What the hell can this boy give you that I can’t? But the answer was obvious. Love. He could give her real love, something she would never receive in the Keaton mansion. Not from me and not from her vegetables.

He nodded, getting up and walking toward the balcony’s double doors. I was surprised and disturbed by the relief I felt before hardening again. She probably noticed me and told him to run off before I killed him with my bare hands. I took a step toward the garden, ready to reclaim her and make sure she did not leave my sight again the rest of the evening. But as soon as Angelo walked away, she looked left then right and approached a group of middle-aged women. Making polite, disinterested conversation, she kept her eyes stuck on the second floor of the house the entire time, and after no longer than five minutes, she disappeared inside the house.

I followed her steps again, convinced they were going to the same place, when a feminine hand clasped my forearm, making me turn around.

“Do you at least go down on her?” Kristen smirked, her freshly applied red lipstick and precisely pinned blond updo showing she’d freshened up before hunting me down. I shook her off, laser-focused on going upstairs and finding my fiancée, but she blocked my way to the staircase, which was already teeming with people as it was. I had no particular objection to shoving her out of my way, but considering the amount of security, media, and the fact that she, herself, was a journalist, it wasn’t the best idea of the century. Yet again, I had to face the question that seemed to be eternal since Francesca had walked into my life—my career and reputation, or catching her little cheating ass red-handed?

Good news? I still had logic on my side.

Bad news? For now.

“I dug around.” Kristen snapped her fruity gum in my face, batting her lashes.

“Did you find a bone, or someone to bone you, for that matter?”

It irritated me that my internal thoughts bled outside my mouth. I usually prided myself in an admirable dose of self-control. But knowing my fiancée was probably fucking another guy upstairs made me want to rip the walls off with my own fingernails. Whereas I was quite content letting Francesca scratch her Angelo itch a few weeks ago, now was a completely different matter.

“Are you not interested to hear what I found out?”

“Not really.” I elbowed her aside gently, starting up the stairs. She chased me, grabbing the hem of my blazer and tugging. Not a chance, sweetheart. I was at the curve of the stairway when her words made me stop.

“I know why you did this to Rossi. He was responsible for that explosion. The one that killed your parents when you were at Harvard.”

I turned around, observing her—really looking, not just skimming her features—for the first time. Kristen was not a bad journalist, and under any other circumstances, I would respect her. But since it was me she was trying to fuck over, I had no choice but to fuck her harder, all puns intended.

“Do you have a point to your hearsay?”

“Rossi made you an orphan, so you took his daughter as retribution. An eye for an eye. I’d say it’s a pretty good lead.” She tipped her champagne glass back, taking a sip. I smirked, assessing her coldly.

“I took Francesca Rossi as a bride because I liked her. True, I have no kind words to say about her father, but it won’t be him warming my bed at night.”

“She doesn’t even share your bed yet. How interesting.” Kristen slow-clapped at my restraint at putting up with such behavior. Since she finally let go of my blazer, I turned around to complete my journey to the second floor just as Angelo slipped out of a guestroom, squeezing past my shoulder in the narrow hallway. I took one sniff at him and knew that he had just had sex. His lips were swollen, and his hair was disheveled and damp with sweat. Kristen’s eyes lit up at the look of him making his grand escape. Glee oozed from her big fat smile. I grabbed his arm, turning him around to face me. This night was going down in the books as my worst night as a public figure and possibly as a human being. Angelo stared at me, heaving.

Frantic. Breathless. Guilty.

“Leave before I ruin your life,” I spat out at Kristen. “And this time, you won’t get a third warning.”

She laughed. “Seems like you two have a lot to talk about.”

My former mistress scurried away, her laughter carrying in my ears long seconds after she was gone. I plastered Angelo to the wall, grabbing him by the collar.

I knew it looked bad.

I knew I had to explain it tomorrow morning.

I simply no longer cared.

“Who was with you in that room?” I demanded.

“I’d strongly advise you stop acting like a thug unless you’d like to be treated like one.”

I strongly advise you to stay away from my future wife before I really do kill you.

“You’ve had sex,” I countered.

“Thanks, Captain Obvious. I was there.” He laughed, regaining some of his composure, which infuriated me even more.

“Who with?” I pulled at his collar, almost to the point of choking. That sure wiped the smile off his face. I knew I had to calm down before people started noticing the little scene I’d created. But I couldn’t, for the life of me, gather my wits.

“See, my first answer to you. None. Of. Your. Business, Keaton.”

“Senator Keaton.”

“Nah. You sure as hell don’t represent me.”

“Any particular reason why you insist on getting on my bad side?”

“You’re on my future father-in-law’s bad side,” he said, unflinching. I had to hand it to him—he had balls the size of cantaloupes. “And the race to Francesca’s heart is one I’m going to beat you at.”

“I very much doubt you’re capable of beating me to anything other than pre-ejaculation, kid.”

“I’m fully prepared to test that theory. Heads up—I told Francesca I would gladly marry her without dowry, and that I am more than happy for my family to shell out whatever money is needed to untangle her from her Keaton situation. Might want to find another bride to fit that dress you bought.”

I was about to punch him in the middle of my engagement party when my fiancée slipped out of the second floor, too. She looked like a barely contained mess. Her smeared makeup was carefully wiped from her face, her eyes were wild with realization. Paired with Bandini’s frank admission that he’d slept with her, I saw very clearly what everyone else at the party were about to see, too.

Yet again, Francesca Rossi had been fucked by a man who was not her fiancé.

At her own engagement party.

Minutes after she was on my arm, no less.

I pushed Angelo down the stairs, pulling my future wife by the arm. She shrieked when I touched her, her eyes darting up in hysteria before softening when she saw it was me. Then she saw what was written on my face. If she could read me—which she could by now—she knew she was in deep trouble.

“What do you want?” she seethed.

A loyal fiancée.

A fucking shotgun.

For this nightmare of a sham relationship to be over.

“You just broke our verbal contract, Nemesis. Not a good thing to do with a lawyer.”

She frowned but didn’t try to defend herself.

There was a guillotine inside me, and I wanted to snap her pretty head off her body.

Tonight.

I’d just wiped the tears from my eyes after telling my mother that I was starting to warm up to my husband. The revelation was bittersweet, if not completely crushing. Perhaps it was the nightly encounters in the vegetable garden, or the way he kissed me so openly in front of Ms. Sterling tonight when he picked me up.

“Is it Stockholm syndrome, Mama?”

“I think it’s just young love, Vita Mia. Love is, after all, a little mad. Otherwise, it is not love but merely infatuation.”

“Do you have to be mad to fall in love?”

“Of course, you do. Falling in love is, by definition, going crazy for someone else.”

“Are you crazy about Dad?”

“I’m afraid I am. Otherwise, I wouldn’t stay even though he is cheating on me.”

That happened, too. And it threw me off even though I should have seen it coming. It was not uncommon for the men of The Outfit to take a mistress or two.

Mom said that if it rips you apart, that means it is real.

“But shouldn’t love feel good?”

“Oh, nothing is good if it doesn’t have the power to feel bad, too. It’s all about the quantities, Francesca.”

Quantities.

The quantity of my affection toward Wolfe revealed itself when Angelo ushered me to the garden away from the throng of people. Despite my feeling completely crushed and angry at my coldhearted fiancé, I’d wanted to stay with him and brave my father together. Then Angelo sat me down and brushed a dark curl from my eyes and asked me if I was happy. I thought about it long and hard.

I wasn’t happy.

I was not unhappy, either.

I’d realized that not only did I harbor unexplainable, positive feelings for the man who’d imprisoned me, but I no longer craved Angelo’s touch the way I had before Wolfe bulldozed his way into my life. I still loved Angelo, but only as the kid who protected me from his brothers and shared smiles with me from across the dining table. Instead of his warm, familiar, soft hands, I longed for my fiancé’s strong, callous, hard palms. The realization struck me like lightning, and I told Angelo that although I felt bad about him and Emily—it was over between us.

For good.

Once I saw the look on his face, I took his hand and brought it to my chest, begging for his forgiveness. And when he stood up and walked away, all I wanted to do was find my mother and tell her. I had to wait until Angelo was nowhere near me so it wouldn’t look like we were going to the same place.

Angelo had disappeared inside the house shortly after. My cousin Andrea said between sipping mimosas that she saw him slipping into a guestroom upstairs with the blonde reporter Wolfe used to date.

“The one with the pretty hair? Tall? Lanky? Tan?”