Page 34 of Marry Me Not
“We’re getting married, Fabiana.”
Had he lost his mind? “With all due respect, no. We’re not.”
“Everything has changed. Listen?—”
“No, you listen.” The sharpness in my own voice startled me. “I’m sorry. I know you’re grieving. But that dinner made it crystal clear that me and you are never going to work.”
“Everything has changed,” he repeated as if that explained anything. “I can’t lose this alliance with Messero now that my family’s destabilized.”
Something hot flared inside my chest. “You never planned on losing your alliance with Rafaele, marriage or not,” I said sharply. “It’s obvious you believed you could find a way to keep your business relationship with my brother intact regardless of whether we got married. Otherwise, I imagine you would have tried at least a little bit harder to make it work.”
“That’s true.” He sounded mildly taken aback, like he thought even a simple deduction like that was beyond me. Which wasfine. I wasn’t trying to prove anything to him. Not anymore. I just wanted to move on. The quicker we ceased to have a reason to have any contact with each other, the quicker I’d forget about the way my pulse skittered in his vicinity.
“I won’t try to pit Rafaele against you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I said.
“There are other reasons why this marriage isn’t optional anymore.”
And he obviously wasn’t in any rush to share them with me. No, he just expected to do a complete one-eighty and have me go along with it like some trained monkey.
My fist squeezed around my phone. “Do you not see how ridiculous you’re being?” I demanded. “You told me I don’t have what it takes to be a don’s wife, and now you’ve changed your mind, and you respect me so little that you won’t even explain to me the real reasons why!”
“I need to project stability and strength to the family. If my first act in the aftermath of Dad’s death does anything to jeopardize the partnership he worked so hard to establish, it’ll do the opposite.”
“I’m sure you can find a way to explain it to them,” I said, unmoved. He wanted me to be a part of his personal PR campaign. How little did he think of me to presume I’d go along with this after how he’d treated me? I still possessed some self-respect.
“Fabiana—”
All the hurt I’d been holding down—the rehearsed speeches, the nights staring at the ceiling, the humiliation that burned in my throat like acid—rose up and spilled over.
“I won’t do it, Cosimo. Not to help you avoid a difficult conversation with your family. You clearly didn’t care about how difficult it would have been for me to tell Rafaele I couldn’t go through with the marriage. So, no, Cosimo. The answer is no. Out of respect, I’ll give you a few days to talk to Rafaele yourself. If you won’t, I’ll do it myself. This engagement is done.”
And then I did something I’d never done in my entire life.
I hung up on him.
Not ten seconds later, my phone rang again.
I picked up against my better judgment.
“I’ve taken care of the problem with your coworker.”
The words I’d been about to say—don’t call me again—died on my tongue. “What?”
“She just received an offer from a museum in Zurich, where she’ll be managing special events. A short-term contract for now, but they’ll extend it if she manages to impress them.”
I blinked at the wall across from me while my brain scrambled to make sense of this information. “You got Mona a job? How?”
“The hiring manager doesn’t make a lot. Life in Geneva is expensive. Guess you could say I bribed him.”
I nearly choked on my next inhale. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
“That wasn’t my intentio?—”
“I don’t understand.” I gripped the phone tighter. “Why would you do that?”
“So you can stop feeling guilty about something that wasn’t your fault. I figured after how I’ve treated you these last few months, a kind gesture was in order.”
Inside me, something loosened.A kind gesture.I suppose it was if you ignored the illegality of it.
