After I finished the medicine, Ermanno kissed the tears from my face, then dismissed the staff and undressed me himself, drawing my bath with practiced hands.
He had done this for me countless times without complaint. In the beginning, I’d felt embarrassed and tried to call someone in to help.
But he’d gazed at me with open adoration. “A body this beautiful? I’d never let anyone else so much as glimpse you.”
“You’re mine alone.”
Every detail of my daily life, large or small, he insisted on handling personally, and he seemed to relish every moment of it.
What made it rarer still was that in three years of marriage, he had kept no one but me. His household staff consisted entirely of men. There wasn’t a single woman to be found inside the compound walls.
Ermanno was young and held the highest seat of power any man could claim. Even Don Silvio Lombardi had once tried to send him a pair of women as a gift following a successful sit-down, a gesture of goodwill between families.
He refused outright, in front of every Boss at the Commission table. The insult nearly started a war. Three of Silvio’s soldiers put him on the ground in the parking garage afterward, and they didn’t stop until someone pulled them off.
I’d seen him that night, his shirt soaked through with blood, not a rib left uncracked, and I wept and cursed him for being a fool.
But even through the pain, he smiled and pulled me close. “Don’t cry. I’d sooner betray the whole world than betray you.”
Back then, I believed I was the luckiest woman alive.
Everyone in the city knew that Don Santoro kept a wife he treasured like the very eyes in his head. They envied me endlessly.
Yet that woman, Katarina, had shattered something. For the first time, the husband I’d loved for years felt like a stranger, and every tender moment between us felt like an elaborate lie.
By the time I came back to myself, I was wrapped in thin silk and cradled in Ermanno’s lap.
He nuzzled my neck, coaxing, and I turned my head away on instinct. “I’m tired. Not tonight.”
Ermanno blinked, then softened. He ruffled my hair, eased me down onto the pillows, and tucked the covers snugly around me.
I waited until his breathing grew deep and even before opening my eyes in the dark.
Even in sleep, his arms were locked around me, refusing to let go. He loved me so completely. How could any of it be a lie?
The next morning, Ermanno was in high spirits, eager to take me to the vineyards outside the city, a quiet stretch of land the Family owned under a shell company where no soldiers stood post.
Before I could answer, someone appeared at the study door requesting a word.
The visitor barely got two words out before Ermanno’s brow creased and he snapped, “It’s my day off. I made it perfectly clear that no one was to come to the house.”
I tugged at his sleeve. “Don’t be angry. It might be something urgent.”
I called the visitor forward to deliver the message, but the instant the figure raised its head, Ermanno strode over and placed himself between us, blocking my view entirely.
His throat worked. He looked at me with something close to guilt.
“I just remembered, there is something pressing I need to handle. I’ll be quick. I won’t miss the vineyards, I promise.”
I studied him in silence. The visitor wore the dark jacket of one of the household men, but the frame beneath it was slender and soft. Given how rattled Ermanno was, who else could it be but the woman he kept at the safehouse?
My thumb pressed against the inside of my ring finger, hard, until the knuckle ached. I kept my expression neutral and my voice light. “If it’s that urgent, you should go. No need to rush back on my account.”
The moment I said it, Ermanno turned on his heel and left without looking back.
I watched his figure disappear through the front hall, past the two soldiers flanking the door who straightened as he passed, and a bitter taste crept across my lips.
This was the first time he had ever left me for another woman.
The restlessness gnawed at me until I couldn’t stand it. After a long hesitation, I chose one of the unmarked sedans from the garage and followed him myself.
The moment they turned out of the lane in front of the Santoro estate, Ermanno stopped the car and yanked the cap off the so-called attendant’s head. Silk-dark hair spilled down past her shoulders.
“Who gave you permission to show your face anywhere near my wife?”
The woman shrank back like a startled fawn, her eyes wide and brimming with hurt.
“I didn’t mean to. Please don’t be angry.”
