Lorenzo’s POV
I’d had Leo lock down the best table at Rosewood before sunrise, because tonight I was supposed to sit across from the woman I’d married and finally get a look at what ”d signed my name next to.
Instead she’d sent back a one-line refusal, cold as a coroner”s slab, and I was drinking wine with my father while he worked himself into a stroke.
Vincenzo said, jaw tight.
“Explain to me how a woman cannot spare one evening to break bread with the man whose name she now carries.”
“Maybe something came up for her,” Sofia offered, refilling his glass.
My father’s second wife had a gift for smoothing edges, though it never worked on him.
“Something more important than paying respect to her husband’s family?” He snorted, and I watched the old contempt settle over his face like a mask he’d worn his whole life.
“This is what happens when you marry beneath the name.
No breeding.
No manners.
God only knows what kind of household raises a girl who can’t be bothered to meet her in-laws.”
I set my fork down.
I’d be lying if I said the refusal hadn’t scraped at me.
It had.
But she and I were strangers who’d stood in a courthouse for eleven minutes.
There was no love there, nothing to wound.
A man doesn’t bleed over a contract.
Still.
Something about being brushed off sat wrong in my chest.
“Careful, Papa,” I said, swirling the wine, keeping my voice flat and easy.
“You’re insulting yourself now.
I haven’t gone to meet ‘her’ people either.
By your logic, that makes me the ill-mannered one.”
He choked on nothing.
“You.
You never should have thrown yourself into a marriage this reckless in the first place.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Would you prefer I’d married a man?”
“You—” He slammed his palm on the table and shot to his feet, the crystal jumping.
I rose too, unhurried, buttoning my jacket.
“I’m going to the men’s room.”
Nico—my younger brother, all lazy grins and zero shame—had been watching the whole show from his seat like it was pay-per-view.
He stretched, arms behind his head.
“Let him breathe, Papa.
He brought you a daughter-in-law.
“Keep pushing him toward divorce and he really will walk one home for you next time.
A man.”
The image landed.
I saw it hit my father, saw the blood climb his neck.
But he knew the little bastard was right.
A wife—any wife with a pulse and the proper legal paperwork—beat the alternative.
The heir to the Romano empire couldn’t be seen swinging the other way.
In our world, even a single whisper would be blood in the water, and every family from here to Palermo would come circling.
I left them to it and stepped out into the corridor, loosening the top button at my throat.
The hallway was quiet, dim, lined with private rooms behind heavy doors.
I needed a minute away from my father’s voice and the weight of a marriage I already regretted signing my name to.
Catherine’s POV
The table sagged under a dozen dishes, and nearly every one of them was something I loved.
“Cat, honey, Rosa ordered all your favorites,” Mr.
Conti said, beaming across the spread.
“Eat up.
You’re skin and bones.”
Warmth spread through my chest, sudden and aching.
“Thank you.
Really.”
Because this—right here, at the Contis’ table—was the only place I ever felt like family.
At home, if I reached for a second helping, my mother would rap my knuckles with a fork.
“Your sister’s still growing.
What do you need all that for?”
The comparison hit me right in the sternum, and my eyes stung.
Mrs.
Conti noticed me go still and slid a piece of glazed pork onto my plate.
“Cat?
Why’d you stop, sweetheart?”
I blinked hard, bit off a huge mouthful, and mumbled around it, “So good.”
She lit up watching me eat, then ladled soup into my bowl and started choosing her words with obvious care.
“Cat, you and Marco have been together six years now.
Don’t you think…” She trailed off, hopeful.
“It might be time?
His father and I, we’re just dying to hold a grandbaby.”
I opened my mouth to deflect—and Isabella beat me to it.
“Oh, ma’am, about that.” She leaned in, all wide-eyed sympathy.
“My sister’s not in the best health.
I heard a doctor say she might not be able to have kids at all.”
The Contis’ faces dropped in unison.
Conti turned to me, stricken.
“Cat, is that true?
We need to get you to a specialist right away—”
I shot my little snake of a sister a look, then set my fork down, unhurried, and pulled out my phone.
Scrolled to my last physical.
Turned the screen toward Mrs.
Conti.
“Here you go, ma’am.
I’m perfectly fine.
My sister doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
Relief washed over her face.
Then she turned a flat, unhappy stare on Isabella.
“You know, honey, I feel like you’ve spent this entire dinner running your sister down.
She ‘is’ your sister.”
Isabella went pale, then blotchy under all that powder.
“No—ma’am, I wasn’t lying, I really did hear a doctor tell her—ask her, ask my sister—”
She swung to me, eyes begging.
I tucked my phone away and didn’t give her so much as a glance.
Some doctor had once made an offhand comment that I was underweight, that malnutrition could make conception harder.
That was it.
And Isabella had stretched it all the way to “barren”.
I smiled at Mrs.
Conti, breezy as anything.
“Ma’am, my sister’s had a mouth on her since she could talk.
Trust me, I’m used to it.”
Then I leaned into Marco, right there beside me, tipped my head onto his shoulder, and let my voice go soft and shy.
“Marco…
maybe we should go home tonight and get to work on it.
Give your parents that grandbaby sooner rather than later.”
My eyes slid over Isabella’s flushed, furious little face, and something wicked flickered in my chest.
Marco went rigid beside me.
In six years, I’d never once curled into him like this.
Never used that voice, that melting, girlish tone.
I felt him swallow.
“Marco?” I purred.
“What do you think?”