He had found himself unduly obsessed with the mark near her lips that should have made her flawed, to his mind. But instead it did the opposite. It was as if her one slight imperfection made everything else more perfect, not less.
And Cenzo did not wish to think of this woman as perfect in any regard. Everything in him had rebelled. He had ordered himself to walk away from her, there in the middle of their engagement party, surrounded by the sort of empty, overly fatuous society people he detested. No matter their country of origin.
But instead, he danced with her, because he was playing a long game. He had held her close, so close that he’d been able to identify the scent she wore—a whisper of something like citrus with deeper notes that reminded him of the sea.
They had not spoken. He’d had nothing to say. And Josselyn had looked at him as if he were part monster, part dream. Cenzo had told himself that she saw the dragon in him, that was all.
Maybe he only hoped she might.
And he had spent another year attempting to come to terms with the odd...complications he’d felt that night. The need in him, when he did not wish to feel such sensations where she was concerned. It made things easier that he wanted her, he could admit that, but he did not wish to want her to the extent he did.
It was sheer lust, if he was truthful. And it didn’t make sense. His object had always been perfectly clear when it came to the Christies. When he had been younger, he’d focused more intently on Archibald as the obvious architect of his father’s untimely end. But it had been clear to him, ever since that very first, astonishing call when Archibald had dared to suggest marriage, that the daughter was the better target.
Because what he did to Josselyn would hurt her, but it would kill her father—yet let him live with it.
Lusting for her seemed to fly in the face of all he intended to accomplish.
Accordingly he’d spent this last year digging even deeper into what made Josselyn Christie tick.
Like him, she had gone to an American East Coast boarding school. After she graduated, she and some friends had taken the summer to wander aimlessly through winter in Australia and New Zealand. In the fall, she had returned to follow her family’s tradition, on the women’s side, and started at Vassar. Cenzo had found no indication that she had been any more scandalous there than any other coed. The odd parties, a cringeworthy attempt at black box theater, a semester abroad in Italy. She had lived on campus all four years and had maintained the same group of close friends, all of whom had attended their wedding today.
After college, she had spent another summer traveling, this time in Europe. When she’d returned, she had moved back in to her childhood home, and as far as he could tell, had done nothing but serve the interests of her father ever since.
There were no deep, dark secrets to dig up. He would have found them. And in many ways, that was a good thing. Because it meant the focus could be entirely, deservedly, on Archibald’s sins.
He thought now, staring out the window at the darkness beyond and the moon above, that he was going to take great pleasure in showing her exactly who her father really was.
“I will avenge you, Patri,” he said quietly, using the same words he always used. The vow as much a part of him as his own bones. His own flesh. “I will make them pay.”
Cenzo did not sleep, for he had waited far too long. A lifetime, it seemed, though he knew full well his father had only quit this life some fifteen years before.
Promise me, his mother had said before he had left to make this trip to America. His final trip, to collect his bride and bring her home at last. Promise me that no matter what else happens, you will not forget who you are. What these people have done to you. To me. And most of all, to your father.
How do you imagine I could ever forget? Cenzo had asked.
Françoise Falcone was not a happy woman. This was forever evident in her face, for all that she was very beautiful. There was always that sternness. That coldness. He liked to think it had been put there since they’d lost his father, but he knew that was not so. She had never been warm.
And still, the way she had looked at him then had chilled him.
Young women have their ways, she had told him, her tone dark. Her gaze had fixed on him as if he had already betrayed her. Their wiles. It may be, my son, that you believe yourself to be the hunter when it is you who are the prey.
Cenzo had laughed.
But then he had stood at the head of the church aisle and watched the woman who would become his wife move toward him, a vision in white. She had looked serene, her face a perfect oval, marred only by that beauty mark that was no flaw at all.
Her touch had warmed him, but he should not have cared about such things. About biology. He had held her hands in his, said the ancient words in English, and now he wore the ring that she had placed on his finger in her turn. He could not get used to it.
He looked at it now, gleaming in the light of the plane. He could not get used to any of this.
Cenzo did not wish to react to this woman. He wished only to use her for his own ends.
And he vowed, yet again, that would be so.
Because he was Cenzo Falcone. What he wanted was his, one way or another.
It was still dark outside as the plane began its descent into Sicily. He left his office, moving out into the common area of the jet, and was somehow unsurprised to find his bride already waiting there. He eyed her critically as he approached the sitting area, the jet’s many hints of gold making her seem to gleam.
Once again, she was a new version of the woman he knew so many details about—yet still did not know at all.
Today she did not wear her wedding gown, of course. And as he registered that, Cenzo had a brief, horrifying pang of need. Sharp and alarming, because it wasn’t the simple lust he had tried to come to terms with already. He understood that though he had never considered himself sentimental, he found himself wishing he might have taken the traditional role of removing that flowing white dress from her slender body. To see, after two years of wondering, if her breasts were as plush and high as they looked. Because, like it or not, he had spent a remarkable amount of time considering the flare of her hips and wondering how they would feel in his hands while he drove himself inside her.
Soon enough, he told himself. Soon enough.
He took the seat opposite Josselyn, letting his gaze fall where it would. She’d chosen to wear a deceptively simple outfit to begin her life as his wife. A sweater, a pair of jeans, low-heeled short boots. An outfit that should have been unremarkable, but for the excellence of the pieces she’d chosen. The drape of the fabric, the heft, the rich camel leather of her boots—it all spoke of understated elegance and impressive wealth. She wore diamonds in her ears—small, yet of high quality. There was a delicate chain around her neck, a faint glimpse of gold, because she did not need to be flashy.
Especially not when she wore the Sicilian Sky on her finger, elevating her sartorial choices to high art.
Cenzo told himself that he was gathering information, that was all, and there was no need for the immediate response in his sex. There had been the beach bum he’d met first, her hair wild and her clothes soft with age. He had imagined that version of her was the real one, untutored and unaware that he had been coming to call. As for their engagement party and their wedding, he had assumed that stylists had intervened—because the weddings of heiresses were not simple family affairs, and certainly not when he was involved. There had been extensive press coverage. He had imagined steps had been taken to tame her, to contain her, to make her fit the expected mold.
But it seemed he’d been wrong.
And that sensation was so rare that it took Cenzo some moments to place it. He was not often wrong. To his knowledge, he had never been wrong, in point of fact. But his bride—his wife—could have worn anything now that they were alone. And she ha
d chosen a rather well-armored, well-conceived look to face any eventuality. Even if he’d been tempted to assume that her choices had been made for her by the same army of stylists he’d imagined had handled her at events thus far, that wouldn’t explain her hair. She had taken it down, washed it, and had to have styled it herself, for there was no staff on the plane. It looked perfect, like the rest of her.
Meaning this was her natural state. Or her preferred defense.
He was forced to admire it.
And then told himself that was as well, because it could only benefit him if it turned out that she was a worthy adversary.
In and out of the marital bed.
“You have not told me where we are headed,” Josselyn said into the taut silence, sounding perfectly calm and at her ease. As if she often found herself flying off into the unknown, married to a stranger.
“I have not,” he agreed.
And then he lounged there, letting the moment drag out.
All Josselyn did was blink. There was no other outward sign of reaction. He filed that away.
“I see. Do you intend to let me in on the secret? Or is it to be a surprise? I was told only to bring my passport.”
Cenzo eyed her, still looking for flaws. “This feels a bit like a bait and switch. I don’t recall you saying a single word to me before now unless prompted by a priest, and now it is as if you are made of demands. Is this what I can expect from my wife?”
She sat straighter and he realized that her posture, too, added to the overall sense of her elegance. Even without the Sicilian Sky on her hand, her poise alone would have shouted out that she was a woman to be reckoned with.
It really was such a shame that he could not simply admire her.
“There has been no opportunity for conversation until now.” Josselyn’s voice was as serene as she looked. Yet with a hint of steel beneath, which pleased him. “At our first meeting, I will admit, I felt overwhelmed by the decision you and my father had made. Appropriately, I think. We only met one other time before yesterday and as I recall, you spent most of our time alone engaged in a series of business calls.”
“Is that a complaint?”
“Not even remotely.” She smiled the same smile he’d seen her flash all over the place on two occasions now, all good manners and vast, unbridgeable distances. “I am only offering you an accounting of our interactions. From my perspective.”
“It is all the same to me, cara. If you wish to fight. If you wish to make demands. If you fling yourself prostrate and attempt to impress me with a show of submissiveness. None of that will change what is to happen.”
Her face brightened. She folded her hands before her and placed them on the little table that separated them, the huge stone on her finger making light bounce all around them. “Wonderful. There’s an agenda. I can’t wait to hear it.”
Cenzo laughed. “Truly, you are like a lamb to the slaughter.”
Her polite smile cooled, but only by a degree. “Surely there will be no need for slaughtering of any kind. This is a marriage, not an abattoir.”
Josselyn waited, clearly offering him the opportunity to leap in and explain himself. He declined it.
“I think it might serve us both well if we lay out our expectations,” she said after a moment. And while her smile did not dim, her voice sounded more...careful. “We’re lucky, really. No need to be encumbered by romantic notions. No need to hope and pray that love wins the day. We can civilly decide, you and I, what our life together will be in a way that people in our generation rarely do. I find myself quite optimistic.”
He only laughed. For longer, this time.
But his wife did not crumble. She kept that smile on her face and did not seem to tense so much as a stray muscle. It was impressive.
Or would have been, had he allowed himself to find her impressive.
Josselyn’s gaze was level on his. “If you will not share what you wish to get out of our marriage, perhaps you might share the source of your amusement. Or is the aim to laugh mysteriously, and alone, for the rest of our days?”
Cenzo regarded her, doing nothing to wash away the laughter he was sure was still stamped all over his face. “Why do you suppose your father bartered you away in marriage to a stranger?”
He thought he saw emotion in her gaze, but she blinked it away. “You are not a stranger to him. Only to me.”
“I suppose that is true, though he had not seen me since I was a boy. It was my late father that he knew.”
And she could not know how those words cost him. When Archibald Christie had done so much more than simply know his father. But he kept his dragon in check. It wasn’t time, yet, to let his fury take hold.
“In any case, it is not as if he chose you off the street,” Josselyn said. “But he did choose you deliberately. And he did this because my father is of an old school. He believes that money and power are the only things that could possibly keep me safe in this world.”
“You must agree with him, then. To have accepted this arrangement.”
“It’s funny,” she said, though she wasn’t laughing, “but I thought these were the sorts of conversations we should have had at any point over the past two years.”
Cenzo lifted a careless shoulder. “We are having the conversation now.”
“Whether I agree with him or not doesn’t matter, because I decided—” and he was certain there was an emphasis on that word decided “—to acquiesce to his wishes for me.”
“Convenient, then, that his wishes for you have made you one of the wealthiest women in the world. Overnight.”
It was Josselyn’s turn to shrug. Hers was delicate, yet no less dismissive. “As he has quite a bit of money and power himself, I expect my father looked around for one of the few men he believes has more.”
“You make it sound like a fairy tale,” Cenzo murmured. “The dutiful, obedient daughter who does as her father wishes no matter the cost. But I’m afraid, cara, that your father has made a terrible mistake.”
Josselyn did not react. Which, he supposed, was itself a reaction. “What do you mean? What mistake?”
“I did not know if I would tell you this.” He was enjoying himself, now. “Your father seemed to have no notion of what he’d done. It was perhaps unsurprising that you would not, either. I will confess that at first, I didn’t believe it.”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“And for some while I’ve thought it would be amusing to have you figure it out as we went.” Cenzo smiled then and did nothing to make it more palatable. Less edgy or dark. “But you see, simply punishing you for your father’s sins would not be enough.”
“Punish me?” She shook her head, making her hair move. And he could smell the sea once more, sweet and crisp. Inviting, damn her. “Why on earth would I require punishment? Or my father, of all people? He has his flaws, like anyone, but he is a good man at heart.”
“No.” Cenzo bit out the word. “He is not.”
Josselyn laughed then. “You must be joking. He’s set in his ways, sure. He’s a product of his generation. He has some very outdated ideas and believes too much in his own discernment, sometimes to his detriment. But he’s not evil.”
And he could not tell, in that moment, if he regretted going down this path. Perhaps he should have done as originally planned and let her parse it out over the coming month, assuming she had the faculties to do such a thing. He did not intend to give her much room or time to think. Maybe he should have kept her in suspense. That had been his intention.
But she was too perfect. She seemed less a tool to him now and more an actual opponent.
He had not been able to resist.
That was on him. But when it came to the terms of what would happen between them, there could be no equivocation.
“You may feel a sense o
f daughterly obligation,” Cenzo said, his voice low and his gaze a bright fury on hers. “I suppose that is to your credit. But it is misplaced.”
“But you like my father,” she protested, her eyes widening. “You spent time with him. He told me he’d thoroughly vetted you and furthermore, enjoyed the time he spent with you. He said that you reminded him of your father.”
“The rantings of a guilty conscience and nothing more.”
“Guilty?” Josselyn frowned at him. “Of what?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Cenzo growled at her, and knew in that moment that this was the right course of action. Because it felt like a relief. “Your father might not have driven the car as it went over that cliff, but he killed my father all the same.”
CHAPTER THREE
JOSSELYN FELT AS if Cenzo had driven the two of them over the side of a towering mountain. Some part of her, in a sudden rush of madness, almost wished that he had.
Because she’d spent her wedding night alone, and she had chosen to view that as consideration on his part. As a sign of respect. He’s giving you space, she’d told herself. He might have been overwhelming and intense in every regard, but this marriage of theirs would be fine if it started that way. On such rational, reasonable footing. She’d assured herself of that, again and again.
She had curled up in a ball on the bed in her stateroom and had chanted that to herself as she tried to sleep. Over and over as the jet flew through the dark.
This marriage will be fine.
Finding herself confronted with the news that this marriage was not only not going to be fine, but that he had been plotting revenge all the while, was jarring.
More than jarring. Josselyn felt winded.
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