A young woman is forced into marriage with a comatose mafia don, only to reveal a hidden identity of her own. As she navigates the dangerous world of the crime family that now controls her fate, the central tension lies in what she is concealing and whether her new husband will ever wake to discover it.
She is not worth a fraction of that. She never even went to school. She slept her way through that town. She had a child with some man.
I looked at her for a moment. Did you investigate that yourself? Or did you just repeat whatever lie sounded useful? Everyone in that town knows.
Disgust moved through the crowd. I nearly laughed. They had no idea that three months earlier, MIT had invited me to lead a joint research The announcement video was still online, with the university president handing me the authorization letter in
Yes, I had grown up on a farm. That farm gave me quiet. It gave me a room full of old books. It gave me enough stubbornness to win every scholarship I ever needed. Isla thought country girl was an insult. She never understood that the countryside had made me harder to break.
Leon looked at Isla. Slander against Don Valentino's wife is not gossip. It is a problem. The guards behind him shifted their hands to their weapons. No one fired. No one needed to. Isla went rigid. Leon escorted me out of the Ashford estate. Behind us,
Isla stood in the wreckage of her own performance, shaking with rage. I was taken to the Valentino family's private rose estate. White roses covered the corridors. Guards in black stood at every door. The Valentino matriarch clasped an heirloom blue diamond bracelet around my wrist and led me toward the ceremonial platform. The officiant had
barely begun and the doors flew open. Isla stormed in with Jonathan and Mrs. Ashford behind her. Her