Swapping Fiancés：I Married the Ruthless Don novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Glass

At the engagement party Bianca ruins Cami's dress, Rocco says nothing, and Cami throws a drink in the Don's face before two hundred guests.

The engagement party was held in the garden at noon, under white tents, with two hundred guests and a string quartet.

The cake stood on a silver table by the roses.

Across the top, in gold icing, it said ROCCO AND LIVIA.

I read it and kept walking.

I wore a pale green dress I had bought in a hurry at the Miami airport, and I wore it with my chin up.

Rocco stood at the center of the lawn in a black suit, with three old men around him.

The oldest had white hair and a cane with a silver wolf's head.

All three were elders of the Ferrante family, and they had known Rocco since his father died.

"There she is," the oldest elder said. "The Brandolini girl."

He looked me over from my hair to my shoes.

"You are not Livia."

"No, sir. I'm her sister Camilla."

The garden went quiet around us, and the quartet stopped in the middle of a bar.

"The contract names a daughter of the house," I said. "I am a daughter of the house."

"The contract was agreed with the younger one," the second elder said. "We met her at Christmas."

"She cried through dinner," I said. "She would have cried through the wedding, and none of you would have noticed."

A few of the guests laughed, then stopped when they saw Rocco's face.

"Do not speak to the family that way," the third elder said, and I looked right at him.

"I'll speak to the family the way the family speaks to me."

"Does the groom accept this?" the oldest elder asked.

Rocco did not answer.

I turned my head and looked at him.

He was looking at the cake.

"Roc?" Bianca said.

She had come up beside him in a white silk dress with her hair pinned back, soft and worried, holding two glasses of red wine.

"Don't be hard on her," she said to the elders. "It's a shock for everyone. Camilla, you must be so nervous. Here, drink something."

She held out a glass.

I took it.

Her hand slipped as I did, and the other glass tipped, and a whole pour of red wine ran down the front of my green dress.

"Oh no!" Bianca covered her mouth. "I'm so sorry. It's a cheap fabric, isn't it? It won't come out."

Somebody in the crowd giggled.

A woman near the tent whispered, "She has nothing else to wear."

The wine soaked through to my skin, cold and heavy.

I looked at Rocco.

Everyone looked at Rocco.

He stood there with his hands at his sides.

He said nothing.

The elders had asked him a question, I had been insulted, and he had said nothing to either of us.

I thought, so that is how my sister died in his house.

Not from his fists.

From his silence.

I put Bianca's glass on the cake table.

Then I picked up a full flute of champagne from a passing waiter's tray.

I walked three steps across the grass, and I threw it into Rocco Ferrante's face.

The sound of it landing was the loudest thing in the garden.

The cellist dropped his bow with a clatter.

Champagne ran down Rocco's jaw and into the collar of his white shirt.

Nobody in the garden moved.

"Camilla!" Bianca shrieked, and pointed at me with a shaking hand. "How could you do that to Roc?"

I turned to her.

"I just did."

"You're crazy! You're a crazy woman, Roc, she can't stay in this house!"

"Your wine is on my dress," I said. "My husband was standing right here."

"I am not your husband yet," Rocco said.

His voice was low and calm.

I faced him.

"Then here's the rule, Mr. Ferrante, since you like rules."

"The next time anybody pours a drink on me in front of your family, you answer for it."

"If you don't, I will, and you won't like how I do it."

The oldest elder lifted his cane.

"This is an insult to the Ferrante name!"

"No, sir," I said. "The insult was the wine."

Rocco lifted one hand and wiped the champagne off his face with his thumb.

He looked at the wet thumb and then at me.

I waited for him to lose his temper.

In my last life, my sister said he never raised his voice, and she was afraid of him anyway.

I braced for it.

One corner of his mouth moved.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Rocco said without turning, "the party is over."

Nobody moved.

"Out," Rocco said.

The guests began to scatter between the tents, whispering behind their hands.

The elders did not move.

Bianca opened her mouth to say something, and Rocco did not look at her.

He crossed the grass to me in three strides and took my wrist in a hard hand.

"Inside," he said. "Now."

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