The Marriage He Must Keep by Dani Collins

and callow embarrassment now as had overwhelmed her then. What had he ever seen in her but naivety and willingness to be bedded?
    As they’d resumed the dance, he’d kept his jaw angled proudly to look across the bobbing heads around them toward his cousin, asking almost casually, “Well?”
    All she’d been able to think was that this wasn’t the man her father had chosen. She shouldn’t refuse Primo, but what if she landed a better catch? Such a lofty aspiration, she thought now with bitterness, but at the time she’d experienced a funny rush of excitement. It wasn’t rebellion if it was improvement .
    Was he really asking her to marry him?
    In case she was misinterpreting things, she merely answered the question he’d asked first. “I would prefer to focus on building a good home life after I marry.”
    The aspiration was stark and fervent, actually. She’d had the same banked ache all her life. She wanted a place in the world that was hers . A place where she was welcomed and loved. Surely if she was a better mother than her own, her children would love her? That was her real dream. To be loved.
    “I’ll speak to your father and begin working out the details.” His voice provoked the most delicious bubble of tension in her.
    But she’d been surprised enough to halt again. Her skirt had swayed around both their legs. “Are you serious? We’ve only just met.”
    “You’ve only just met Primo. But you’ve chosen me.”
    She swallowed. Had she? When? This was starting to feel too fast. Impulsive.
    “What...? What about him?” she asked.
    Something fierce flashed in his expression, but he’d suppressed it before she fully caught what it could have been. “I’ll handle my cousin.”
    He’d returned her to her parents, saying to Primo, “We need to talk.”
    Primo had given her another hard study, as if he was trying to find what he’d missed, then set his jaw and left with Alessandro.
    “You ruined it,” her father had growled in accusation.
    “You were on the balcony with his cousin?” her mother scolded. “He was asking for you.”
    “Nothing happened,” Octavia protested, but a lot had. “I mean, not like anything wrong .” She had been quivering in a kind of shock. “We just talked and... I think he’s going to offer for me. Alessandro, I mean.” It sounded outlandish even to her, now that he was gone.
    Her father had given her a grim look. “You misunderstood,” he insisted. What could Alessandro possibly want with her, his disdainful sneer had asked?
    What did Alessandro want from her? Compliance? A son? Would he be happy now? Approve?
    In every way, Alessandro was so much more than she was. She’d realized it that night on the terrace and it had only become more apparent as time wore on. He had more education and street smarts, pulled all the strings, had the power and the influence and confidence in his own prowess whether it was in negotiating the marriage contract or teaching his wife the ways of their marital bed.
    All she’d had was youthful, twenty-two-year-old looks that were passably pretty because she’d made a concerted study of how to highlight her assets and downplay her flaws. She prided herself on things like duty and loyalty because they were the only things her parents had ever valued and she’d overshot independence, skinning her knees hard enough to scare her back into her mother’s lap.
    She had been a complete doormat .
    It had to stop.
    * * *
    Alessandro had been exhausted when the interrogation was finished, but he was drawn to the hospital rather than bed, still poised to fight—because his cousin had attacked him in a very selective, devious way. Gone were the pesky one-upmanship salvos. This had very nearly succeeded in causing unimaginable damage.
    It had nearly cost Octavia’s and Lorenzo’s lives.
    A storm of retaliation was gathered in his chest, threatening to burst the civilized armor he had welded around himself with careful precision after