Chapter 1 - THE RULES OF THE MARRIAGE
Niko Santoro stared at me from across the bedroom as though I had suddenly become a problem he had not prepared for.
A few minutes earlier, he had looked completely in control.
Now he wasn’t.
Not entirely.
His jacket lay over the back of a chair. His tie had been loosened, and the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled to his forearms. Everything about him still looked precise, expensive, intimidating.
Except his eyes.
They were watching my hands.
I hadn’t realized I was twisting my wedding ring until he said, “Stop doing that.”
I immediately released it.
“You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“I thought you wanted to establish rules.”
“I do.”
“Then establish them.”
Something almost like irritation crossed his face.
“Fine.”
He walked toward the windows instead of toward me.
That surprised me.
I had spent the entire drive from the reception imagining the moment the bedroom door closed. Imagining what a man like Niko Santoro would believe a forced marriage entitled him to.
Apparently, my imagination had been worse than reality.
“For the public,” he said, “we’re married. We attend necessary events together. We don’t embarrass each other. We don’t publicly contradict each other.”
“And privately?”
“You can finish school.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“You’re at Columbia.”
“You know where I go to school?”
“I know nearly everything that could become a security concern.”
There was no pride in the answer.
Just fact.
“You have two years left,” he continued. “Finish them.”
I folded my arms. “How generous.”
His jaw tightened.
“I’m not trying to be generous.”
“No. You’re trying to make prison sound comfortable.”
That finally made him look directly at me.
“If this were a prison, Sloane, you wouldn’t have a key.”
He crossed the room, opened a drawer beside the bedroom door, removed a small black keycard, and placed it on the dresser.
“Elevators. Garage. Private floor. Security doors.”
I stared at it.
“You’re giving me access?”
“I’m giving my wife access to the home she lives in.”
“I’m your wife because our fathers negotiated me like real estate.”
“My father is dead.”
I froze.
Niko’s expression didn’t change.
“This agreement came through my grandfather and your father.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Clearly.”
The word wasn’t cruel.
Somehow that made it worse.
I looked away.
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then Niko said, “There’s one rule that matters more than the others.”
“What?”
“No lies.”
I laughed once.
It sounded bitter even to me.
“You married into the wrong family.”
His eyes sharpened.
“Meaning?”
“My father lied to me about why this marriage happened. I assume your family lied to you about me.”
“They didn’t have to.”
There it was again.
That judgment.
I felt heat crawl up my neck.
“Go ahead.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Say what you’ve been thinking since the cathedral.”
He looked at me silently.
“Say it.”
Niko’s voice lowered.
“You really want to have this conversation tonight?”
“I want to know exactly what kind of woman you think you married.”
His expression turned unreadable.
“I think you’re Arthur Shaw’s daughter.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I think you’ve spent years being photographed outside clubs at two in the morning.”
“Because photographers don’t wait outside libraries.”
“I think you’ve dated men whose names ended up in newspapers.”
“I’ve been photographed beside men.”
“You expect me to believe there’s a difference?”
My humiliation transformed into anger so quickly that I barely felt the transition.
“You know what?” I said. “Forget it.”
I turned toward the bathroom.
“Sloane.”
I kept walking.
“Stop.”
I spun around.
“You don’t get to order me around.”
His expression changed.
Not anger.
Something colder.
More controlled.
“You’re right.”
That stopped me.
Niko took one slow breath.
“I’m accustomed to people doing what I say.”
“I noticed.”
“But you’re not one of my employees.”
“Or soldiers?”
His mouth almost moved.
Almost.
“No.”
“Then goodnight.”
I reached the bathroom door.
Behind me, Niko said, “I’m not touching you.”
My hand froze on the handle.
I turned.
“What?”
“Whatever you think is expected tonight, it isn’t.”
The room suddenly felt smaller.
“I didn’t say—”
“You didn’t need to.”
His eyes dropped briefly toward my clenched hands.
“You’ve been looking at that bed like it’s an execution table since we came upstairs.”
Embarrassment burned through me.
“I’m tired.”
“You’re terrified.”
“I am not.”
“Sloane.”
“Stop saying my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you know me.”
His voice softened by half a degree.
“I know fear when I see it.”
That was the moment something inside me cracked.
Maybe it was exhaustion.
Maybe anger.
Maybe the impossible weight of the previous forty-eight hours.
I laughed, but tears filled my eyes before I could stop them.
Niko went completely still.
“Congratulations,” I said. “You figured something out about me the newspapers didn’t.”
His brow furrowed.
I hated myself for what I said next.
Hated how vulnerable the words made me feel.
“I’ve never done this before.”
Silence.
Niko’s face did not move.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re intelligent. Figure it out.”
“Sloane.”
“I’ve never slept with anyone.”
His expression changed so dramatically that for one irrational second, I thought I had offended him.
Then I realized it wasn’t disgust.
It was shock.
Real, unguarded shock.
He stared at me.
“You’re serious.”
I wiped angrily at my cheek.
“Unfortunately.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
He walked away from me.
Not toward me.
Away.
Niko placed both hands on the dresser and lowered his head.
“Who knows?”
“What?”
“Who knows that?”
“No one.”
“Your father?”
“No.”
“Your friend Stella?”
“No.”
His head lifted.
“You told no one?”
“It’s not exactly a medical emergency.”
“That isn’t why I’m asking.”
“Then why?”
He turned around.
Something dangerous had entered his expression, but for once it wasn’t aimed at me.
“Because somebody sold me a very different version of you.”
My stomach tightened.
“Sold you?”
“Not literally.”
“Excellent clarification considering the circumstances.”
Niko ignored the comment.
“I was told you were reckless. Impulsive. That you’d had enough relationships that discretion might become a concern.”
“Who told you that?”
He didn’t answer.
“Niko.”
“My grandfather’s attorney provided the background.”
“You had me investigated?”
“I investigate everyone brought near my family.”
“I wasn’t brought near your family. I was delivered to it.”
That landed.
I saw it.
His face hardened, but his eyes didn’t.
For the first time since I had walked down the aisle, Niko Santoro looked ashamed.
“I did not know your father gave you two days.”
I stared at him.
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
“How much time did you think I had?”
“Three weeks.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“That’s supposed to make it better?”
“No.”
“Did you know he threatened to disinherit me?”
“No.”
“Did you know I had an exam Thursday morning?”
His eyes flickered.
“No.”
“Did you know I cried in my best friend’s arms because I thought I was being sold to a criminal?”
His jaw locked.
“No.”
The silence became unbearable.
Then Niko asked quietly, “Did he tell you why?”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
That seemed to trouble him most of all.
Niko walked to the bedroom door.
“Where are you going?”
“Guest room.”
I stared at him.
“This is your bedroom.”
“Tonight it’s yours.”
“Niko—”
He stopped with his hand on the door.
I didn’t know why I called him back.
Maybe because the room suddenly felt too large.
Maybe because there was one thing I needed answered.
“Why did you agree?”
His shoulders tightened.
He looked back at me.
“My grandfather told me Arthur Shaw came to him asking for protection.”
My heart skipped.
“Protection from whom?”
“That,” Niko said, “is the question your father should have answered before he walked you down the aisle.”
He opened the door.
Then stopped again.
“And Sloane?”
“Yes?”
His eyes met mine.
“No one in this house touches you without your permission.”
Something in my chest twisted.
“You expect me to trust that?”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
“I expect to prove it.”
He left.
The door clicked shut behind him.
For several minutes, I didn’t move.
Then I crossed the room and locked it.
Not because I thought Niko would return.
Because I needed to feel like I still controlled something.
I removed the wedding dress and found an oversized white shirt folded on the bathroom counter. Probably placed there by a housekeeper.
I was halfway through washing makeup from my face when the entire penthouse went dark.
Every light vanished.
The air-conditioning stopped.
The bathroom fan died.
Then somewhere beyond the bedroom windows—
Glass exploded.
I dropped instinctively.
A second later, the bedroom door burst open.
I screamed.
Niko appeared in the darkness.
“DOWN!”
Another window shattered.
He reached me before I could move, threw his body over mine, and dragged me behind the marble bathroom wall.
Three deafening cracks tore through the room.
Gunfire.
Real gunfire.
Niko pressed one hand behind my head and kept me beneath him.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
“Anywhere?”
“No!”
Footsteps thundered outside.
Men shouted.
A red emergency light suddenly illuminated the hallway.
Niko reached beneath the back of his shirt and pulled out a handgun.
I stared at it.
“Stay behind me.”
“What’s happening?”
“Someone shut down the building security.”
Another shot hit the far wall.
Stone exploded across the floor.
Niko pushed me deeper into the bathroom.
Then his eyes dropped toward the discarded wedding dress.
He froze.
“What?”
He crossed the room quickly, keeping low.
“Niko!”
He grabbed the ivory gown and ripped open the lower seam with his hands.
Something small and black fell onto the floor.
A blinking red light.
My blood turned cold.
Niko stared at it.
Then at me.
“That dress,” he said slowly. “Who delivered it?”
“I thought your family did.”
His expression became lethal.
“We didn’t.”
The red light blinked again.
Once.
Twice.
A tracking transmitter.
Someone had sewn it inside the wedding dress.
May you like
Someone had known exactly where I would be sleeping.
And judging from Niko Santoro’s face, our marriage had just become the least frightening problem in the room.
