Page 13 of Playing the Sicilian's Game of Revenge

Not against Lorenzo and her family, but against her own enemy.

Saverina looked back at the wall, trying to understand...any of this. He wanted to destroy Dante. Who was...his father, apparently, because getting revenge on a man whose DNA did not match didn’t make sense. So, this was about his parentage? He was Dante’s illegitimate son, and wanted some kind of revenge over that?

Perhaps she should be relieved, but she couldn’t quite get there. Why was he tricking her when they wanted the same thing? Surely he knew she’d be more than happy to see Dante crushed. Nothing about this fit any of the scenarios she’d come up with in her mind, and she had no idea how to proceed.

Leave, and regroup. That was what she had to do. But before she could even think about getting up, someone slid into the booth across from her.

Teo.

She could only stare at him. No words, no excuses, no thoughts formed.

“I hope you heard all of that, bedda,” he murmured silkily. “I’d hate to have to go over it again.”

Teo would give her credit. Saverina didn’t wilt when he slid into the booth across from her. She didn’t look the least bit abashed. She looked coolly furious once she got over her shock.

And beautiful.

He couldn’t think about that just yet. Too many things were problematic now. He wished he’d noticed her just a few minutes earlier, but he’d already made his toast when he’d caught sight of her profile in the booth.

How she’d gotten there, what she was doing, he did not yet now. But he knew he had to play his cards very carefully.

His revenge would not be thwarted by her now.

She met his gaze, chin up and regal. All icy princess. Something painful twisted in his chest. He wanted to reach out. Touch the soft velvet skin of her cheek. Press his mouth to hers. He hadn’t tasted her in days, and no matter how Dante and revenge had absorbed his every waking hour, he hadn’t been able to put her out of his mind.

Unacceptable.

“I heard enough, I think, but not enough to understand quite what this is.”

“I guess that’s something we have in common this evening, because I cannot fathom why you are here, Saverina. When you told me you were away.” When she should know nothing about his connection to Dante.

For a moment, she only held his gaze with a blank one of her own. “I suppose I never told you how much I abhor secrets, Teo. How I would go to any lengths to find the truth when I suspect I or my family might be in danger.”

“I pose no threat to your family, Saverina.”

“Anyone who connects to Dante Marino is a threat to my family, and apparently you have quite the connection.”

He could not fathom how she had found this out, but he gave none of his surprise away. He thought he should be furious, but there was a different sensation plaguing him, and he did not understand it.

A kind of relief laced with pride. She knew, so he did not have to keep twisting the lies and secrets around someone who was now in so much of his life. She knew, because she was keen and smart and strong enough to suss out any threat.

But he was no threat.

“My revenge on Dante has nothing to do with our relationship—”

“Don’t.” And she sounded just hurt enough under the icy fury that he could not continue the lie he’d always meant to tell her if she began to have suspicions about his motives. “Perhaps I don’t understand what you’re after, or why you’d use me to get it, but I know you were using me. It is not coincidence. Your job at Parisi. Your engagement to me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. Because you don’t love me, Teo. That is very obvious.”

“Then why did you agree to marry me?”

For a moment, he saw those vulnerable hurts of hers he was forever pretending weren’t there because they so quickly disappeared. Tonight, she simply looked down. “I thought... I came here tonight because I thought your connection to Dante was about hurting my family.”

“I have no wish to hurt your family, Saverina.” Not that he had any plans to protect them, either. It just happened they had the same enemy, so they could all give each other things they wanted.

She nodded. “Well, that is a relief. But you’re going to have to explain to me what your plans are, or I am going to have to make some of my own.”

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