Swapping Fiancés：I Married the Ruthless Don novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Terms

Cami sets her terms and Rocco adds his; in the corridor Bianca drops her warm mask and gives Cami until Sunday.

Bianca did not leave until Rocco told her to.

"Bianca. Go and see about dinner."

"Roc, I only wanted to make her comfortable."

"Go."

Her smile stayed on until the door shut behind her.

Rocco walked me down a hall of dark portraits to a study with a desk as wide as a dining table.

He sat behind it and put a gun on the blotter between us.

"Can you use that?"

I picked it up and dropped the magazine into my palm.

Then I thumbed the safety on and off twice.

"It's a Beretta. It's loaded. The safety sticks, so fix it before it goes off in someone's pocket."

He watched me hand it back.

"Livia would have fainted," he said.

"I'm not Livia."

"No."

He leaned back in his chair and studied my face.

"You swapped yourself into a Mafia marriage in one night. Why?"

"Because I need your name."

His left eyebrow, the one with the scar through it, rose a little.

"I'm launching a security firm in New York. It's called The Fortress."

"Every family in this city will try to bury it before the first contract. The Corsinis will go first."

"With a Ferrante behind it, they won't touch it."

"And what do I get?"

"The Brandolini ports in Florida, which the contract already gives you, with a wife who isn't crying in the bathroom by Christmas."

Something moved in his jaw.

He did not answer that.

"I have terms," I said.

"Of course you do."

I counted them off on my fingers.

"One. Separate rooms."

"Two. The Fortress is mine. No Ferrante man inside it, no Ferrante money, no Ferrante name on a door unless I put it there."

"Three. No lies between us, ever. If I ask you something, you tell me the truth."

He was quiet so long I thought he would laugh.

He did not.

"Agreed," he said, very quietly. "All three."

I had expected a fight over at least one of them.

In my last life, my sister had been afraid to ask him for so much as a different room.

"That's it? You're not going to argue?"

"I have two of my own."

"Go on."

"You wear my ring and stand next to me in public, even when it is ugly."

"Fine."

"And you never go out without a driver. The Corsinis know my face. They'll learn yours by Saturday."

"I can drive myself."

"Not in this city. Not as my wife."

I thought about my sister dying in a bedroom in this house, and I dropped the argument about the driver.

"Fine."

He pulled the contract across the desk and signed under my name.

His handwriting was square and hard, and his hand did not shake.

I signed too.

"Welcome to the Ferrante family, Camilla."

"Cami," I said.

He looked at me for a second.

"Cami," he said again, slower.

I did not know why that bothered me.

I picked up my bag.

"Where's my room?"

"Third floor, east wing. Bianca will show you."

"I'll find it."

"The staff will show you," Rocco said.

The butler was waiting in the hall.

He took me up two flights of stairs and left me at a door with white flowers on a table beside it.

I stood there with my hand on the knob.

"It is a lovely room," Bianca said behind me.

She had come up the back stairs without a sound.

I turned around.

The warm smile was gone.

Her face was smooth and pale and flat, with nothing in it at all.

"You know what the funny thing is?" she said. "The cheap perfume wasn't an insult. It was a courtesy. It's what we tell a girl before she leaves."

"Leaves?"

"Girls like you last a week here. Your sister would have lasted two days. I give you until Sunday."

"Funny," I said. "People who bet against me usually lose their money."

"I never bet," Bianca said. "I only wait."

She took a step closer and lowered her voice.

"The elders hold the engagement party tomorrow at noon. A garden, two hundred guests, every old man in this family."

"They were told to expect Livia. Her name is on the cake."

She smiled at me, small and sweet, with her lips closed.

"I wonder how they will take the news."

Then she walked away down the hall, one hand trailing along the portrait frames.

I stood in the doorway of my room.

The window looked out over a garden where two men were already putting up white tents for a party where nobody knew my name.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

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