Chapter 14

“Ah,what have I done to deserve this impromptu invasion?” I ask as I enter the fifth-floor den. My sister has already poured herself a drink, and if I had to guess, I’d say it’s her third of the day.

“Can I not just stop by for a friendly visit?” she asks.

“Not if you were born a Rossi.”

She winks. “Good point.”

My niece and nephew are already tearing up the room, causing incalculable damage to priceless heirlooms as their nanny looks on from the corner, her anxiety palpable.

“Why are you here?” I ask pointedly.

“Mabel, could you bring the children to the kitchen and get them a snack?”

The nanny nods, looking relieved. “Of course.”

After they leave the room, my sister looks away and takes a sip of her whiskey. “Roger and I are getting a divorce.”

“Oh…what prompted?—”

“A bastard. A bastard prompted it.”

People of our status are expected to cheat, and I’m sure my sister has had several of her own boy toys over the years, but it stops being fun with the humiliation of an illegitimate child. You become the butt of every joke, and inheritances get…messy.

Which is why my sister, no matter how slighted she feels, cannot divorce her husband.

“Maria, I understand you’re hurt, but you know what’s on the line.”

“Pride and inheritances.” She shrugs. “But who knows, maybe I can work something out if I can keep it from getting too volatile.”

“You know how Granddad feels about family.”

“A bastard crosses the line,” she says thickly.

“I understand, but Isabella’s line could get everything, and our line would diminish. Granddad won’t be around for much longer. Can’t you just wait it out?”

“As if you should be lecturing me about inheritance when you can’t even bring yourself to fuck your wife.”

“I fuck my wife just fine, thank you very much.”

“Really? Because Mom sent over the sluttiest lingerie I’ve ever seen to help your wife entice you.”

“I needed to make sure Ivy knew her place, so I kept away.”

“When are you going to move back to the family tower?”

“When Ivy is pregnant.”

“Don’t you think Grandad would be more generous if he saw you trying?”

“Should I send him a homemade porno?”

“Gross!”

“You asked for it,” I tease.

Maria licks her lips nervously, diverting her gaze from mine.

“Don’t divorce Roger,” I tell her. “Granddad doesn’t have long left, and it would be silly of you to believe he would be generous in his last days if you blow up your marriage.”

She snickers. “You really are clueless, aren’t you?”

“How so?”

“Do you really think Granddad is going anywhere?”

“He had a heart attack, Maria. They found cancer?—”

“Granddad is fine.”

“I visited him in the hospital.”

She rolls her eyes. “Where he played you like a fiddle to get you to bend to his will.”

“No…” I protest, but all at once, I’m suddenly not so sure.

He’d been getting on me for years, telling me I needed an heir. Could he have taken matters into his own hands?

“How is your pretty little wife?” Maria asks.

“She’s fine,” I snap.

“Mother’s worried you’ll lose everything.”

“Yes, because Granddad is sick and she would hate for my inheritance to be split between you and my cousins.”

“No. It’s because she hasn’t figured out Granddad’s ruse.”

“You’re mistaken!”

“He was laughing about it after you left your wedding.”

I turn away, my hands clenched into fists, trying to make sense of the situation.

I haven’t always gotten along with my sister, but when it comes to the matter of inheritance, we’re thick as thieves, because we know what we’re up against.

Isabella is a force within the Rossi family, because she works so hard to please Granddad. She didn’t even like her husband, but married him straight after Granddad introduced them, hoping to win his approval.

Which she did.

“I have to go now. I just wanted to run my situation by you and see what you thought. Say hello to your pretty little wife for me.”

She leaves without another word, and I’m left utterly dumbfounded, unsure of what to believe.

Could Granddad have faked a heart attack and cancer to get me to marry? I want to say it’s absurd. But I know my granddad, and what he wants, he gets.

And because of his antics, I’m now married to a woman who wants nothing more than to kill me.

I could confront him now and call off the whole thing. But if he knew the truth, he’d kill Ivy, because while he wasn’t as brutal as my father, he did what had to be done.

And with my wife’s demise and her secrets revealed, I’ll get my inheritance ahead of Granddad’s death, because he’ll know it was all his fault, and he’ll want to make it up to me. I won’t be forced to marry, and if I never sire a child, I’ll suffer no repercussions.

But for some inexplicable reason, this revelation brings me no joy. I don’t want to see my wife dead, and if she is to suffer, it will be by my hands.

Because my wife belongs to me. Her body, her soul, every moment of the day.

And I refuse to give her up.