Chapter 14: The Yes

Aurelio took his answers in the study, at eleven, with the door open and the cardigan on.

Wynne came in without knocking.

He was feeding a dry brown leaf to the fern on his desk, one pinch at a time.

"You're early," he said.

"I wanted to get it over with."

"Sit, my dear."

"I'll stand."

"As you like." He wiped his fingers on a handkerchief. "Then tell me. Which is it?"

She had practiced the words on the back stairs, and they still came out thin.

"I'll marry him."

Aurelio's eyebrows rose above the rimless glasses.

"Fabrizio?"

"Yes."

"You said at my table that you would not."

"You showed me what it costs." She kept her eyes on the fern. "I won't pay it with Massimo."

"Ah." He folded the handkerchief in half, and in half again. "I thought you might be stubborn. Your mother was, the first month."

"I have conditions."

"Do you?" He looked delighted. "Tell me."

"The wedding is in the garden, like you said. All five capos sit at the long table, and their wives."

"They would come anyway."

"They come to the ceremony, not just the dinner. In the front rows." She made herself look at him. "I want them to see me say it."

"You want an audience."

"I want nobody saying later that I was made to."

That, at least, was true, and he heard it.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Forbidden By Her Mafia Stepbrother from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.