Page 3 of Playing the Sicilian's Game of Revenge

It filled him with an emotion he could not quite identify that he could do both to her.

“I have a meeting tonight,” he told her, walking her to his office door. “But I’d like to take you out to dinner tomorrow.” Usually he gave her more details, but tomorrow would be special. Tomorrow, all his plans would start to stitch together.

She would say yes to his proposal. He had no doubt. But he also saw the little flash of suspicion in her eyes at this moment. Since she had privy to his schedule and knew the meeting wasn’t business, she was suspicious. She likely thought it something as mundane as seeing another woman behind her back.

Teo was not mundane.

He smiled at her in the way that usually had her softening. And it was intoxicating to make this woman soften. She was young enough he’d thought she’d be naive. Biddable.

Saverina was none of those things, but luckily she’d taken to him anyway. And tomorrow, she would agree to be his bride.

But tonight, he had some things to set in motion.

“The meeting is with the lawyer of my mother’s estate,” he explained, even though the explanation was a lie. “It shouldn’t take all evening. If you’d like, you can let yourself into my place, and I’ll text you when I’m on my way.”

His mother had no estate. There were no lawyers. There were only the men he’d hired to get the DNA from Dante required to then test it against his.

Proof was the first step.

Destruction was the second.

Saverina was a tool, a means to an end, but one he was prepared to lie to for the rest of his life, if necessary.

When she smiled up at him, a silent agreement to be waiting for him, he knew that he would succeed.

Thrive, he told himself. Because what was better success and satisfaction than revenge against the man who’d made his mother’s life hell?

Teo would pay any price to win that game.

CHAPTER TWO

SAVERINA WALKED INTO Teo’s luxury apartment after being let into the building by the doorman, who knew her by sight now. Since she lived with Lorenzo and his family—because she loved spending time with her niece and nephew, and because Lorenzo’s estate was big enough that she could feel like she lived on her own if she wanted to—Teo had never met her there.

Maybe she should broach going public with him. She’d been just as keen to keep their relationship a secret at first—both because of their positions at Parisi and because...well, she’d wanted to make sure this was something...real first. Deep down, she knew it was a little silly, but she couldn’t stand the thought of failing in her brother’s and sister-in-law’s eyes.

And maybe, in the dark of Teo’s lavish apartment, she could admit to herself it wasn’t just failing in front of Lorenzo. It was failing...period. She didn’t think anyone—even her brothers and sisters—knew just how hard she worked to make her entire life look like effortless success.

She felt as if she owed them that. After all they’d sacrificed, so much more terrible things they’d seen during their traumatic childhood, and the loss of her eldest sister—Saverina wanted them all to believe her life was easy and everything she wanted. She hoped they thought her spoiled and frivolous and successful. Without a care in the world.

She blew out a breath, frustrated at the serious tone of her thoughts today. Ever since that meeting with Teo this afternoon, she’d been out of sorts. He’d never mentioned this “meeting” of his until today, and she didn’t know why it had felt...off.

It wasn’t right to be suspicious. He’d given her no reason to be, and he had every right to be a little...strange regarding a meeting with his late mother’s estate lawyer. She knew he had no father in the picture, and his mother’s death had been a long, drawn-out affair—though he’d never been specific about what illness had taken her life.

Saverina hadn’t pressed because she knew not just the pain of losing a mother long before you were ready, but the way the circumstances behind it could twist inside of you. The way it felt better to hold it in some dark place inside rather than discuss it ad nauseam.

Besides, if he was really off doing something that would damage their relationship, would he have invited her to be here tonight? She liked to think no. But a little voice inside of her that had never trusted a man outside her family before whispered maybe.

Frustrated with herself, she didn’t bother with the lights. She walked through the apartment and out to her favorite part of it. The curving balcony that looked out over the city. In the daylight, you could see the Madonie Mountains stretch out beyond the ancient spires and sleek lines of Palermo’s architecture. At night, the city sparkled until it all went dark past the beach and in the midst of the Gulf of Palermo.

Saverina stepped into the cool evening and breathed in deep. She’d long planned to spend her life alone. Happily single. Like Lorenzo. But then he’d gone and gotten himself married and built a family. And if Lorenzo could believe in something like love, then surely it existed. Surely it could exist for her too.

No one had warned her it would be terrifying. No one had explained to her that she might have a riot of feelings inside her she didn’t know how to put to words. And worse, that she might not have any idea how the person on the receiving end felt about all this emotion.

Sex was easy, she’d found, and suddenly in retrospect understood a lot of her classmates better. Love, on the other hand, was complicated.

Did she love Teo? She was almost certain she did. Did he love her? She thought he acted as though he did, but he never gave her the words.

Should she tell him first? Part of her knew she should. Silly and old-fashioned—something she refused to be—to wait for him to say it first.

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