Sweet Temptation novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The East Wing

In the Chestnut Hill house Cesare lays down his rules, his right hand watches her coldly, and he gives her a separate room.

"Go find Vito," Cesare told his son.

Tommaso went, with his back as straight as a soldier's.

Cesare watched him cross the ballroom, and for one second something raw showed on his face.

Then it was gone, and he turned to me.

"We're leaving."

"I haven't had cake."

"Elisa."

It was the first time he had said my name, and he said it.

I put down my water and followed him out past four hundred staring faces.

The car was black and quiet and smelled like leather and cedar.

Vito Pace drove, with the children in the back seat beside me.

Vito was a heavy man in a rumpled suit, with a broken nose and flat, careful eyes.

He had not said a word to me all day.

Sofia sat pressed against the far door, rabbit under her chin.

Tommaso stared out the window.

Cesare sat in front, and I watched the back of his head for thirty minutes.

"Your son asked me a question," I said at last.

"He's nine," Cesare said, not turning. "He repeats what he hears."

"Is it true?"

Vito's eyes flicked to the mirror.

"You'll get your answer," Cesare said, "when you've earned one."

"I married you in front of three hundred people. What exactly does a girl have to do?"

He didn't answer.

The house in Chestnut Hill sat behind iron gates at the end of a long drive, stone and dark windows and old trees.

It was beautiful.

A housekeeper took the children upstairs.

Sofia went without a sound.

Tommaso looked back once, then followed her.

Cesare stood in the front hall under a chandelier and took off his jacket.

"Rules," he said.

I folded my arms over the lace.

"The nursery is yours. The children's schools, their doctors, their clothes. Whatever they need, you decide."

"That's generous."

"The business is not yours. You don't ask about it, and you don't listen at doors."

"And?"

He pointed up the east staircase, to a corridor where a single door stood closed at the far end.

"The east wing is not yours either. You will never go in there."

"What's in it?"

"My wife's rooms."

He said it flat, and it landed.

Vito set my two suitcases on the marble floor and straightened.

"Mrs. Monteleone," he said.

It was the first thing he'd said to me, and he said it.

"Vito," I said.

"I knew her eleven years, the first one." He wasn't looking at me. "Don't try to be her."

"I wasn't planning to," I said. "I hear she had better taste in husbands."

Vito's mouth twitched, almost.

Cesare did not smile.

He crossed the hall in three steps and stood so close that I had to tilt my head back.

I could smell cedar on his skin, and a trace of whiskey he hadn't drunk.

"You think you're brave," he said quietly.

"I think I'm tired of everyone telling me what I am."

His hand came up and found the edge of my veil.

I hadn't taken it off.

I'd forgotten it was there, pinned in my hair, a cloud of tulle falling down my back.

His fingers found the pins one at a time.

He drew each one out slowly, and set it on the hall table with a small click.

My breath went shallow.

He wasn't touching my skin, but I felt every pin on my scalp.

When the veil came free, he held it a moment, then dropped it on the floor between us.

His hand closed around my wrist.

Not hard.

It didn't have to be.

His thumb rested right over the pulse, and he felt it jump.

"You're afraid of me," he said.

"No."

"Your heart says otherwise."

"My heart," I said, and my voice came out lower than I meant, "isn't the thing you're worried about."

Something flared in his gray eyes, hot and fast, and he went completely still.

His thumb moved once across my pulse.

Then he let go.

"Your room is the second on the left," he said. "Mine is at the end of the other hall."

"I'm your wife."

"You're my wife on paper." He stepped back and picked up his jacket from the floor.

"I don't want a wife in my bed."

He climbed the stairs without looking back.

I stood alone in the hall in a wedding dress, my wrist still warm, with the veil in a heap at my feet.

Something small moved on the nursery stairs.

Sofia stood at the top step, her rabbit dangling from one hand.

She looked straight at me for one long second.

Then she held the rabbit out.

I took one step toward her.

She dropped it and ran.

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