Page 12 of Ruthless Claim

Not the kind fought with guns—though I wouldn’t put it fast either of us—but a verbal cold war along with the very specific cruelty of two people who know each other’s weaknesses and intend to use them.

“I’m going to shower,” Cillian says finally. “Don’t wait up.”

“I’ll dream you drown,” I retort sweetly.

He disappears into the bathroom and the lock clicks behind him.

I stand alone in the middle of our bedroom in my wedding dress, surrounded by my luggage, and I breathe.

Then I sit on the edge of the bed on my side and let myself feel everything that’s happened today.

The cathedral and the vows and Connor Brennan smiling at his own maneuvering while he ignored his pregnant daughter. Emma squeezing my hand.

Leo’s voice saying I’m sorry.

I only allow myself a minute to feel sorry for myself before I straighten my spine. I am Valentina Santoro—Brennan, apparently, fuck, though I intend to make him regret that name is now mine—and I do not stay down.

I have never stayed down. I am not starting tonight over a man who looked at me once and decided he already knew everything I was.

He has no idea who he married.

I reach up and begin pulling pins from my hair, dropping them one by one onto the nightstand on my side of the bed, and I think about the moment he figures that out.

I’m so looking forward to it.

2

CILLIAN

The shower in Connor’s wedding gift penthouse has excellent water pressure, which is the only thing I can say about my wedding night that’s unambiguously positive.

I stand under water hot enough to scald and I think about the woman on the other side of this door who is almost certainly plotting my murder.

I’ve just strong-armed my new wife into sharing a bed with me, and I try to decide if I feel bad about it.

I don’t. It was necessary. If Connor’s people—or the Santoro people, who are watching this building just as closely—get even a hint that this marriage is a hollow shell held together by mutual contempt and a negotiated bed line, the alliance cracks.

And when the alliance cracks, people start dying. That’s just how this works.

Still. Not my finest opening move.

I turn off the water and reach for a towel while I do a quick inventory of the day: got married, spent four hours performing at my own reception, strong-armed my wife into our bedroom while she bitched me out in different languages.

Tomorrow: report to Connor at noon, discuss whatever’s happening in Queens that’s apparently more urgent than the fact that I got married yesterday.

Business as usual.

This is my life now.

I wrap the towel around my waist and open the bathroom door.

Valentina is sitting on her side of the bed—the far side, as far from the bathroom as the king mattress will allow, because of course she is—wearing silk pajamas the color of deep burgundy.

They have a fitted button-down top and wide-leg pants that probably have their own dedicated drawer in some Milan boutique.

The fabric catches the low light from the windows.

Her dark hair is loose around her shoulders, and all the careful weddingness about her is gone.