I opened my mouth to tell him that he needed to get his head checked, but he saw himself upstairs before I could speak, leaving me on the landing, blinking away my shock. How did he even know where to go? But the answer was clear.
He’d been here before.
He knew my father.
And he didn’t like him one bit.
I spent the next two hours chain-smoking in the kitchen, pacing back and forth, and making myself cappuccinos only to throw them away after one sip. Smoking was the only bad habit I was permitted to maintain. My mother said it helped with curbing my appetite, and my father was still of a generation where it was seen as sophisticated and worldly. It made me feel grown-up, when otherwise, I knew I was being babied and sheltered.
Two of my father’s lawyers, and two other people who also looked like attorneys, entered our house twenty minutes after Wolfe went up the stairs.
Mama was behaving strangely, too.
For the first time since I was born, she entered Dad’s office during a business meeting. She came out twice. Once to provide refreshments—a task our housekeeper Clara was normally assigned to do. The second time, she got out to the hallway upstairs, mumbling hysterically to herself and accidentally knocking down a vase.
When the office door finally clicked open after what felt like days, Wolfe was the only one who came downstairs. I stood, as if awaiting some life-threatening medical verdict. His last remark had put snakes in my stomach, and their bites were lethal and full of venom. He thought I’d kiss him again. If he asked my father for a date, though, he was going to be sorely disappointed. He wasn’t Italian, wasn’t from an Outfit family, and I didn’t like him one bit. Three things my father ought to have taken into consideration.
Wolfe stopped at the curve of our stairs, still on the last step, silently stressing how tall and imperial he was. How small and insignificant I was.
“Are you ready for the verdict, Nem?” The corner of his lips curved sinfully.
The hairs on my arms stood on end, and I felt like I was on a roller coaster the second before it dipped. I had to take a shuddering breath and brave the waves of fear crashing against my ribcage.
“Dying for it.” I rolled my eyes.
“Follow me out,” he ordered.
“No, thank you.”
“I’m not asking,” he clipped.
“Good because I’m not accepting.” The harsh words felt violent on my lips. I’d never been so rude to anyone. But Wolfe Keaton earned my wrath, fair and square.
“Pack a suitcase, Francesca.”
“Excuse me?”
“Pack. A. Suitcase,” he repeated slowly as though my deciphering his words was the issue, and not their irrational content. “As of fifteen minutes ago, you’re officially betrothed to yours truly. The wedding is at the end of the month, which means your silly box tradition—thanks for the story, it was a nice touch in my proposal—is intact,” he delivered the news coldly as the floor beneath my feet quaked and shattered, sending me spiraling into an oblivion of anger and shock.
“My dad would never do that to me.” My feet seemed to glue to the ground, too scared to go upstairs and test my own words. “He wouldn’t sell me to the highest bidder.”
A slow smirk spread across his face. He feasted on my rage with open hunger.
“Who said my bid was the highest?”
I launched at him with everything I had.
I’d never hit anyone—was taught that as a woman, making a scene was the most common form of the lower class. So, the slap on his cheek didn’t come quite with the force I was hoping for. It was more of a swat, almost friendly, that feathered his square jaw. He didn’t flinch. Pity and disinterest swirled in his bottomless, sterling eyes.
“I’m giving you a couple of hours to get your things in order. Whatever’s left here will stay here. Do not test me on the issue of punctuality, Miss Rossi.” He entered my personal space and clasped a golden watch over my wrist.
“How could you do this?” In a heartbeat, I moved from defying him to sobbing, pushing at his chest now. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t even entirely sure I was breathing. “How did you convince my parents to give you their approval?”
I was an only child. My mother was prone to miscarriages. She called me her priceless jewel—but here I was, marked with a Gucci wristwatch by a stranger, the watch obviously a small portion of a much larger dowry that had been promised. My parents cherry-picked every admirer who approached me at public functions and were notoriously protective when it came to my friends. So much so, in fact, that I didn’t have any friends of my own, only females who shared the Rossi name.