Minerva was beginning to seem agitated.

“Why are you picking at your fingernails?”

“I’m not,” she said, pulling at her finger.

“You are.” He put his hand over hers. “What are you doing?”

She stopped then. “Nothing.”

“Something.”

“We didn’t discuss... Dante, I know that you have a terrible reputation for being a womanizer. And you... You treat me like I’m fragile. You treat me like you might break me when we’re in bed.”

He was taken aback by her frankness, but he let her go on.

“I don’t know any kind of bedroom tricks. There are always magazine saying there are one hundred sex tips in there. I don’t even think I know two.” She wrinkled her nose. “Well, no. I do. I might know three. But even then, they’re not very well developed. And it was one thing when we were on the island and there were no other women. But are you going to... Are you going to get tired of me?”

“We said vows,” he said. “I will not violate them.”

She wrinkled her nose. “That isn’t answering my question.”

“Didn’t you want to know if I was going to be faithful?”

“Well, yes. But I also want to know if you’re going to be bored.”

“I can have the same concern, Minerva. You’ve only been with one man. How do I know that you won’t get resentful of that fact? That you won’t want to try someone different. To experience variety.”

“I won’t,” she said.

“Very confident. All the confidence of the inexperienced.”

“No,” she said. “It’s that I had opportunity in my life, and I didn’t take it. It took me all this time to realize it was because of you. Because of how I felt about you. That I... That I was attracted to you.”

“Right. But now you know what it is to be with me. Perhaps the mystery is gone.”

“It was never about mystery,” she said.

“How about we simply both promise each other fidelity.”

“Okay,” she said softly.

And he could tell that he had done something wrong, but he wasn’t certain what.

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