“We waited,” I said. “But we didn’t really do anything sexual before the wedding, so that wasn’t a big surprise. I think arranged marriages are just a lot different than people who get to marry for love. Neither of us were really champing at the bit to get to it.”
“Well...was it any good?”
“It was good,” I said slowly. “I thought Lucien was just going to have sex with me and go to sleep or something like that, but he spent a lot of time making me comfortable and doing things that felt good for me too. I had an orgasm.”
I flushed a little at my admission, but Iris was eating my words up, basking in the gossip. She must have been lonely, rattling around the Esposito mansion for the last month with no one to talk to until Duran returned at night.
“Really? I didn’t have an orgasm the first time,” she said enviously. “Maybe I should tell Duran that Lucien managed to get you off the first time, just to antagonize him. Did it hurt for you?”
“A little, but not like I thought it would,” I said.
We talked like this for a while and then Iris went to make another pot of coffee. I sat at the table in silence, my conversation with Lucien this morning still churning in my head. When Iris returned, she set our second cups of coffee out and pulled her planner from her bag as she settled across from me.
“We don’t have all that much to do before the party tonight,” she said, flipping the planner open. “But Lucien told me on his way out that he wanted more flowers, so I have to call the florist. He said he wanted it to remind guests of a garden. I don’t know why he was so interested in the floral arrangements, but I wouldn’t want to disappoint.”
“He knows I like flowers,” I said quietly. “I used to grow them in my garden back at my family’s house.”
A pang of guilt went through me. Perhaps I had been too hard on him this morning. Maybe I had no right to ask about his father, especially when I knew he was so hurt by the topic.
“Are you homesick?” Iris’s brows drew together in confusion. She was aware of how I felt about my parents.
“No, no,” I said. “Can I ask you something kind of…off-topic?”
She shrugged. “Of course.”
I took a quick breath. “Do you know what happened to Lucien and Duran’s father?”
“He was killed.” Iris frowned slightly and lifted her cup to her lips. “Duran doesn’t know all that much about what happened. He was still a teen and Lucien never really talks about it.”
“Doesn’t that make you…I don’t know…wonder what went down?” I asked slowly.
“I was curious, so I looked it up online and there was a little information,” she said. “Apparently Carlo Romano actually had one of the police on his payroll open up an investigation into it. It was strange…I read the report and all the doors and windows were locked when it happened. They thought it might have been a servant or the groundskeeper, but they weren’t able pin down exactly who.”
There was a faint sick sensation in my chest and my hands were clammy despite being wrapped around my warm cup. “Were there any other suspects?”
She shook her head. “Everything was wiped clean, no prints, nothing on the security cameras. He was just dead.”
“How did it happen? Was he shot?”
“His…um, head was cut off with a wire,” Iris said, looking a little pale. “There were pictures and I wish I hadn’t seen them. Don’t look it up, the whole thing gives me the creeps and makes me nervous sleeping in this house.”
“I’m sure the person who did it isn’t around anymore,” I said quickly.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” she said.
I took a breath and got to my feet, the room spinning as I fought to get my bearings. How could I entertain these thoughts about my husband? Iris stood, but I waved her away, making an excuse that I had a sudden migraine and needed to lie down. She watched me go, her hands twisted together, and I felt a pang of guilt for worrying her.
Up in my room, I sat on the edge of the bed with my shoes off, the floor cold against the bottom of my feet. Unbidden, my mind went back to that night at the opera. How soft Lucien’s mouth had felt against the arch of my foot and how silky it had been against the skin of my calf and the sensitive underside of my knee. His hands had been so gentle as he slipped my shoes on and beneath those icy eyes I’d thought I saw a flicker of warmth.
I squeezed my eyes shut. No, he might be a man operating outside the law, but he had a moral code like anyone else. He would never commit something so heinous as his own father’s murder.
But as soon as I thought those words, I knew I was lying to myself.
Yes, Lucien absolutely would kill anyone he felt he needed to. The world went still as I recalled everything he’d ever told me about his father. That he was an abuser, a rapist, a cruel and ruthless underboss. And, I acknowledged quietly, a barrier between Lucien and his birthright. It only made sense that Lucien would have retaliated against him.
That was the sort of man my husband was and I loved him anyway.
The tight fear thrumming in my chest subsided slowly, leaving me feeling drained. I had no right to judge my husband for anything when I wanted him to kill Romano for what he’d done to me. We were both cut from the same cloth.