Chapter 3

I read it three times before my brain accepted what my eyes were seeing, and then the phone slipped out of my hand onto the studio floor.

The sound was soft against the carpet but it felt like a gunshot in my head.

The rain outside was still hammering the windows with everything it had.

My legs carried me to the worktable and I gripped the edge with both hands, staring at the blank canvas without seeing it.

A game. That was what our marriage had ever been to him. Every dinner he cooked, every migraine pill he placed beside my water, every hour he spent waiting for me to come home from the gallery now felt poisoned.

Our entire marriage had been constructed as a game, with me as the piece being moved across the board.

All of it had been deliberate, calculated, and aimed directly at me.

He had not forgotten what he did in that stairwell fifteen years ago, and he had never planned to let me forget it either.

I made it to the bathroom before my stomach revolted, gripping the cold porcelain while my body tried to expel something that would not come.

When I finally straightened up and looked in the mirror, the woman looking back at me was the color of old plaster.

The scar beside my temple caught the bathroom light and shone pale and cruel, a permanent mark Vincenzo Marchetti had carved into my body fifteen years ago.

I turned the cold tap on full and pressed both hands under the running water, focusing on the physical sensation until my breathing steadied.

Fifteen years ago he had broken my skull and walked away without consequences because his family owned everything that was supposed to protect me.

Now he had walked back into my life with a different strategy, one that required me to be comfortable and trusting instead of terrified and running.

The question that was making my hands shake was not what he had done but what he was planning to do next.

He had been patient enough to build an entire marriage around this, which meant the ending he was working toward was something worth waiting for.

The woman in the mirror looked back at me and I made a decision.

I was not going to confront him, not tonight and not until I understood the full shape of what he had built around me.

If Vincenzo Marchetti wanted to play a game, then we were going to play one, but I would be the one setting the rules from now on.

I dried my face and worked my expression back into something that resembled normal, the blank and slightly tired look of a woman who had been up too late working.

When I came out of the bathroom he was standing in the studio doorway.

He had changed into a dark sweater, his hair still damp from the rain, and he was holding his phone in one hand.

"I forgot this, so I had Carlo turn the car around," he said, lifting the phone slightly.

"You drove all the way back here for it?" I kept my voice light and curious, though my pulse was beating hard against my throat.

"I was three blocks from the restaurant when I realized I had left it behind," he said. "I do not like walking into a room blind. Especially not with the Costas."

"Could you not sleep again tonight either, amore?" he asked, glancing at the untouched paints.

"The Russian commission is already overdue," I said, nodding toward the blank canvas, "and I thought guilt might do what inspiration would not."

It was the truth, which made it the perfect cover. He could see the untouched canvas with his own eyes.

He looked at the canvas for a moment, then back at me.

"I already called Raffaele to handle the meeting for me," he said, his voice calm and easy. "I am not going back out tonight."

"Amore, come to bed with me right now," he said, holding out his hand. "You have been working yourself too hard lately, and I do not like watching you wear yourself down like this."

If I had not seen that note with my own eyes, I might have mistaken the concern in his voice for love. Now it felt like another careful move in a game I still did not understand.

I put my hand in his and felt the warmth of his grip close around my fingers.

We walked back to the bedroom together and he pulled the covers back on my side with the same effortless attentiveness he brought to everything.

"Get some sleep, and stop trying to carry every burden alone," he murmured as he settled beside me.

He kissed my temple, the good one, the one without the scar, and I lay perfectly still while he settled in behind me.

I said nothing and did nothing, because anger would be foolish now and foolishness would give everything away. Men like Vincenzo only made mistakes when they believed the woman beside them was harmless.

His arm came around my waist and I felt his breathing slow and even out within minutes, the deep easy sleep of a man with nothing on his conscience.

I stared at the ceiling in the dark with his arm heavy across me and thought about the note with my name on it, created ten days before our first meeting.

He had sat across from me at that restaurant knowing exactly who I was, knowing what he had done to me, knowing I had spent four months in a hospital because of him.

He had pulled out my chair and ordered wine and asked about me with polite interest while carrying that note in his phone like a trophy.

The most terrifying thing was not the violence I already knew he was capable of, but the patience.

A man who could wait fifteen years and then spend two more building a perfect trap was not a man ruled by impulse.

He had a plan, and I was already inside it, and I had no idea how far along it was.

His arm tightened slightly in his sleep and I made myself relax against him, made my breathing slow and regular and performed the unconscious ease of a woman who felt safe.

Because the only advantage I had right now was that he did not know I had found his note.

And I was not going to give that up until I understood what the game was actually for.