Page 79 of Rosetti Family New York
I reach the altar, more trapped than ever. The organ swells, louder now, then the music stops, and my world comes to a halt with it. The associate lets me go, and I feel the loss more than I thought I would. He looks at me as if to saygood luck. I need it.
Domenico Rosetti stands tall and unmoving at the altar. He wears a perfect suit, probably a Brioni, with crisp white at thecollar and cuffs. He watches me with a gaze so appraising, so calculated, I’m sure he sized me up from across the room and has already decided I’m not enough.
I know that look, that stare, that arrogance. It’s like getting slapped with a ledger. Makes you feel small, like a number waiting to be crossed off. I’ve seen that look on Baba’s face a thousand times, and it always means the same thing:you’re the one who needs me, not the other way around.
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t flinch. Their features are nothing alike, but he looks exactly like my father.
Domenico stands close, and I focus on breathing while the priest begins to talk.
The ceremony is brief. I expected as much. What can you say about a marriage of convenience? No romance, no warmth. Just a symbolic transfer of assets. The sound of pens signing and contracts fulfilled. I bite my lip as the priest drones on.
“For better or worse,” he says, looking at us in turns.
I know which I’ll get. My lips move around the words, the vows sounding hollow in this vast space.
Domenico says his vows in a cold, sure voice of absolute indifference. His tone is deep, gravelly, and utterly bored.
The priest nods as if he approves of the merger. “You may kiss the bride.”
Domenico closes the distance between us, taking a step closer. The world holds its breath, waiting. A moment that should shimmer with heat is empty and cold. His family all seem suspended, their eyes trained on us. I keep my gaze on Domenico. My future. My enemy. I don’t flinch, but it is almost impossible to hold my position.
He leans in, and our lips brush, light as air, hardly a touch at all. His body doesn’t graze mine. His hands don’t even reach for me. The only parts of us that make contact are our lips, and his are cold and reptilian. The crowd murmurs like a distant ocean.
When the time comes, I sign my name with hands that barely shake.
The Rosettis file out, chattering like the church is theirs. It is. I hear the words Amazing, lucky, love. They must mean someone else.
Then, he’s gone. Domenico disappears into the throng of Rosettis without sparing me a single word.
4
Besiana
Domenico and I are in the back seat of a white limousine, the picture-perfect newlyweds. I keep my eyes on the window, on the lights that whip past us and turn to shadows. Domenico is beside me, but I might as well be alone. He doesn’t touch me. We don’t speak. We barely even breathe.
The drive home is long enough for me to think about our upcoming wedding night, about how he’ll treat me. I already know the answer. And I know I’m in no position to refuse my husband, not unless I want to face my father’s wrath.
When we reach the Rosetti mansion, it’s a beast of glass and steel, with long windows like gunslit eyes. Tall fences wrap around the house like chains. Security cameras glint in the gray light. A guardhouse sits by the entrance. More men, all in black. Dom doesn’t glance at them as we glide up the curving driveway.
He gets out of the car and I wait a beat to see if he will open my door, but I don’t plan on staying in the limo all night, so I let myself out and follow him up the stairs to the grand entrance.
Domenico shows me inside but doesn’t say a word. He just walks around the house, occasionally glancing at me, and Ifollow like an obedient puppy, taking it all in. I feel like I’m back at the church. Cold marble floors, polished to a deadly sheen. Room after room, cavernous and spare. Living room. Dining room. Library. Each one as lifeless as the last. It’s beautiful in an expensive, impersonal way. Art on the walls, all abstract and soulless. I know I shouldn’t be surprised. He wouldn’t care about comfort.
If this is where we’re going to live, I’ll be nothing but a ghost here.
He answers three phone calls in the first hour. His voice is low and deliberate, echoing off every empty surface. It’s more words than I’ve heard him speak, and I focus on the tone, the timbre, the gravel.
I perch on an armchair in the living room. This wedding dress is too unwieldy to slouch or get comfortable, so I settle for sitting awkwardly while he takes his calls.
The longer I listen to him speaking on the phone, the more I see it: power comes from silence. From knowing you don’t need to speak. That’s what he’s doing, he’s waiting for me to speak first, and I do, before I know it’s happening.
“Where is the bedroom?”
The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, although I want nothing more than to snatch them out of the air and swallow them down before he hears them. What if he thinks I’m seducing him? Honestly, all I want is to change out of this stuffy gown and into a pair of sweatpants.
He locks his liquid green eyes onto me, and I feel a blush creep up my cheeks.
When he finally says my name, it’s louder than any word I’ve heard from him. I snap to attention, just like with my father. I don’t even realize I’ve done it until it’s too late.
