Lorenzo pulled the car up beside me.
"Get in, unless you want those reporters tailing you all the way back to the estate."
I glanced back at the cameras still flashing behind me, the men with their lenses hungry for the next morning's scandal, then climbed in anyway.
It was only once I was seated that I noticed the blood smeared across my thighs. I tried to cover it, fumbling, but Lorenzo saw it anyway.
His brow creased, and he turned toward me.
"Is the baby all right?"
I opened my mouth to answer, but his phone rang first.
Bianca's voice came through, thick with the start of tears.
"Lorenzo, my Family's pushing me to come home for the alliance again. What am I supposed to do? My father's only giving me a week. Please, you have to think of something."
A young girl's heartbreak always pulls at people.
Sure enough, the second he heard it, Lorenzo slammed on the brakes and pulled to the curb. He sat in silence for a long moment, the engine ticking like a clock in an empty room, then spoke.
"A week is plenty. Wait for me to propose."
He murmured a few more comforting words and hung up.
The car dropped into a dead silence.
After a while, Lorenzo turned to look at me, something in his eyes I couldn't read.
"It's just playing along for the kid. Don't read into it."
When I didn't respond, he started the engine again and asked quietly,
"Where were we?"
I stared at the cars and people streaming past on the street, my mind gone blank.
I answered him mechanically.
"Nothing. I've forgotten too."
He nodded, and said nothing else the rest of the way.
And only then did it sink in.
My husband was about to propose to another woman.
And it just happened to fall on the day I walked out of the Moretti house.
How funny.
Half an hour later, the car turned through the iron gates and rolled into the courtyard, past the men who straightened the moment they recognized the car.
After I got out, Lorenzo kept staring at my seat for a long time. Maybe the smear of blood reminded him of the conversation we'd broken off. He took two quick steps and caught my hand.
"Adriana, you look pale. Yesterday, at the venue... are you all right?"
I pulled my coat a little tighter and didn't turn around.
"I'm fine."
I tried to twist free of his grip and head inside.
But the next second, Lorenzo was roaring.
"Adriana Falcone! Do you have any idea how insufferable you are? I'm your husband, and you treat me with this cold nothing every single day! If something's not good enough, say it! But this is exhausting! Do you feel anything at all?!"
The sudden eruption made me flinch. Across the yard, a guard's hand drifted toward his jacket, then stilled when no order came.
I turned and looked at him, his face flushed dark red, and for a moment I just froze.
I didn't understand where this came from. What right did he have to feel any of it.
But I knew that if I didn't give him an answer today, he wouldn't let it go.
So I looked at him and said softly, my fingers closing around the thin gold band on my hand,
"Lorenzo, you can do anything you want to me. But you shouldn't drag the Falcones into it. You threw me in front of those reporters today, and tomorrow my father will be the only name spoken in every Family's parlor. We both grew up in this world. You know what that means. He emptied his own coffers to pull your bloodline back from the grave—"
I thought I'd picked the most harmless thing I could say.
Lorenzo stared at me, stunned for a beat.
Then the fury swept over him all at once.
He glared at me with bloodshot eyes and shouted,
"Adriana Falcone, you call that a blood favor? That was preying on us when we lay bleeding out! That was paid for with my whole life and Bianca's! Shameless!"
"Eight years. Do you have any idea what Bianca has been through these eight years?! We loved each other, and the two of you, you and your father, you cruel, vile pair, you tore us apart! So I'll torment you to death!"
