The Girl They Wanted Him to Marry
Chapter 03 - The Girl They Wanted Him to Marry
Leo Donati arrived with his daughter and a smile that looked embalmed.
He wore a camel overcoat over a pale suit, though snow was still falling hard enough to blur the windows. His hair had been dyed so neatly it seemed less like vanity than denial. Beside him stood Celeste Donati, twenty-six years old, black hair tucked beneath a white wool hat, eyes lowered.
She looked nothing like a woman arriving to claim a throne.
She looked tired.
Victor received them in the library beneath a painting of his father that Chloe had always hated dusting. The elder Russo stared down from the canvas with one hand on a cane and one hand resting on his wife's shoulder in a way that made the gesture feel like ownership rather than affection.
Chloe should not have been there.
She was only passing with a tray of coffee when Margaret appeared from nowhere and said, “Mr. Russo asked for you to serve.”
Victor had not asked. Chloe knew it the moment his eyes found her in the doorway.
But he let the lie stand.
That frightened her more than if he had corrected it.
“Miss Bennett,” Leo Donati said, reading her name from her uniform badge as if it were an invoice. “The famous maid.”
Chloe kept her face blank. “Coffee, sir?”
“Not for me.”
Victor sat behind the desk. “Speak plainly, Leo.”
“Gladly. My daughter marries you before New Year's Day. Our families settle the old debt. The ports reopen. Your shipments move. My sons stop asking why they should respect a man who refuses reasonable alliances.”
Celeste did not move, but Chloe saw her gloved fingers tighten around her purse.
Victor leaned back. “I do not buy women to settle business disputes.”
Leo laughed softly. “Your father did.”
“My father is dead.”
“And yet his debts breathe beautifully.”
The room tightened.
Chloe placed a cup in front of Celeste. The young woman's sleeve lifted half an inch.
A bruise circled her wrist.
Celeste saw Chloe notice and pulled the sleeve down.
Leo continued, “There is another matter. A personal one. You are unwell, Victor. Everyone knows it. The insomnia. The temper. The tremor in your left hand.”
Victor's hand did not move.
“Marry my daughter,” Leo said, “and the city sees strength. Refuse, and every jackal with a gun begins wondering whether you are already halfway in the grave.”
Victor smiled without warmth. “You brought your daughter here to tell me men might shoot me if I don't marry her?”
“I brought my daughter here to save you from appearing weak.”
Celeste finally spoke. “Papa.”
One word.
Small.
Warning.
Leo's eyes cut to her, and the room learned something about their house without needing to see inside it.
Victor saw it too.
His voice lowered. “Leave her out of this.”
“She is the this.”
Chloe poured coffee for Victor. His cup sat inches from the blue veins at his wrist. She noticed the slight tremor then. Not fear. Exhaustion.
As she turned to leave, Margaret appeared behind her and took the tray too quickly.
Coffee sloshed.
A drop landed on Chloe's hand.
Margaret whispered, “Back to the kitchen.”
Chloe obeyed because the room had too many predators and she had too little power.
At the hallway corner, she heard Celeste's voice behind the half-closed library door.
“Victor, don't think my father needs the wedding for me.”
A pause.
“He needs it for whatever your mother hid.”
Chloe stopped breathing.
Leo's cane struck the floor. “Enough.”
Celeste said, very quietly, “Ask the maid what she found in your bedroom.”
Chloe stepped backward.
A hand closed around her elbow.
She turned.
Margaret Gable stood inches away.
The older woman's smile was perfectly calm.
“You should have stayed a ghost, Miss Bennett,” she whispered.
May you like
Then, from inside the library, Victor's voice cut through the door.
“Chloe. Come back in.”
