RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

What I discovered first was that Dante Marchetti didn't eat supper like a normal human being.

I entered the dining room at six fifty-five, not desiring to give him the satisfaction of having me arrive late. The room was as cold and Spartan as the rest of the house: a twenty-seat long mahogany table, crystal chandelier overhead, artwork on the walls that probably cost more money than most individuals earned in a lifetime.

Dante was already seated at the head of the table, scrolling on his tablet. He didn't look up when I entered.

I stood there, waiting for a quick greeting. But then nothing, not even a verbal response from him. Just the soft click of his fingers against the screen and the beat of my own breathing.

"Should I take a seat, or do you have to tell me where?" I asked finally.

His eyes went up. Cold, calculating. "Wherever you'd like. Though most don't want to sit across from you as far away as possible as if they're afraid of you."

"I am afraid of you."

A fleeting expression crossed his face. Surprise, maybe. Or approval. Hard to tell.

"Good," he said. "Fear keeps you listening. Listening keeps you alive."

I sat down three chairs from him. Close enough to converse, far enough to maintain some form of independence. Mrs. Chen served us the first course, a soup which tasted and smelled like cream and herbs.

We sat in silence eating for a few minutes. Dante continued working on his tablet between bites, as if I was just another object in the room.

"So that's how it's going to be?" I asked. "You're ignoring me only when you need something?"

"I'm not ignoring you." He set down his spoon with a deliberate slowness. "I'm working. There's a difference."

"You're working during dinner with your new wife."

"My new contractual obligation," he amended. "Let's not sensationalise what this is, Isabelle. We're both here because of a business arrangement. I'm providing my share by giving you security, comfort, and financial protection. You provide your share by being present when you're needed and not encroaching on my life."

"How considerate."

"I thought so." He took another spoonful of soup, then gestured toward my left hand. "You're not wearing your ring."

I looked down. The gold ring was still on, where it had remained since the ceremony. "Yes, I am."

"The engagement ring. The one that you got with your packet this morning."

I had not seen a packet. I had not even thought to look for one in the chaos of moving and adjusting and not having a complete breakdown.

"I didn't see it."

He took a deep breath as if I were a completely slow student. "Top of your dresser. Red velvet box. Hard to miss unless you weren't paying attention."

"I was distracted from being relocated to a stranger's house."

"My house. Your house now, technically." He pushed his tablet aside and focused fully on me for the first time. Those winter sky eyes fixed me with an intensity that caused my skin to erupt in goose bumps. "Let me make one thing quite explicit, Isabelle. Publicly, we're a loving couple. Honeymooners in love. You smile at me, you touch me when it's proper, you act as if being Mrs. Marchetti is the greatest honor of your existence. Privately, you stay out of my sight. Those are the rules."

"You left those rules out of the contract."

"I didn't think I had to specify elementary human sense. Apparently, I made an error."

The insult cut deeper than it ought to have. I put my spoon deliberately into my lap, fighting the urge to hurl it at his perfect, emotionless face.

"Anything else I should know?" I snarled through my teeth.

"A few things." He ticked them off his fingers as if he were reading from a shopping list. "You never leave the grounds without my permission and a security detail. You never make a call except using the authorized phone in your bedroom, which I monitor. You never enter my office, my bedroom, or the west wing ever. You attend any social occasion I go to, dress as my stylist selects, and remember that what comes out of your mouth reflects on me."

"So I'm a doll and a prisoner. Wonderful."

"You're safe and cared for. People would be grateful. Most people, anyway."

Most people aren't married to you.

That smile, again. The killer one. "No. They're not. And they should be grateful."

Mrs. Chen returned to take away our soup bowls and serve the entree. Some kind of fish with vegetables too pretty to eat. I pushed it around my plate as Dante shoveled it down with the efficiency of someone loading up and not tasting.

"Why do you dislike me?" I spurted out. The words surprised me more than him, I think.

He paused, fork suspended mid-air. "I don't dislike you."

"You certainly don't like me."

"I don't know you well enough to dislike or like you." He continued eating. "You're a means to an end, Isabelle. Nothing personal."

"Everything else is personal. You chose me out specifically. Not anyone who was in need of money. Me."

His jaw fused. For the first time since I'd known him, Dante was ill at ease.

"Your family name had certain advantages," he said guardedly. "That's all."

"You're lying."

"Excuse me?"

I slouched forward, driven by stupidity or anger or both. "You're lying. I can tell. Something about my family is important to you beyond the convenience of a marriage. So what is it? What did we do to you?"

The room temperature had dropped at least ten degrees. Dante laid down his fork and napkin, and then stood up, slowly. He moved around the table to me in steps of measured anger, each one of them threatening.

I should have retreated. Should have apologized. But I just stayed seated where I was, as he leaned over, putting his hands on the armrests, holding me in place.

"You want to know what your family did?" His tone was low. Deadly. "Your father destroyed people. Destroyed lives. Left kids without parents and families in debt. He smiled while he did it, too. Charming Richard Ashford, everyone's buddy. And you…. " He moved forward, close enough that I could smell his cologne, dark and expensive. "You're his daughter. His legacy. And every time I look at you, I see him."

My heart was pounding so hard that I could have sworn it would explode from my ribcage. "My father was a good man."

"Your father was a monster who employed good manners and old money to mask himself behind." Dante loomed over me, backing away once more. "But you'll discover that shortly enough. The documents are in the library. Second shelf, blue file. Read them when you're prepared to learn who he truly was."

He marched out of the dining room, leaving me shaking in my seat with half-a-fish consumed and a thousand questions clamoring to be released in my throat.

I didn't go to the library that night. I wasn't feeling up to it.

I went back to my bedroom and found the red velvet case inside my dresser drawer, exactly where he'd told me it'd be.

A ring lay inside that probably cost more than a subcompact car. Diamond surrounded by little diamonds, in platinum. Breathtaking and cold, just like everything else about this home.

I put it on and hated how well it fit.