Three Years of Loving You, Now I Choose the Empire

"Father, I'm willing to marry the Castellano family's comatose son in Isabella's place."

My father was stunned. "You've come to your senses? You're not waiting for that bodyguard of yours to change his mind?"

I pushed my hair back and gave a cold smile. "Isn't his heart set on that illegitimate girl, just like yours? I'm giving all of you what you want."

I had hit the mark, and his face went ugly. "Name your terms."

I held up one finger. "Ten billion."

The person across from me slammed the table hard. "Are you out of your mind?"

"I'm not negotiating with you. The day the money lands is the day I go. Otherwise, push your precious illegitimate girl out there instead."

He thought about it for a moment and stubbed out his cigar. "Two weeks. I'll make the transfer. But you don't get to change your mind, even if Marco..."

"Don't worry. Once a person's heart turns, there’s no going back. Just like yours did with my mother."

With that, I turned and left the study.

Marco was the bodyguard I had loved for three years, cold and restrained, and I had believed that one day I would win his heart.

Then, two nights ago, passing his room, I heard him saying Isabella's name in a voice thick with wanting.

The door wasn't shut all the way, and through the gap I saw it. He was getting himself off to a photograph of Isabella!

Before that I had half believed he simply had no appetite for any of it.

No matter how I tried to get close, he never reacted.

And the more he held back, the more I took him for a man of restraint and single-minded loyalty.

Three years ago, while selecting a bodyguard, I picked him out at a glance. A discard the De Luca family had let go.

He stood nearly six foot three, broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, but his gaze was cold and distant whenever it fell on me.

There was no man in Chicago who wasn't interested in me.

And he was the one who set every bit of my appetite alight.

So I hired him over everyone's objections.

At first I only wanted somebody to toy with. But I had been alone for so long after my mother died in childbirth, and once Marco was there for everything I did, teasing him turned into wanting him.

And in three years, he had never so much as batted an eye at me.

I used to think he was like that with everyone. It wasn't until that night that I understood everything.

I couldn't keep watching it. As I turned to go, he took a call.

A man's voice on the other end was just audible. "How's it going on your end? The Don says don't hold up real business over a woman."

Marco's voice went cool again. "I know what I'm doing."

"Sure you do. The De Luca heir playing bodyguard just so he can see her sister every day, and you know what you're doing?"

Marco laughed once. "I looked into it. Isabella was born out of wedlock, so she's never felt safe. Coming at her directly would frighten her. Working my way in through her sister is steadier."

"I hear the older Vittori daughter is awfully keen on you. She's one of Chicago's great beauties. You've really never been tempted?"

The room went quiet for a beat. "Not interested. She isn't worth a single hair on Isabella's head."

Each word stabbed into my heart like a knife, and that night I all but fled the place.

The heir to the De Luca family, three years as a bodyguard at my side, all for an illegitimate girl who couldn't match me in anything and could only cry.

It was absurd.

My fingers dug into my palm.

Fine. I would take back every bit of my love.

I took out my phone and called my grandfather's private encrypted line.

After my mother died he kept trying to take me away, and every time my father stopped him with the same excuse: "A Vittori child must grow up in the Vittori house."

The line rang twice. "Ariana?"

"Grandfather." My throat closed up. "I've agreed to the marriage my father arranged. I go to New York in two weeks."

"Sweetheart, Albert still shows no sign of waking." He sighed. "What can we do for you?"

"It doesn't matter if he never wakes," I said. "I need a lawyer to draw up a prenup that lets me take over the trust as his wife. And..."

I hesitated.

"Before I go, I want to buy back my mother's blue diamond necklace at tomorrow's Christie's sale."

"Good girl." He agreed at once. "Ariana, you're our treasure. The Langdons aren't just your mother's family. We're the family you can rely on."

"I know, Grandfather." I smiled. "Good night."