“No, no, and no,” he said flatly. “I don’t grocery shop.”
Of course you don’t.
“We’ll live our lives separately. I’m not your friend, therapist, or confidante, Vivian. Tonight’s dinner is simply because it’s your first night, and I happen to be home.” His knife and fork moved again. “Speaking of which, I have a business trip in Europe coming up. I leave in two days. I’ll be gone for a month.”
He might as well have slapped me in the face.
I stared at him and waited for him to tell me it was a joke. When he didn’t, a surge of indignation washed away my attempts to play nice.
“A month? What type of business trip requires you to be gone for a month?”
“The type that makes me money.”
The indignation fanned into anger. He wasn’t even trying. Maybe the business trip was legitimate, but I move in, and he leaves for a month? The timing was too convenient to ignore.
“You have plenty of money already,” I snapped, too annoyed to mince words. “But you clearly don’t have an interest in even being civil, so why are you here?”
Dante cocked an eyebrow. “This is my house, Vivian.”
“I mean here. This engagement.” I gestured between us. “You avoided my question the first time, but I’m asking again. What could you possibly get out of our match that you couldn’t get on your own?”
Lau Jewels was a big company, but the Russo Group eclipsed it tenfold. It didn’t make sense.
My father told me it had something to do with market access in Asia, which was admittedly Lau Jewels’s strong point and the Russo Group’s weak one, but was that important enough for Dante to upend his personal life for?
His expression stiffened. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Considering it’s the reason we’re together, I think it does.”
“No, it doesn’t. Why do you care about the reason we’re together?” His voice turned cold, mocking. “You’ll marry me either way. The dutiful daughter who does everything her daddy says. I could be gone for the next year until our wedding, and you’d still go through with it. Wouldn’t you?”
An icy claw of shock snatched the breath from my lungs.
I didn’t know how the conversation had escalated so quickly, but somehow, without trying, Dante had hit me right in the ugliest, most undesirable part of myself. The part I loathed but couldn’t shake.
“Now I understand.” I fought for calm, but a tremble of anger bled through. “An arranged marriage is the only way you could get someone to marry you. You are so…so…” I struggled to find the right word. “Horrible.”
Not my best work, but it’d do.
Dark amusement slid through his eyes. “If I’m so horrible, then tell your family the wedding’s off.” He nodded at my phone. “Call them right now. We’ll move you back into your apartment like this never happened.”
It was equal parts challenge and seduction. He didn’t think I would do it, but his voice was so rich and coaxing it almost compelled me to obey.
My fingers curled around my fork. The metal dug into my skin, cold and unforgiving.
I didn’t touch my phone.
I wanted to even more than I wanted to toss my wine in Dante’s smug face, but I couldn’t.
My father’s anger. My mother’s criticism. The failure if I didn’t go through with the wedding…
I couldn’t do it.
Dante’s amusement disappeared into the tense atmosphere. Something sparked in his eyes. Disappointment? Disapproval? It was impossible to tell.
“Exactly,” he said softly.
The finality of that word cut deeper than a freshly honed knife.
We finished dinner in silence, but my steak had lost its flavor.
I washed it down with more wine and let the warmth eat away at my shame.
CHAPTER 8
Dante
Despite what Vivian thought, I’d scheduled my Europe trip before she moved in. A majority of Russo Group brands were headquartered on the continent, and I blocked off a month every year to hold in-person meetings with the heads of our European subsidiaries.
This year’s timing just happened to be extremely convenient.
However, I made sure to keep tabs on Luca and Vivian while I was gone. I’d assigned Luca a sales role at one of our jewelry subsidiaries’ retail stores. He was a people person, and putting him in a back office somewhere would only spell disaster for him and the store in question. According to the store manager, he had a rough start—my brother had never been punctual—but by the time I returned to New York, he seemed to have settled, albeit begrudgingly, into his new role.
Vivian, on the other hand, had taken to her new surroundings like a duck to water. Greta and Edward gushed about her in every report, and I came home to find a new painting in the gallery, towels monogrammed with D&V in the bathrooms, and fucking flowers everywhere.
“Dante, relax your expression,” Winona said. “Give me a smile…that’s it! Perfect.”
The camera shutter clicked in rapid succession.
Vivian and I had spent the morning taking engagement photos in Central Park. It was as excruciating as I’d imagined, filled with fake smiles and faker embraces as Winona guided us into poses designed to show off how in “love” we were.
“Vivian, put your arms around his neck and move closer.”
I stiffened when Vivian obliged and took a tentative step toward me.
“Closer. I can practically drive a tractor between you right now,” Winona joked.
“Do as she says so we can get this over with,” I ground out. The sooner I put more distance between us, the better.
“You grow more charming every day.” Vivian’s voice was so sweet I could’ve drizzled it over pancakes. “Europe truly did wonders for your personality.”
“Closer,” Winona encouraged. If she picked up on our hostility, she didn’t acknowledge it. “One more step…”
Vivian’s breasts grazed my chest when she closed the remaining gap between us.
My muscles went rigid.
“Dante, put your arms around Vivian.”
For fuck’s sake.
Since I just wanted to get the torture over with, I set my jaw and placed my hands on Vivian’s hips. Heat seared through the silk of her dress, and her damned apple scent crawled into my lungs again.
Neither of us moved, afraid the slightest shift would inadvertently bring us even closer.
“I received an interesting call from my accountant when I was in Paris,” I said in an effort to distract myself from our disturbing proximity. “One hundred thousand dollars charged to my Amex in one day, including ten grand on flowers. Care to explain?”
“You gave me a black Amex, I used it,” Vivian said with an elegant shrug. “What can I say? I like flowers. And shoes.”
Translation: You were an asshole before you left, and I took it out on your bank account.
A subtle but petty act of revenge. Good for her.
There was no one more irritating than someone who didn’t stand up for herself.
“Clearly,” I said, trying not to breathe too deep so her scent didn’t envelop me completely. “And the towels?”