Page 108 of Brutal Revenge

I want to tell him I’d rather starve than eat with him, but one brush of the fragile fabric against my wrist keeps my mouth shut. I can’t send him to hell yet. Because my name isn’t linked to his, I cannot destroy him the way he destroyed me when he took my best friend from me within a week of marrying her.

So I nod.

“Of course.”

We sit across from each other, the morning sun spilling over the table like a spotlight. Antonio eats calmly and methodically, as if today were just another day. I pick at my food, my stomach too tight to accept anything.

Antonio watches me with that same detached interest, observing a specimen rather than a person.

Halfway through the meal, something inside me snaps. Maybe it’s the exhaustion. Perhaps even anger. It could even be the memory of Matteo leaving the nightclub with a gorgeous woman draped across him, but before my heart can tell my head this is a bad idea, I distract Antonio by asking if he has a view as nice as mine in his room.

I need to make sure I’m not allowing the grief of my loss to steer me down a dangerous path I never thought I’d walk. Furthermore, ifMatteo can pass the salt-in-drink test with ease, perhaps Turkish women need to conjure a new test to reveal a man’s character.

As Antonio scoffs at my idea of a view, I reach for the salt. He doesn’t notice. He’s too busy telling me how I won’t be interested in the view once he finally makes me his.

I sprinkle a small amount of salt into his coffee, stir it gently, then slide the cup back where it was.

“Here,” I say softly. “Drink your coffee. It’s getting cold.”

He takes a sip and immediately spits it out. Hot coffee splashes across the table and my hands. I jerk back, but not fast enough. The liquid burns when it seeps into my nightgown. I don’t flinch, though. Not in front of him.

“What on earth is wrong with you?” He slams the cup down so hard that it rattles the plates. “Are you trying to poison me?”

I blink at him, my expression perfectly blank. “No. Why would I do that?”

“Because you blame me for that bitch’s suicide.” He thrusts his hand at the door as if my best friend were waiting beyond it. “It’s not my fault she walked off a building.”

The world closes in on me as his words echo through my head on repeat. I was never told how Hattie died. I only knew that she had taken her own life.

For a moment, I genuinely think I might hit him. Consequences be damned. I want to hurt him as much as his words hurt me. But I swallow the rage burning in my throat and portray the woman he needs me to be.

Submissive. Controlled. The very definition of a traditional wife.

“Of course it’s not your fault,” I say, the words bitter in my throat. “Suicide is no one’s fault.”

He narrows his eyes, scrutinizing me like he’s attempting to figure out whether I’m lying.

I continue before he can speak. “It’s a tradition in my home country. Like not wearing shoes inside.” I glance pointedly at his shoes—polished, expensive, and very much on.

He follows my gaze, then snarls.

“And staining the sheets,” I add, my voice soft but steady. “It’s tradition.”

His jaw tics before he tries to hide it by scraping his hand along his cut jaw. “And I just failed, didn’t I?”

I fake a laugh. “No. I didn’t realize the lid on the saltshaker was loose. I dropped almost half the canister into your coffee.” Standing, I sashay to his side of the table and plop myself onto his thigh. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit of a klutz when nervous.” I pretend not to notice how he thickens under my ass when I murmur, “And you can’t fail the staining-the-sheets tradition. That’s on me, not you.”

He knows exactly what I’m referring to, but instead of fanning his peacock feathers like most men do when they wrongly believe they’re claiming a woman’s purity, his eyes flicker with suspicion.

“He didn’t touch you?”

“Who?” I ask, well-versed on acting daft.

His back molars grind together before he blurts out a name that stops my heart. “Matteo.” His eyes bounce between mine, searching for deceit. “That’s why he dragged you into the manager’s office at the nightclub last night, right?”

I lie without hesitation. “No. He just wanted to talk.”

“About?”