Dante's Honour-bound Husband

“I don’t understand. If you don’t want marriage, then what the hell do you want from me, Gianna?” Constantine demanded. “Why am I here? Or have these past nineteen months been a waste of my time?”

Good question. She planted her hands on her hips and spared her grandfather a swift glance. He continued to drink his coffee, watching the drama unfolding with an expression of utter delight. Honestly. There were times her family drove her crazy. She looked at Constantine uncertainly. “Are you interested in marriage?”

He swore. “Why do you think I returned? Why do you think I’m listening to this craziness instead of carting you off to bed and spending the next week compromising you so thoroughly you’ll have no choice but to marry me?”

Color darkened her cheeks. This time she didn’t dare look at her grandfather, though she heard his soft, choked laughter. She held up her hands. “Enough, already. If you’re serious about a relationship, then you’ll have to go about it the normal way. The old-fashioned way.”

That stopped him. “What are you talking about?”

Exasperated, she said, “I’m talking about dating, Constantine. I’m talking about going out to dinner and getting to know each other. Learning each other’s likes and dislikes. Figuring out whether or not we’re actually compatible.” She shoved her palm in his direction and shook it at him. “This isn’t any guarantee of happiness. I happen to know that for a fact.”

Silence reigned at the end of her tirade.

“Exactly how do you know this for a fact, chiacchierona?” Primo asked, the question dropping into the abrupt silence.

Oh, no. She refused to go there. Refused to share the secret she’d kept since her thirteenth birthday. Her entire family believed implicitly in The Inferno, believed that it was permanent and everlasting. No way would she be the one to disabuse them of a legacy they celebrated and cherished.

She folded her arms across her chest and—for once in her life—closed her mouth and kept it closed.

To her profound relief, Constantine inadvertently came to her rescue. “Gianna has a point,” he offered, albeit reluctantly. “Even though we’ve known each other for more than a year and a half, we’ve only been together for a handful of days.”

“What do you suggest?” Primo asked.

“Time,” Gianna immediately replied. “Time for the two of us to become better acquainted. To look before we leap.”

Primo didn’t want to agree, she could see it in the brilliant gold of his eyes. After a moment’s reflection, he nodded, also reluctantly. “Very well. I will say nothing of what I have learned here this morning while I give you this time.” He fixed Gianna with a cool, pointed stare. “One month, chiacchierona. After that you marry, willing or not, even if I have to carry you down the aisle, myself.”

Six

The instant Primo left, Gianna retreated upstairs, no doubt to change. Constantine followed. He wasn’t about to give her the opportunity to fortify her barricades or find a loophole buried within Primo’s ultimatum.

“I need to change,” she informed him the instant he entered her bedroom.

He made himself comfortable on her chaise lounge. “I’m not stopping you.”

She turned on him, planting her hands on her hips. “What is it with you? Last night I practically threw myself at you and you wanted nothing to do with me. This morning you won’t give me an inch to breathe.”

“You have an inch.” He eyeballed the distance between them. “By my calculation, you have quite a few inches.”

“You know what I mean.”

She must have realized he had no intention of leaving. With a sigh of irritation, she spun on her heel and crossed to her closet, flinging open the door and disappearing inside. Curious, he followed.

“Madre di Dio,” he murmured faintly.

“I don’t want to hear a word about it,” she retorted, her back to him.

He thought he caught a defensive edge in her voice. “Just out of curiosity, how many pairs of shoes do you own?” he asked.

She turned, clutching a pair of heels. “Not enough.” She glanced at the huge rack of tidily shelved shoes which covered every spectrum of the rainbow. “Besides, they’re not all mine. Some of them are Francesca’s. We discovered a while back that we wear identical sizes.”