“You weren’t supposed to say it. You say a lot of hurtful things about me to him.”

“I was baiting him.”

“Good job. He got so pissed, he tried to hit my mom. This is partly your doing. My father is a madman, and anyone affiliated with him is a potential victim.”

“I’d never let him lay a hand on you.”

“Never, or until I’m not pretty enough to be Mrs. Keaton?”

“Never,” he enunciated. “And I’d advise you cut the bullshit. You will be Mrs. Keaton until the day you die.”

“It’s not the point!” I shouted, turning around and grabbing a glass of champagne for liquid courage, downing it in one go. He spared me the lecture. I looked around. The crowd was thinning. I’d lost track of time since the incident with my parents.

“What time is it?”

“Time for everyone to leave so we can sort out this mess,” Wolfe replied.

“And in practice?” I huffed. He twisted his wrist and pushed the sleeve of his blazer up, checking his Cartier.

“Eleven o’clock. You know they won’t leave until they escort us to the bedroom.”

I sighed. That was the tradition. He offered me his arm, and I took it. Not because I particularly wanted to spend the night with him, but because I wanted everything to be over.

Five minutes later, Senator Keaton announced that we were retiring to our bedroom. People whistled, clapped, and cupped their mouths with delighted chuckles. He helped me up the stairs to my old bedroom, which my parents had prepared for my wedding night. People followed, throwing candy and singing drunkenly, their voices high pitched and slurred. Wolfe threw his arm over my shoulder protectively, hiding the side of my face that was still red and swelling from my father’s offense earlier that evening. I twisted my head and caught a glimpse of my parents following the crowd. They were clapping along, ducking their heads down to listen to things people shouted in their ears. My mom had a wide smile on her face, and my father had that smirk that suggested he still had the world at his feet. It broke something deep inside me to know that it was all an act.

An act I must’ve bought as a child.

The summer vacations, the beautiful Christmases, their public displays of affection during social functions.

Lies, lies, and more lies.

Wolfe closed the door behind us, locking it twice for good measure. We both looked around the room. There was pristine white linen over the king-size bed that’d been put here, replacing my twin bed especially for the occasion. I wanted to throw up. Not only because we didn’t have anything to show them—I was not going to bleed on my wedding night—but also because the idea that everyone knew we were going to have sex tonight was unsettling. I took a seat on the edge of the bed, my hands tucked under my butt, staring down at my dress.

“Do we have to?” I whispered.

“We don’t have to do anything.” He unscrewed a bottle of water and took a sip, sitting next to me. He handed me the bottle. I put it to my mouth.

“Good. Because I’m still on my period. I started it a day after I took the Plan B.” I didn’t know why I was telling him this. Only I did. And it was time I asked it.

“Why did you make me take it?”

“Are you ready for children?”

“No, but you didn’t know that. And, frankly, many would have guessed the baby was conceived after the wedding. Why did you care so much?”

“I don’t want children, Francesca.” He sighed, rubbing his face. “And I mean…ever.”

“What?” I whispered. I’d been told that big, strong families were what dreams were made of and always wanted one for myself. He stood up and turned me around so my back was to him and began unzipping my dress.

“I didn’t have the best childhood. My birth parents were shitty. My brother practically raised me, but he died when I was thirteen. My adoptive parents died when I was at Harvard. Relationships, as I view them, are messy and redundant. I try my best to avoid them unless they are professional, in which case, I do not have much choice. Kids, by definition, are the messiest, and therefore the lowest on my wish list. However, I do understand your need to reproduce, and I will not stop you if you wish to have children. You will just have to take into consideration two things. One—they will not be mine. You can get pregnant through a sperm donor. And two—I will not play a role in their lives. If you choose to have kids, I will make sure to provide for you and them, and house you somewhere nice and safe. But if you choose to be with me—really be with me—we will never have children, Francesca.”

I bit down on my lower lip. I didn’t know how many heartbreaks I could endure in one day, let alone one month. I still hadn’t opened the wooden box and took out the last note, and I knew exactly why. Every note so far indicated that he was the man for me. But his actions proved he wasn’t. The truth was, I didn’t want to know whether he was the love of my life or not, simply because my heart was undecided, too.

When I said nothing for a while, he walked over to my girly pink closet, returning with a nightgown and a robe. He gave them to me, and I realized in my drunken haze that while I was deep inside my head, pondering our relationship, he had undressed me completely. I was naked, save for my panties.

“I’ll be back in five minutes. Be decent.”

I did as I was told. A part of me—a small part of me—didn’t care anymore. Perhaps not having kids was the right thing to do. We sure didn’t love or respect one another enough to reproduce. He wasn’t going to come to my OB-GYN appointments. He wasn’t going to care if it was a boy or a girl, or pick out furniture for the nursery, or kiss my swollen belly every night like I’d dreamed of Angelo doing.

Angelo.

Nostalgia prickled my heart. Angelo would have given me all those things and more. He came from a huge family and wanted one of his own. We talked about it when I was seventeen with our legs dangling from the dock. I said I wanted four children, and he answered that the lucky man I’d marry would have fun making them with me. Then we both laughed, and I swatted his shoulder. God, why did the notes point to Wolfe? Angelo was the man for me. Always had been.

I decided, as I wrapped my silky robe around my waist, that I would visit the clinic first thing next week and get on the pill. I would adopt Wolfe’s way of life. At least for the time being. Study, and have a career. Go out and work every day, the entire day.

Or maybe we would decide to divorce, and I’d be free. Free to marry Angelo, or anyone else.

I snapped out of my reverie when the door opened, and Wolfe walked in with none other than my father. I lowered myself to the bed, sitting on its edge as I took in the scene. Arthur’s lower lip shook, and he swayed from side to side when he walked. Wolfe held his elbow firmly as though he was a punished child.

“Say it,” my husband spat out, throwing my father to the floor underneath me. He fell on all fours, scrambling up quickly. I sucked in a breath. I’d never seen my father like this. Vulnerable. It was hard to decipher what was happening.

It was even harder to believe what left his mouth.

“Figlia mia, it was never my intention to hurt your pretty face.”

He sounded surprisingly genuine, and what was even more sickening was the way my heart thawed to his voice for the first few seconds. Then I remembered what he did today. How he’d acted the entire month. I stood up and walked over to my window, giving them my back.

“Now let me go or by God…” My father snapped at Wolfe behind me. I heard them shuffling behind my back and smiled grimly to myself. My father stood no chance against my husband. Neither did I.

“Before you go, there’s one matter that needs to be settled,” Wolfe said as I produced a pack of cigarettes from a drawer, flicking my Zippo and inhaling deeply. I cracked the window open, allowing the black night to swallow the blue smoke.

“Save me the riddles,” Dad barked.

“The matter of the bloodied sheets,” Wolfe finished.

“Of course.” My father snorted behind my back. I didn’t have it in me to turn around and watch what was written on his face. “I figured you milked the cow before you bought it.”

I heard a sharp slap and twisted on my heel. My father tumbled backward, holding his cheek, his back hitting my closet. My eyes widened, and my mouth went slack.

“Francesca is not ready yet,” Wolfe announced in his metallic tenor, his brooding, calm movements a sharp contrast to what he just did. He took one step toward him, erasing all the space between them, and yanked him up by his dress shirt. “And, unlike others, I will not touch a woman against her will even if she has my ring on her finger. Which really leaves us with no choice, does it, Arthur?”

My father narrowed his eyes at him, spitting a lump of blood on Wolfe’s loafers. He was a tough man, Arthur Rossi. I’d seen him in some stressful situations but never as out of sorts as he was now. It soothed me to know that I wasn’t the only one helpless against my husband, but it also frightened me that he had that kind of hold on people.

Wolfe strode to a black duffel bag near the foot of the bed and unzipped it, producing a small Swiss knife. He turned around. Papa stood tall and proud despite his dire situation and being completely wasted and in desperate need to support himself. He leaned against my old closet, his nostrils flaring.

“You’re dead. Both of you.”

“Open your hand.” Wolfe ignored the threat, flipping the knife open and producing a sharp edge.

“Are you going to cut me?” my father taunted, his lips twisting in revulsion.

“Unless my bride will do me the honor.” Wolfe turned his head around to look at me. I blinked, puffing off my cigarette to buy time. Perhaps it was true that I no longer felt despair and anger toward these two men. They’d ruined my life, each of them, in his own unique way. And they succeeded in such a way that I had felt positively damaged. Enough to sway my hips nonchalantly on my way to them. Whereas my father looked content with Wolfe cutting him open, when he saw me nearing him, his teeth slammed together and his jaw locked.