Page 35 of Venomous Vows

Ripping the door open to my office, I find Elena inspecting her sister up and down like a worried mother. She turns her around, checking her arms, legs, and face while I stare at the both of them like I’m interrupting when it’smyhouse.

“Oh.” Marcella’s blue eyes suddenly meet mine and she gives me a small smile as if happy to see me. “Hi, Mr. Bernardi.”

I inwardly sigh and bow my head in silent acknowledgment. The truth is about to come out that I’ve kept Marcella a secret for three days and haven’t mentioned it to Elena yet. I’ve been giving her some time to adjust to the house and the idea that we’re still going through with the arrangement and her sister is a distraction.

Would still be a distraction if she was here.

Now, she is.

Elena follows her sister’s stare and I can’t help but glance at her. I see a mixture of relief and happiness in her eyes that I haven’t seen yet and I’m slightly proud that I put it there. However, Marcella just opened up a can of worms that’s only going to make Elena and me descend even further in our shitty relationship.

I haven’t told Elena that I rescued her sister. And that fact alone is going to set my soon-to-wife off.

“I wanted to thank you.” Marcella slips out of Elena’s arms and waltzes toward me. I notice that she’s wearing different clothes that I sent over for her and I’m happy to see that they fit. “Your men have been so kind to me and I honestly…” She inhales as though her next words are hard to say. “I can’t thank you enough for the other day.”

“It was my pleasure, Marcella.”

Elena softly grips her sister’s arm and turns her frame to face her. “How about you go upstairs and pick an empty room. We’re going to be staying here for…a while.”

Marcella cups her sister’s face with a smile. “You didn’t tell me you were dating anyone. Mr. Bernardi says you’re getting married.”

“Call him Adrian,” Elena retorts softly. “And we’ll talk all about it later.”

“Okay.” Marcella sends me another smile and then rounds her sister’s body to start up the grand staircase upstairs.

A small palm lands on my chest with a thud and that’s when Elena shoves me back into my office and slams the door behind her with her foot.

However, I know this little vixen like I do the back of my hand and I know the kind of shit that’s going to spew from her pretty lips.

So I flip the script and shove her spine right back into the door before wrapping my fingers around her delicate little neck.

“Surprise,” I muse, trying to make light of the situation, but it’s not going to work. My future wifey has a bunch to say and I’m here for all of it.

“Adrian…howlongago did you rescue my sister?”

“Three days ago.”

Her nostrils flare and it draws me to her lips. She is so fucking elegant and curvy, the perfect mold of a mob wife and the envy of any man with eyes, but her little mind and mouth seem to get her in trouble.

“You’re tellin’ me…that I could’ve spent the lastthreenightsnotworrying about my sister since you had her the whole time?”

“I was going to surprise you,” I divulge and it’s not a total lie. I just haven’t decided if I was going to do it or not.

“What? By throwing a parade?”

I allow my lips to coil. “I know you well enough to say you wouldn’t have enjoyed that.”

Elena’s blue eyes search my face for something. “You weren’t going to tell me.”

That’s not true.

However, the timeline obviously wasn’t going to be to her liking. I wanted to make sure that Spencer Halley wasn’t going to make a move on my fiancée before I started moving Marcella around. Guys like that get a little trigger-crazed and I wanted to focus on one damn thing at a time. Who knows what Elena would’ve wanted to do with her sister when she arrived back safe and sound?

Go to the Olive Garden?

“Why do you say that?”

Her eyes squint a bit. “You didn’t bring her to me the first moment you got her. You didn’t even tell me you were going like I asked you to.”

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