Chapter 2: Terms of Engagement

The Dimarco house wasn't what Sienna expected. She'd pictured marble and gold, something that announced itself, but the property behind the iron gate was almost austere — gray stone, dark windows, a lawn cut so precisely it looked unreal. It was the house of people who didn't need to prove anything to anyone who mattered. Elena led her through a side entrance instead of the front, which Sienna noted and filed away. "He's in the study," Elena said. "He doesn't bite, if that's what you're bracing for." "I'm not bracing." Elena's mouth did something that wasn't quite a smile. "You are. Everyone does, the first time." The study had the same restraint as the exterior — dark wood, a wall of books that looked read rather than decorative, a window overlooking the back grounds. Rocco Dimarco stood when she entered, which surprised her more than it should have. He was tall, dark-haired, dressed like a man on his way to a meeting rather than a man expecting to meet his future wife, and his eyes did a single unhurried pass over her — not appraising her body, she realized after a beat, but reading her face, the way you'd read a document you needed to understand quickly. "Ms. Marchetti." His voice was low, even. "Sit, if you'd like. Or don't. I imagine you have questions before you'd want to sit in my house." "I have a list," Sienna said, and something flickered behind his eyes — not quite amusement, but adjacent to it. "Go ahead." "Did you choose this? Or was it chosen for you?" "Both things can be true. My father proposed the arrangement. I agreed to it because the alternative was worse for everyone involved, including your father." He gestured to the chair across from his desk, and this time she sat, because standing had started to feel like a performance rather than a position. "I won't pretend this is a romance, Ms. Marchetti. It's a transaction that happens to require a wedding. I'd rather be honest about that than have you discover it in six months and feel deceived." "That's supposed to reassure me?" "It's supposed to tell you what kind of man you're dealing with. I don't lie to get what I want. I find it's slower, but it holds up better." He sat down across from her, unhurried. "You'll have your own room. Your own money, not an allowance — an account in your name, with access I won't monitor. You will not be expected to participate in the business, and you will not be told things that would make you a target if you were ever questioned by people I don't control. That's not a courtesy. It's a firewall, for your protection." "And what do you get out of it?" "A wife my father approves of, which buys me room to make decisions he'd otherwise fight me on. And a debt cleared for a man your family will still need to answer for in every other way that matters to them." He paused. "I won't insult you by pretending it's more sentimental than that. Not yet, anyway." *Not yet.* She noted the phrase and didn't touch it. "What about — " she made herself say it plainly, because the alternative was worse than the word — "the marriage itself. What's expected of me." Something shifted in his posture, subtle but real, like a door closing gently rather than slamming. "Nothing you don't choose to give. I've been on the other side of arrangements like this, watching men treat their wives like property that came with a signature. I don't operate that way. This house has enough danger in it without me adding to it." She wanted to believe him. That, more than anything he'd said, unsettled her — the wanting. "Your brother," she said instead, changing direction. "I've heard the name Nico." For the first time, something genuinely careful crossed his face. "Nico is my brother, and my problem, not yours. Stay out of his orbit if you can manage it. I'll do what I can to make that easy." "That's not an answer." "No," Rocco agreed. "It isn't. But it's honest, which is the only currency I'm offering you today." He stood, signaling the end of the conversation, and for a moment, up close, she saw something in him that the calm hadn't quite covered — a tiredness that looked older than his thirty-some years, the look of a man carrying weight he never got to set down. "The wedding is in three weeks. I know that's not a courtship. I know it's not what you wanted for your life. But I intend to keep every term I've just given you, Ms. Marchetti, and I'd ask you to judge me on that, rather than on what you assume about men like me." Sienna stood too, matching his composure with an effort that cost her more than she let show. "And if I find out you haven't kept them?" "Then you'll have every reason to hate me, and I won't argue with you about it." He extended his hand, an oddly formal gesture for what they were about to become to each other. "Welcome to the family, Sienna. For whatever that's worth." She shook his hand. His grip was firm, brief, nothing more than it needed to be — and yet as she walked back out past Elena, past the too-perfect lawn, past the gate that would soon be closing behind her for good, Sienna understood that the handshake was the easy part. She had three weeks to prepare for a life inside a house full of people who had every reason to resent her arrival — and at least one of them, judging by the way Elena had glanced back at the study window as they left, already knew exactly how dangerous that house was about to become.

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