The Scarletti Curse
by Christine Feehan
**The Beast**
Strange, twisted carvings and hideous gargoyles adorned the *palazzo* of the great Scarletti family. But a still more fearful secret lurked within its storm-tossed turrets. For every bride who entered its forbidding walls was doomed to leave in a casket.
**The Bride**
Mystical and unfettered, Nicoletta had no terror of ancient curses and no fear of marriage...until she looked into the dark, mesmerizing eyes of *Don* Scarletti. She had sworn no man would command her, had thought her gift of healing set her apart, but his was the right to choose a bride from among his people. And he had chosen her.
**The Bargain**
Compelled by duty, drawn by desire, she gave her body into his keeping, and prayed the powerful, tormented *don* would be her heart's destiny, and not her soul's demise.
Strange, twisted carvings and hideous gargoyles adorned the *palazzo* of the great Scarletti family. But a still more fearful secret lurked within its storm-tossed turrets. For every bride who entered its forbidding walls was doomed to leave in a casket.
**The Bride**
Mystical and unfettered, Nicoletta had no terror of ancient curses and no fear of marriage...until she looked into the dark, mesmerizing eyes of *Don* Scarletti. She had sworn no man would command her, had thought her gift of healing set her apart, but his was the right to choose a bride from among his people. And he had chosen her.
**The Bargain**
Compelled by duty, drawn by desire, she gave her body into his keeping, and prayed the powerful, tormented *don* would be her heart's destiny, and not her soul's demise.