Page 34 of The Vow

My defense deflated like a balloon. I knew he’d used the Italian Mafia to launder money for quite some time before he’d suddenly cut ties with them. Whether it was because of Nonna and her daughter, I couldn’t prove one way or another. In some way, I was sure helping them and severing his ties with the Mafia had somehow worked in Damon’s favor, even if it had earned him a nasty scar in the process.

“When was that?”

“Nine years ago.”

So Nonna had been with him for a long time. “So you came here then? What happened to your daughter?”

“He brought us here. Paid for my daughter to go to university. She graduated honors four years ago. She works for tech company now.” Pride beamed in her voice as she rolled out another length of dough.

“And you worked for Damon this whole time?”

Her gaze snapped to mine at the slip of his name.Shit.

“He’s my family, Signora.” Saliva pooled like acid against my cheeks. “He’s your family, too.”

“No, he’s not,” I said a little too harshly, my tongue threatening to lash out the truth of what he’d done to me.

Losing battle,I reminded myself. He’s saved this woman and her daughter; she would defend him until the cows came home.

“Nine years I’ve been with him, Signora. Nine years, and I see no one else. Nine years, and he speak of no one else.”

The ball in my throat stretched. Widened. Anger and pain and ache formed a bitter cocktail that made me want to heave the contents of my empty stomach.

“As you said, he doesn’t tell you everything,” I countered with a terse smile.

Her thin lips pursed, but before she could say anything else, a sound blared through the room. It took me a second to realize it was coming from her cell phone buried in one of her pockets.

“Buonasera, Signor.” She fished it out and answered.Damon.My eyes tracked her as she pinned the phone to her shoulder and went to the sink to scrub her hands. “Si.” A pause. “Si, I tell her.”

That could only mean me.

My heart drummed, beating out the rest of her lilted conversation until she finally hung up.

“Come with me, Signora.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask where, but what did it matter? We wouldn’t be leaving the house. Not without Damon.

We crossed the main floor to what I still referred to as thewest wing,Nonna leading the way straight to Damon’s room. There, I got the answer to my earlier question; the door wasn’t locked.

I slowed my pace, unable to continue past the threshold as I carefully cataloged the interior of the room.

Damon’s bedroom was what I would’ve expected. Windows advertised the darkening city skyline to my right. Beige walls were marked with expensive and probably stolen art. A massive, lavish four-poster bed draped with dark, brocaded sheets.

I tried to focus on the older woman, but as she approached the bed, something caught my eye—a mirror suspended from the ceiling.

Bitterness wedged in my throat.And she wanted me to believe there had been no one else…witha man who had a mirror hanging over his bed.

I didn’t even realize the sound of disgust made it past my lips until Nonna turned. I quickly looked away—another mistake when my eyes caught on a photograph framed on his dresser. Before I knew it, I’d walked over to take a closer look.

I picked up the thin frame and stared at the black-and-white photo inside. It was of Damon and me at Sinclair’s New Year’s Eve party fifteen years ago. My brow pinched. I didn’t…I had no idea someone had even caught this moment—our kiss on one of the disposable cameras Sandrine had put out as a fun little activity for guests to do during the course of the night.

My mouth dried. Heartbeats spattered against my chest, a casualty of the memory hitting me center mass.

Everything stilled until I was nothing but an erratic pulse and this photo, the image coming to life like a trick of my mind. The tension and uncertainty that night. The worry. And how just after the photo was taken, Damon stood on the piano bench and announced to everyone that he and I were getting married.

I remembered the shock that went through me, hearing I was going to be married to a man who’d never proposed. Yet, when he came to me and pulled me into his arms, it didn’t feel wrong or out of place. I didn’t want to protest or even ask why because I didn’t care. It was too late.

I’d already fallen in love with him, and I’d been so certain that he loved me, too.

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