If he had fallen in love with someone else, he could have simply told me. I would have stepped aside. There was no need for all of this.
After I finished the medicine, Ermanno kissed the tears from my face, then dismissed the staff and undressed me himself, drawing my bath with practiced hands.
He had done this for me countless times without complaint. In the beginning, I'd felt embarrassed and tried to call someone in to help.
But he'd gazed at me with open adoration. "A body this beautiful? I'd never let anyone else so much as glimpse you."
"You're mine alone."
Every detail of my daily life, large or small, he insisted on handling personally, and he seemed to relish every moment of it.
What made it rarer still was that in three years of marriage, he had kept no one but me. His household staff consisted entirely of men. There wasn't a single woman to be found inside the compound walls.
Ermanno was young and held the highest seat of power any man could claim. Even Don Silvio Lombardi had once tried to send him a pair of women as a gift following a successful sit-down, a gesture of goodwill between families.
He refused outright, in front of every Boss at the Commission table. The insult nearly started a war. Three of Silvio's soldiers put him on the ground in the parking garage afterward, and they didn't stop until someone pulled them off.
I'd seen him that night, his shirt soaked through with blood, not a rib left uncracked, and I wept and cursed him for being a fool.
But even through the pain, he smiled and pulled me close. "Don't cry. I'd sooner betray the whole world than betray you."
Back then, I believed I was the luckiest woman alive.
Everyone in the city knew that Don Santoro kept a wife he treasured like the very eyes in his head. They envied me endlessly.
Yet that woman, Katarina, had shattered something. For the first time, the husband I'd loved for years felt like a stranger, and every tender moment between us felt like an elaborate lie.
By the time I came back to myself, I was wrapped in thin silk and cradled in Ermanno's lap.
He nuzzled my neck, coaxing, and I turned my head away on instinct. "I'm tired. Not tonight."
Ermanno blinked, then softened. He ruffled my hair, eased me down onto the pillows, and tucked the covers snugly around me.
I waited until his breathing grew deep and even before opening my eyes in the dark.