Sweet Temptation novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Aisle
Elisa walks to the altar alone and vows to her new husband's two children in front of both families; at the reception his son asks if she is next to die, and Cesare does not deny it.
My father held out his arm at the church doors, and I stepped around it.
"Elisa," he said, in the soft voice he used when people were watching.
"I'll walk myself, Papa."
His fingers closed on my elbow, hard enough to leave a mark under the lace.
"You'll take my arm, smile, and give him the daughter I promised."
"You promised him a bride," I said. "He didn't buy a puppet."
I pulled free and walked into Saint Rita's alone.
Three hundred people turned in their pews to watch me do it.
The Barsotti side was silent, because they all knew what my father did to people who embarrassed him.
The Monteleone side was silent for a different reason.
They were looking at me.
The whisper started before I reached the fourth pew.
"That's the second one."
"Poor girl. She doesn't know."
"Three years, and nobody will say how she ended up in the river."
I kept my chin up and my eyes on the altar.
Cesare Monteleone stood there in a black suit, with his hands folded in front of him.
He was thirty-seven years old, and I had been told three things about him.
He ran every dock in Philadelphia that mattered.
He had buried a wife.
And the city said he'd done the burying himself.
I had seen him twice before today, across crowded rooms, and both times he had looked through me.
Now his gray eyes found mine and stayed there.
A scar cut through his left eyebrow, pale against his skin.
He didn't smile, and he didn't offer his hand.
I stopped beside him, a little too close, and lifted my face.
"You're late," he said, very low.
"You're early," I said. "I thought you'd be as cold as they say."
Something moved at the corner of his mouth and was gone.
The priest cleared his throat and began.
I barely heard him.
In the front pew, two children sat with their backs very straight.
A boy of nine in a small navy suit, and beside him a girl of five in a blue coat, clutching a stuffed rabbit by one ear.
Their names were Tommaso and Sofia.
They were his.
They were mine now, too, if I could stand it.
The boy stared at me with open hatred.
The girl stared at the floor.
My stomach turned over, and I thought of my own mother, dead since I was fourteen.
The priest asked if I took this man.
"I do," I said.
Then I turned, because the priest was about to move on, and I wasn't done.
"And I'd like to say something to the children."
A rustle went through three hundred people.
My father's head snapped up in the first pew.
Cesare went absolutely still beside me.
I walked down the single step and crouched in front of the pew, lace pooling on the marble.
"Hello," I said. "I'm Elisa."
The boy looked away.
The girl pressed the rabbit against her mouth.
"I know I'm not your mother," I said. "I'm not going to pretend to be."
"But I'm going to be in your house, and I'm going to be on your side."
"Every single day. That's my vow, and I'm making it in front of everyone, so nobody can say I didn't."
Nobody breathed.
Then I stood, turned back, and let the priest finish.
Cesare put the ring on my finger without looking at it.
His hand was warm and steady, and the calluses on his palm caught on my knuckle.
When he kissed me, it was short and exact, a closed mouth, a promise of nothing.
My lips tingled anyway.
I hated that they did.
The reception was in a hotel ballroom on Broad Street, with a string quartet and four hundred bottles of champagne.
My father worked the room with his hand on every shoulder.
He did not look at me once.
Cesare stood at the far wall with a glass he never drank from.
Men came to him and left again, quick.
I had just taken my third glass of water when a small hand tugged at my skirt.
The boy stood there with his jaw set.
He was nine, and he had his father's eyes exactly.
"Tommaso," I said. "That's your name, right?"
"I heard what you said at the church."
"Good."
"It doesn't matter." His voice shook, and he fought it flat. "Everyone knows what my father does to wives."
He looked straight up at me.
"He killed my mother. Are you next?"
The quartet kept playing.
Behind me, a floorboard creaked under a heavy step.
I turned my head.
Cesare was standing three feet away, and he had heard every word.
His face was stone.
He looked at his son.
He looked at me.
And he did not say a single word to deny it.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend