“He was a hard man to love.”
“He was hard on you?”
I nod. “He had to be. He had to raise a don.”
I can tell she’s frustrated by my vague, noncommittal answers. But what she doesn’t seem to realize is that I’m giving her so much more than I’ve given any other woman in my life.
“And your wife,” she presses, sitting up a little straighter and angling her body towards me. “Why did you hate her?”
“She was a cold-blooded bitch.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “You’re gonna have to do better than that.”
I laugh and cross my ankle over my knee. “We were not right together. We brought out the worst in each other.”
“Did you… hurt her?”
“Are you trying to get me to confess to something, Jessa?” I chuckle. “Much scarier people than you have tried and failed.”
“Failed because there’s nothing to confess? Or because you outwitted them?”
“Take your pick.”
She sighs and falls back into her relaxed position on the sofa. “Why did you even marry her if you hated her?”
“It was a political alliance. ‘No’ was not an option.”
She snorts. “Please. You don’t strike me as the kind of man who does anything that he doesn’t want to.”
“True enough now,” I say. “But I wasn’t always the don of a powerful Bratva. I used to be the son of the don. And the son of the don does whatever his don wants.”
“Hm. Did she want to get married?”
“Yes.”
She frowns. “You sound confident.”
“I’d known Marina for years. Our fathers were allies and friends. She was half in love with me before it was even arranged. So yeah, she agreed to the match right away.”
She rolls her eyes. “Then what? Did your ego get to her?”
“Her ego was as much of a problem as mine. She was not used to not getting what she wanted.”
“And what did she want?”
“Far more than I could give her.”
Jessa’s eyes sparkle under the lights of her cheap Ikea lamp shades. “I don’t hate Dane, you know,” she confesses. “Or Salma.”
“You’d be justified in hating them.”
“I know,” she murmurs. “But why give them that kind of power over me? My dad used to say, ‘Don’t let anyone live rent-free inside your head. It only hurts you.’”
“Your father and I don’t sound like we’d get along.”
She bursts out laughing. I watch her with fascination. The way her eyes close, wrinkling at the corners. The way her cheeks crease and her mouth falls open.
She looks fucking beautiful.