Like Father, Like Son

Chapter 5

Marriage vows are just poetry for people who still believe in happy endings.

And I am reciting them to a stranger who reeks of alcohol at eleven in the morning.

The cathedral swallows our voices whole, two hundred witnesses watching me sign my life away in a ceremony that lasts exactly twenty seven minutes. I counted. Twenty seven minutes to erase twenty-three years of being Lucia Santoro.

Though really, I stopped being her the moment Dad placed his bet.

Marco's hand grips mine during the ring exchange, his palm damp with last night's vodka sweating through his pores. The platinum band slides onto my finger like a shackle and heavy enough to drag me under.

When the priest announces we may kiss, Marco's mouth crashes against mine, literally.

All teeth, filthy lust and possession.

The reception hall sparkles with crystal and lies, every surface reflecting versions of happiness that don't exist. I sat at the head table in a dress that cost more than my family could afford, watching my new husband work his way through the bar like it personally offended him.

"Another toast!" Marco slurs from across the room, his fifth or sixth, I've lost count.

His arm drapes around a redhead in a dress cut low enough to see her ambitions. She laughs at whatever he whispers, her hand sliding up his chest with practiced familiarity.

The wedding guests pretend not to notice.

They dance and drink and celebrate this union of families while the bride sits alone, with her champagne going flat in the glass.

My parents occupy a table near the dance floor, Dad animated with newfound importance, Mom shrinking into her chair like she's trying to disappear into the upholstery.

"Beautiful ceremony." Aunt Teresa stops by my table, her smile stretched tight as fresh plastic surgery. "You look radiant, cara."

"Thank you." Programmed responses for a programmed bride.

She glances toward Marco, now pressing the redhead against a pillar, his hands mapping territories that aren't his to claim.

"Young men and their... enthusiasm. He'll settle down once you're properly married."

We are properly married.

The papers are signed, the priest has blessed us, the trap has snapped shut. But I nod because that's what brides do—they nod and smile and pretend their husbands aren't fondling other women at their own wedding receptions.

The chair beside me fills with a presence that rearranges my DNA at a cellular level and I don't need to look to know it's Salvatore.

My body recognizes him before my brain does—skin prickling, pulse jumping, that low pull in my stomach I refuse to name. The room reorganizes itself around him, conversations shifting to quieter registers, bodies angling toward him like he's gravity itself.

"You're not dancing." His voice carries that particular calm that makes my spine feel liquid, makes everyone else sound like they're shouting.

"Neither are you."

"I don't dance at weddings." He signals a waiter, who materializes with wine. His fingers brush mine when he hands me the glass, and heat shoots straight through me. "You haven't touched your champagne."

"I prefer to keep my head clear when signing contracts."

His mouth twitches, that almost-smile I remember from the drugstore, and God help me, I want to trace it with my thumb.

"Smart girl. Though the contract's already signed. The rest is just theater."

Across the room, Marco pulls the redhead onto his lap, her giggle cutting through the music like nails on glass. Several guests turn to stare, then quickly look away. Their discomfort is obvious in the way they suddenly find the ceiling fascinating.

"Your son has interesting ideas about marital fidelity."

I keep my voice neutral, observational, like I'm commenting on the weather and not sitting next to a man who makes my thighs clench under this ridiculous dress.

"My son has many interesting ideas, most of them stupid." Salvatore's tone doesn't change, but his jaw tightens. "I respect what you've done, Lucia. Not many people put family above themselves anymore."

"Necessity isn't nobility, Mr. Caruso."

"No, but it requires its own kind of strength." He watches Marco stumble toward the bar again, the redhead trailing behind him like a discount shadow. "My son certainly never learned that lesson. He takes what he wants without understanding the cost."

"I noticed that at our first meeting."

His eyes sharpen, dark and knowing, and for a moment I wonder if he knows about Marco groping me. If anything happens in his world without his permission.

The thought of Salvatore using violence against men who insults me shouldn't make a heat pool between my legs, but my body has apparently decided to betray me completely.

"Most likely, he won't improve with time, if you're harboring that particular fantasy. Unfortunately, my son is exactly who he appears to be."

"A drunk who gropes women at his wedding while his father makes excuses?"

"I don't make excuses. I speak the truth as it exists, not as we wish it would be."

He leans closer, and I catch that same cologne from the drugstore, expensive and dark, mixed with the copper memory of blood. My breath catches unwillingly.

"Your father sold you a fairy tale along with your freedom. I won't insult your intelligence by continuing that fiction."

Heat builds behind my eyes, that particular pressure that warns of tears I can't afford.

Not here, not now, not in front of this man who owns my future and makes my body respond like a tuning fork struck at exactly the right frequency.

"You're going to cry." It's not a question. His voice drops lower, meant only for me, and the intimacy of it makes my skin burn. "Don't."

"I'm not…"

"You are. Your jaw is clenched, your breathing has changed, and your hands are shaking." He sets his wine down with deliberate precision, those hands that have probably done terrible things and which I keep imagining on my throat. "I don't want my guests thinking you're here against your will, even if that's exactly where you are."

"How considerate of you."

"Consideration has nothing to do with it. I've explained why I need this marriage. The legitimacy your name brings to mine. That only works if you play your part willingly."

His eyes hold mine, dark and uncompromising, and I hate how much I want him to look at me exactly like this when I'm under him.

"So you'll sit at this table, at your own wedding, and you'll smile. You'll look content if not happy. You'll be the bride these people expect to see."

"And if I don't?"

"I don't like when people make me regret believing in them, Lucia." The threat slides between us, and since when does danger make me wet? "Your family's debt is cleared, but debts have a way of regenerating when trust breaks down."

The mathematics of survival are simple—smile or suffer.

I force my mouth into the shape of happiness, the expression feeling like broken glass against my face, while my treacherous body catalogues every detail of him.

The silver at his temples. The way his suit pulls across his shoulders. Those hands that look like they could break me or worship me with equal skill.

"Better." He stands, straightening his jacket with economical movements that somehow make my mouth go dry. "Remember, you're a Caruso now. Act like one."

He walks away, leaving me alone with my practiced smile, flat champagne, and an ache between my legs that has no business existing. The music swells, some Italian love song about eternal devotion that makes me want to laugh or scream or both.

Ten minutes pass. Fifteen. The redhead disappears into the bathroom, and Marco staggers toward me, his gait listing left like a ship taking water.

His tie hangs loose, his shirt untucked, his eyes glazed with the kind of drunk that erases tomorrow.

"Time to go." He grabs my arm hard enough to leave marks, hauling me up from the chair. "Wedding night, baby. Time to make this thing official."

The room spins as I stand, two hundred eyes tracking our movement. Marco's grip tightens, his fingers digging into the soft flesh above my elbow.

"Marco, you're hurting me."

"Get used to it." He leans close enough that his whiskey breath makes my stomach turn. "Lots of things are gonna hurt tonight."