Before the Council Named Me Donna
For one foolish moment, I wanted Matteo to say my name clearly enough to put me back where he had allowed another woman to sit, but his eyes moved from me to Vanessa, then settled on his wine.
“Elena and I have an arrangement,” he said. “It helped both families.”
Arrangement.
Not wife. Not Donna. Not the woman whose brooch he had fastened, whose bed he shared, whose child she carried.
Vanessa smiled at me with soft pity. “That makes sense. Matteo was always too serious for romance unless someone forced him into it.”
I could have asked about the Donna-wing access, the missing signet, or the ceremony he had abandoned the moment she returned, but there was nothing elegant in bleeding at a dinne
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