Chapter 2
“Everyone has questions.”
He considered me for a long moment.
Then, unexpectedly, he pulled the chair toward the far side of the room and sat down, leaving several feet between us.
“All right,” he said. “Why did you think I needed to know?”
That was not the question I had expected.
I lowered myself onto the upholstered bench at the end of the bed.
“Because you thought I was something I’m not.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“It does to me.”
He leaned back slightly.
“You care what I think?”
“No.”
“That was quick.”
“I care when people decide things about me without knowing me.”
His expression sharpened with something that looked suspiciously like self-awareness.
I continued before I lost my nerve.
“The pictures you’ve seen are real. I went to those parties. I wore those dresses. I danced on tables twice, though one of them was Stella’s birthday and the table was approximately eight inches high.”
His mouth twitched.
“I’ve dated people. I’ve kissed people. I’ve made terrible decisions after midnight and excellent decisions the next morning. But there were some things I wanted to matter.”
He said nothing.
I rubbed my thumb over the ring.
“My mother died when I was thirteen. After that, my father became…” I searched for the word. “Busy. Not cruel. Never that. Just absent in a way that looked very responsible from the outside.”
“I’m sorry.”
The sincerity surprised me.
I nodded.
“For years, attention felt temporary. So I stopped trusting it. Every boyfriend eventually wanted me to prove something—to show I was serious, or spontaneous, or grown-up, or whatever word suited them. I always thought if I had to be pressured into trusting someone, then I didn’t actually trust them.”
“And no one earned it.”
“Apparently not.”
Niko studied the floor for a moment.
Then he said, “I owe you an apology.”
That surprised me more than anything else.
“For what?”
“For deciding who you were before meeting you.”
I waited for an excuse.
None came.
“You were rude,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Arrogant.”
“Yes.”
“Insufferably smug.”
His eyebrow lifted. “I don’t remember being smug.”
“I do.”
“I’ll accept the first two.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
It was small and tired and entirely inappropriate to the circumstances.
But the room changed with it.
Not into anything romantic.
Just something less hostile.
Niko stood.
“Your room is across the hall. Sofia left clothes in the dressing room.”
“Sofia?”
“My sister.”
“You have a sister?”
That actually earned me a look.
“Contrary to popular mythology, Santoros reproduce in ordinary family units.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
He opened the bedroom door.
Then paused.
“One more rule.”
I braced myself.
“If either of us learns something about this marriage that the other should know, we tell each other.”
I frowned.
“That sounds unusually reasonable.”
“I have occasional lapses.”
“And if the truth is inconvenient?”
“Especially then.”
I looked at him for a moment.
“Fine.”
He nodded once.
“Good night, Amelia.”
It was the first time he had said my name.
Not Miss Shaw.
Not Arthur’s daughter.
Amelia.
Something about it followed me across the hall.
My new bedroom was larger than my entire apartment.
I should have hated it.
Instead, after struggling out of my wedding dress and finding a soft cotton sleep shirt laid across the bed, I discovered a small card on the nightstand.
Welcome. I’m sorry we didn’t meet before today. Breakfast at nine if you’re awake. No formal clothes. I refuse to drink coffee with people dressed for diplomacy.
—Sofia
I read it twice.
Then I set it beside the lamp and finally slept.
At nine-fifteen the next morning, I walked into the kitchen barefoot and found a woman with Niko’s eyes eating toast over the sink.
She was perhaps twenty-seven, with dark hair piled carelessly on top of her head and an oversized university sweatshirt.
She turned.
“You’re alive.”
“So far.”
“Excellent. Niko said not to disturb you, which from my brother is basically a declaration of humanitarian concern.”
I smiled cautiously.
“Sofia?”
She wiped her hand on a dish towel and came toward me.
“I had prepared an elegant speech about welcoming you to the family, but this is extremely strange, so perhaps we should skip elegance.”
“That might be best.”
She hugged me.
May you like
I froze for half a second before hugging her back.
She stepped away.
