Page 12 of The Scandal Behind The Italian’s Wedding

CHAPTER THREE

MINERVAHADBEENstewing on his sudden devoutness to his latent Catholicism for two weeks.

He couldn’t be serious. He absolutely couldn’t be serious.

Their marriage would have to have a term limit. She couldn’t stay married to him forever. She wouldn’t need to. And the idea of being shackled to Dante for her entire life...

It made her feel like her skin was too small.

She was the last woman on earth whom he wanted to marry, and surely at some point in her life Minerva deserved to be something other than last.

She didn’t regret taking Isabella on. She could have allowed the police to take her into custody when she’d come home with Isabella and found out the news about Katie.

She hadn’t had to claim that Isabella was hers.

She could have come home with her and found her another home here in the United States, where she would maybe even be safer from Carlo.

But she... She felt like Isabella was her child.

She’d cared for her during Katie’s depression.

Her stewing was productive ultimately. Because by the time the evening of their engagement party rolled around, she had realized the perfect solution.

He was Catholic.

Which meant that while divorce was complicated, there were ways around those complications. They would only need an annulment. Provided, of course, that the marriage wasn’t consummated. And she was well aware that that would cause some slight issues with their ruse, but by the time they separated they wouldn’t need it anyway. And neither she nor Dante was in any danger of temptation to consummate.

She was feeling borderline triumphant by the time she met with her sister to get her hair, makeup and wardrobe done for the event that she didn’t even want.

But her family was under the impression that this was a real marriage, and not only was it a big deal because she was getting married, it was a big deal because Dante was getting married. The fact that they were getting married to each other was making it a whole King family spectacle.

“You need gold,” Violet said authoritatively. “Gold eye shadow, gold bronzer, a gold dress.”

“I’m going to look like an award,” Minerva pointed out.

She was feeling out of sorts because she did not have Isabella with her. Her mother had Isabella for the time being, and then for the party itself she would be up in her room with a nanny attending.

“Well, that is exactly how you should look,” Violet said. “Like a prize that Dante has won, right?”

She looked at her sister’s sullen face. “Except, you think that I’ve won the award,” Minerva said. “The award being Dante.”

Violet’s eyes locked with Minerva’s. “I don’t really. It’s fine. I had a slight crush on him for a while, but I’m over it.”

“I’m sorry,” Minerva said. “I really didn’t know.”

“Mom said that you had a crush on him for years.”

“Honestly, the rumor mill in this family.”

“She said you had a crush on him for all your life.” Minerva felt doubly guilty, because not only was she marrying the man that her sister had feelings for, her own feelings were a fabrication.

“Yes,” Minerva said, her throat going dry. “It’s why I always followed him around.”

He was the one who had brought that up.

That was not why she’d followed him around. She had felt compelled to interact with him. To be near him. Like a person might stare at a big cat through the bars of a zoo cage.

He was wild and compelling, and it had never failed to call to something inside her. Though, she didn’t know what to call that thing.

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