Page 4 of Marry Me Not
“Sounds fatal,” he drawled, sounding faintly amused.
I wasn’t a person who was easily angered. I had a steady temper. Or at least I thought I did, but right at this moment, I couldn’t hold back.
“You know, I pity men like you.”
A chuckle. “This oughta be good.”
“Men who look at something they don’t understand and dismiss it instead of seeing it for the invitation it is.”
“An invitation to do what exactly?”
“To look inward.”
“Maybe I did once and didn’t like what I found enough to do it again.”
Anxiety rushed through me like a spark catching dry grass. For the first time, it occurred to me that this man might not be one of Rafe’s polished society acquaintances or some public company executive.
He might be someone from the other side of my brother’s life. The side people lowered their voices to discuss.
I swallowed. “You’re a friend of my brother’s?”
“Business partner.”
I didn’t have to guess what kind of business he meant.
“Soon we’ll be family.”
Shock ignited through me.
He stepped into the light, and I stopped breathing.
Iknewthat face.
I’d seen a photo of it for the first time nine months ago when Rafe had informed me about the arrangement he’d made on my behalf.
Cosimo Ferraro. Underboss of the Ferraro family.
And my fiancé.
CHAPTER 2
FABIANA
“Hello, Fabiana.”
For one suspended second, all I could do was stare at him.
What was that? Some kind of a test? He’d known who I was the whole time. And I just—Oh God.Had I really spilled my guts to the man I couldn’t help but think about every time I looked at this painting?
I felt tricked. Trapped. My gaze drifted over him in a desperate attempt to orient myself.
He looked just like the photo I’d seen, but somehowmore. A picture couldn’t capture someone’s presence, and Cosimo had the kind of presence that permeated through the entire room. He was huge—tall, broad, well proportioned. A prominent vein ran down the side of his neck and disappeared beneath the collar of his white dress shirt. The steel-gray suit fit him perfectly, but even all that expensive fabric couldn’t soften the hard, powerful shape of him.
His lips were just like I remembered from the photo—a little too full, a little too soft for his angular face. The short beard covering his jaw made him look a few years older than his twenty-eight. His hazelnut hair curled slightly, and he’d brushed it out of his face, keeping it in place with a bit of gel.
What struck me most about him were his eyes. In the photo, they’d been flat. Unremarkable. But in person, they were a vivid dark-blue color, and they bore their way into you with a relentless force.
I got the sense this man read people the way mere mortals read ink on paper.
