“No catch,” Fabio says in a rush.
I laugh. “You mean there’s no caveat to drop the engagement? Or the blood test?”
Peace or not, no one could blame me for the anger that seeps into my voice. That stunt was a low fucking blow from the outset.
Unapologetic, Mischa’s expression doesn’t waver. His olive branch, must only extend so far.
We can work together to find the source of the chaos that has affected both of our lives—but where his daughter is concerned, we’re both enemies.
Though, what did Fabio suggest the day he first mentioned the blood test? Do you want to know why Mischa really asked for this asinine request? It’s because he thinks it will tip you over and that he has the upper hand. He wants you to drop the charade first, giving him the opening to go for your throat...
The ironic part is that—as far as vengeance goes—I’ve already beaten him at his own game. He aimed to use my dead wife and child as a tool to hurt me?
I’ve already countered with an underhanded move of my own.
I sullied his own damn daughter. A true bastard would gloat over that.
A coward, on the other hand? He’d try in his own twisted way to make amends.
Mischa wants my blood? He can have it.
“You know what?” I say to Fabio’s visible horror. He starts forward as if afraid I’ll voice a threat. Instead, I shrug. “I’ll do it. That blood test you wanted. In fact, we can arrange it now. Mine and hers. Just to square everything away.” Baring my arm, I head for the closest nurses’ station.
Fabio stammers. “B-But…”
“Can you direct us to the department responsible for blood tests?” I ask of the startled receptionist. “I want mine, and my fiancée’s tested. For DNA. Hell, run it for everything, just to be fully transparent. We’ll make it a family affair.” I try my damn hardest to inject the vitriol in my voice that I don’t feel.
This is just a pathetic way to assuage my own guilt and toss Mischa a bone. My humiliation? He can have it, one last show of goodwill before I let his daughter go for good.
If not for her, then for Vincenzo.
The Stepanov name has enough pull to command a blood test with ease. Perhaps, Mischa is playing along merely to save face. Or perhaps he truly believes that something nefarious will come from it—something he can use to turn his daughter against me.
It’s already too damn late for that.
I might as well be dead to her. Those eyes stare past me, her silence like a hammer driving in the vast gulf between us.
This is more than that shit over the letters. More than morning-after regrets. I almost reach out to her as we’re shown to a room where a nurse prepares to perform the procedure. My fingers are outstretched, her arm within reach…
“Donatello?” Fabio calls from the doorway, as wary as ever. “Are you sure this is really necessary?”
It isn’t, not to me, anyway. If anything, going through the motions of this charade just drives home how insane this plan was to begin with.
Marry a woman too young to even decide her own future. Her entire life has been guided by the strength and power of the Stepanov name. Who the hell am I to fuck with that, even out of spite?
The answer seems to lurk in the scarlet liquid the nurse takes from my arm.
I’m not blood to her. In the grand scheme, I was only ever a stranger who did the unthinkable and left her to die.
Once it’s over, now feels as good a time as any to approach Mischa directly without Fabio’s intervention.
He’s in the hall, waiting in silence. If he even still wants the damn blood draw, he hasn’t said a word either way. As I approach, he eyes me warily, one of his guards close by.
All I do is meet his gaze, hiding nothing. “You want this sham to end?” I ask, knowing that I’m far enough from the exam room that neither she nor Fabio can hear me. “Make me a deal. You can take her tomorrow, but you keep your word.”
His upper lip twitches, his eyes narrowing. I can see him cycle through the pros and cons of believing me or not. Finally, he crosses his arms, shooting a glance across the room where his daughter sits beside a nurse.
His voice is so gruff I nearly miss his reply. “Name your price.”
27
Willow
There is beauty in madness. In insanity, even. The human mind has an almost whimsical way of spinning reality into whatever narrative it desires.
Hate becomes interest if you want it to be hard enough. Interest can be lust. Lust can…
Seem so real. Feel so real.
Until you realize that, in a sense, it was all a daydream, conjured by a naïve mind. In the end, I was no better than Olivia in her letters, pining for a man who never existed.
The real Donatello never gave a damn about me. I was only ever a tool he could use to his own benefit. Any connection I thought I felt on the yacht, or that night in the hotel meets the hard wall of his disinterest—and then it shatters into a million pieces.
Weeks later and he can barely even look at me.
The letters are a festering wedge between us. I haven’t been able to bring myself to read them. Though I should. I should fearlessly stalk any hint of the truth—Donatello’s feelings be damned.
I should look for any further justification to hate him more than I already do. He had no right to feel betrayed over some silly old letters. No right to look at me like I was the monster for wanting to read them.
No right to ignore me all over again.
His hate is poison—I physically feel the effects, weighing me down, turning every waking moment into an exhaustive effort. Sleeping is the only thing that holds
