Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 144979 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144979 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Darkness flickers in Angelo’s gaze as he observes the bruises she’s referencing, and more than anything, I want to know what he’s thinking.
Does it bother him?
“Genevieve.” I spare her a disinterested glance. “It’s been so long.”
“It has, hasn’t it?” She offers me an icy smile. Her shrewd gaze moves over my figure and pauses to linger on the huge rock adorning my finger. “You’ve filled out since I last saw you.”
I almost laugh at her thinly veiled insult. I’m not the same insecure girl she used to taunt, but clearly, she hasn’t changed.
“Thanks.” I return her smile. “I’m in my happy, healthy era.”
Her expression sours, and I can tell she’s biting back a response, but she doesn’t give voice to it. Regardless, I’m not ashamed of my body, and I refuse to let her get to me. I’ll always be short and curvy, but clearly Angelo didn’t mind when he was fucking me into oblivion last night. It’s tempting to tell her as much, but I refrain.
“What are you doing here, Genevieve?” I get straight to the point.
“Oh, haven’t you told her?” She brushes Angelo’s arm with her fingers and laughs. “We like to joke that I’m his work wife.”
Work wife?
Genevieve looks pleased as punch that she’s blindsided me with this information. Meanwhile, Angelo seems wholly uninterested in contributing to the conversation.
I’m annoyed and flustered, but that’s the entire point. He wants me to suffer the same way I made him suffer—until death do us part.
“Did you need something, Abella?” He arches a brow at me.
His words are steeped in provocation. He’s daring me to say something about her being here, but my pride won’t let me. I told myself I’d give our marriage thirty days before I dropped an atom bomb on it. If I plan to stick to that, there’s no point arguing about Genevieve or even Matteo. It won’t change anything in the end.
I have to remember the bigger picture.
“I…need to get on the WIFI,” I blurt.
Smooth, Abella.
He scrapes a hand over his jaw, clearly irritated that I’m not playing his little game. “And you couldn’t ask any of the crew members for that?”
Genevieve smirks, thoroughly enjoying this little show.
“Noted.” I turn on my heel. “I’ll ask someone else.”
Over the course of the next three days, I see very little of Angelo. True to his word, he gives me space to mourn the loss of Matteo, where he can’t see it. But after what Alessio told me, I’m not even sure I should be mourning him. It’s hard for me to reconcile the Matteo I knew with a version of him that could betray his own brother. I’m still having trouble accepting it. It’s like cherishing a treasured gift from someone for years, only to one day see it cracked open—full of poison that’s slowly killing you.
I was angry at Matteo for forcing my hand into marriage, but I truly believed he did it out of desperation. He was always the quieter one. The softer one. The man who would run from conflict. Women didn’t look at him as often, and I know he struggled to connect with them. So when we entered into a fake engagement, I wasn’t all that surprised when Matteo developed a crush. We spent more time together out of necessity, and while I tried to encourage him to meet someone else, I think he saw me as a ready-made bride who had fallen into his lap by chance.
If it weren’t for my father’s desire to get rid of me, Matteo would have never had a leg to stand on, and he knew it. He dragged it out for six years, hoping something would miraculously change. Admittedly, I felt a little sorry for him. But not once did I ever truly feel threatened. Even if we had married, I know he would have never argued with me when I shut down his physical advances. So I can’t imagine him standing toe to toe with the most dangerous threat of all to steal the Vitale throne. But then again, I guess he didn’t have to…because he sent him to prison.
It's exhausting to think about, so I try not to. Instead, I fill my days with reading, napping, and wandering around the yacht.
Angelo spends most of his time holed up in his office, presumably lording over the Vitale empire and all the various enterprises it entails. That responsibility now falls to him, and it’s a significant endeavor. The Vitales have a wide portfolio of legitimate businesses, all of them benefiting their less-than-legal activities through the Cosa Nostra. Real estate, luxury tourism, nightclubs, shipping companies—even I don’t know the full extent of what they own.
When Genevieve isn’t in the office with him, she’s flitting about in her bikini and tossing me annoying little smirks while I try to ignore her.