Chapter 3

【Adriana Falcone, can you stop making a scene? Know your place, would you?】

In that moment, I was almost grateful he hadn't picked up.

Otherwise I couldn't imagine the vicious things he'd have said to shame me before the whole of both bloodlines.

I didn't reply. I lay in the Family's tame clinic for a whole day before I had the strength to get up and move around.

The sun outside was gorgeous, so I went up to the clinic's rooftop garden to sit in it, and ran straight into Lorenzo's running crew.

Each of them held a fruit basket and a bouquet, all different, the kind of tribute made men carried when they wanted to be seen carrying it.

Thinking they'd come to see me, I instinctively turned to get away.

Instead they circled in front of me, looking my patient's gown over with amused eyes and needling me.

“Oh, so you heard Lorenzo was here keeping his kept woman company, and now you're faking sick and putting on a sob story too?”

“You gave a little blood, that's all. Do you really have to play this helpless, delicate act?”

“And I have to say, the powder on your face looks pretty natural. Blends right in. We always said you were a schemer, and Lorenzo just wouldn't believe us……”

Lorenzo's crew had always thought I wasn't fit to marry into the Barone line.

If he hadn't overruled all of them and made them call me his betrothed of the alliance, they'd never have accepted me.

Now, to fall in line with Lorenzo, they could finally say what they really thought, and not hold back.

Salvatore Greco glanced sideways to see where Lorenzo stood before he let his grin settle, then straightened his tie.

Lorenzo, who'd come down to meet them, saw me and froze for a second, then knit his brows.

“Adriana Falcone, is this really necessary?”

“I already agreed to honor the vow and go through with the wedding feast. And you still bribe a doctor to fake being sick here just so you can spy on me? What's the point?”

“Do you have any idea how much you suffocate me, doing this?”

“I'll tell you straight. If you're still like this after the union, sooner or later we break the pact anyway!”

“No need for all that trouble. I don't need you to marry me!”

Six years bound to him, and he'd always been free.

If he wanted to drink at some back-room table, I sat quietly beside him and never rushed him.

If it wasn't the place for me to be, I'd just wait for his word and go collect him the moment he called.

And when he got drunk, I took care of him without a single complaint.

If he wanted to travel alone with his crew, I arranged the passage and planned the whole itinerary for them.

Even when he handed me his phone to check for myself, I never actually checked.

I loved him, and I didn't want to repeat my mother's tragedy, the one that drove my father to sever their union because she needed too much control.

I'd always thought I handled the distance between us well.

At least before the staged abduction, we'd been as close and in love as ever.

But now I finally knew. My love suffocated him.

So was this the real reason he faked the forgetting and went chasing his thrills?

Our eyes met, and I couldn't find a shred of feeling for me in his.

The accusation nearly off my tongue, I swallowed it all back down.

Under my stare Lorenzo's brows drew tight. He snatched the lilies out of one of his men's hands and shoved them hard into my arms.

“Enough. Don't get what you want and then act coy about it. Take the flowers and go, now!”

He thought I was still that same girl, the one who'd be perfectly satisfied with a small gift.

He didn't believe it either, that the woman who'd swear she'd marry no one but him would actually not marry him.

I handed the flowers back to his man.

“These are the flowers they brought for your kept woman. It wouldn't be right for me to take them.”

“The blood debt was my choice to pay. You really don't have to force yourself to honor the vow.”

A strange panic rose in Lorenzo. His thumb went to the heavy signet ring and began to turn it, slow at first.

Shouldn't Adriana be jumping for joy?

Why did she keep insisting he didn't have to marry her?

She couldn't actually be angry, could she?

The ring turned faster. Something anxious flickered in his eyes.

“Adriana, I……”

His crew cleared their throats, one after another, and he caught himself.

“Adriana, I'm a man of my word.”