that Rocco, Christian and Zayed were also looking out for him. They were afraid that by hurting her, he was going to irrevocably lose a part of himself.
A tightness emerged in her chest at the very thought and the sinking realization of how complicated the man she was about to marry was.
It’s the only way I can do this, Clio, he had said to her when she had signed the contract.
Was it the only way he thought of to protect their fragile relationship from what they were putting it through? And she resolved to not lose him, not to let this mutual need for revenge destroy them.
“I won’t let that happen, Zayed.”
Whether he believed her or not, Zayed patted her hand. “You have friends, Clio. Always remember that.”
Wetness filled her eyes, but Clio smiled through it.
Rocco and Olivia, Christian and Alessandra, and Zayed—all of them had hovered over her the past few days like mother hens.
It had felt incredibly good to know she had so many people who cared about her well-being.
With every detail of the most opulent wedding she had ever dreamed of taken care of, with the grand hotel decorated ornately for what the media were calling the “Fairy-Tale Wedding of the Decade,” with people who actually cared about her surrounding her, for a few compelling moments over the past week she could have almost fooled herself into believing it was the wedding she had wanted all her life.
Except for the man in the center of it all who hadn’t even looked her in the eye in a week, who had only spoken to her to discuss another blasted clause in the contract he had made her sign.
He had engaged an army of people to oversee every small detail of the wedding. Clio had barely had time to have second thoughts about how big a step she was taking.
Designers and lawyers, makeup artists and wedding planners—there hadn’t been a single thing that Clio herself had been responsible for. All she had to do was nod, and maybe use her brain cells to make a choice as to whether she wanted lilies or orchids or another exotic flower she couldn’t even remember the name of, whether she wanted chocolate cake or red velvet.
She had blanched when she had discreetly looked up the designer who had been hired to create her wedding gown in a week.
With delicate corded lace on tulle skimming the shoulders and neckline, the fragile gown had a line of buttons sneaking downward between her shoulder blades.
It was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen, and she couldn’t swallow the fact that it had been created with her in mind. Diamond bracelets, befitting Stefan Bianco’s intended, she had been told when she had argued, had been delivered in a velvet box, along with matching diamond earrings and the most elegantly designed diamond tiara.
She had been stunned at her own reflection, at how perfect the dress was for her slim build, how well it accentuated her almost boyish curves.
The diamonds had glittered and winked in the three full-length mirrors the hotel staff had set up.
And that’s when it had hit her.
The money he was spending on the wedding—she had given up adding once she had looked through the hotel’s website.
Which meant the cost of the wedding had to be astronomical.
Feeling as dirty as Jackson had called her, she had knocked on his study door one evening.
To find him at the rowing machine, dressed in shorts and bathed in sweat. It was a sight that was burned into her brain, her skin, her very cells.
The sight of his curling biceps, ropes of sweat-slicked muscles in his chest and back, the sleek contours of his torso, dissolved every brain cell into mush.
God, they had been rowing champions at Columbia, the four of them. And he still looked just as fit as he had been a decade ago, if not better. She had spent several minutes staring at him, heat uncoiling in her lower belly, every inch of her body vibrating with desire.
When she had finally found her voice and expressed her concerns, he had cast her a look that was like a bucket of ice-cold water over her heated senses.
“Don’t worry, bella,” he had said, rising to his feet. His thick hair was curled with sweat. “This doesn’t count against you. After all, our whole agreement rests on the pretense that I want to throw the love of my life the wedding of her dreams, sì?”
Faced with that mocking scorn, Clio had had to fight against the instinct to rush out of there. “I have been going over the seating charts and I didn’t see your parents’ names,” she finally managed.
His expression shut down instantly, as if a light had gone out. “They’re not coming.”
A warning vibrated in his answer. But instead of heeding it, her mind thought back to them. The rest of the Columbia Four and her included, had all envied Stefan his parents’ unconditional love more than anything.
The Biancos were those picture-perfect Sicilian parents for whom family came first and foremost always. And it had been a shock when they had threatened to cut him off if he didn’t come back home after graduation.
And Stefan hadn’t cared about his inheritance. Only Serena had betrayed him when she realized he wouldn’t have the Bianco fortune behind him.
“Stefan, your parents...they forgave you, didn’t they? For trusting Serena?”
“I have not asked them for it, bella.”
Why? “Wait, you haven’t... I don’t understand.”
His gaze unblinking, he opened the door for her, his withdrawal sending the room into subzero temperatures. “They are not on the guest list because I didn’t invite them, cara. We don’t need to involve any more people in our deception, do we?”
“No,” Clio had replied, reeling from the frost in his words.
What had he meant by that? Had he not seen his parents all these years? How could he bear to keep them at a distance like that?
In that moment, Clio had realized what an utter stranger he was to her.
His distrust of her motives, his insistence that they do it per his rules, the cold front he presented if she asked anything personal—she finally understood he wasn’t just lost to her.
He had buried everything good and decent about him. But before she left his life, before he was through with her, she was determined to remind him what he had been once. And she had to begin with bringing his parents back into his life.
Hers would never forgive her, but Stefan...he could have his parents back.
“Clio?”
Coloring, Clio looked at Zayed. “Thank you so much for reminding me that I have friends, Zayed.” She blew a long breath out, remembering her mother’s unforgiving words, and their blatant refusal to come. Reminded herself that she had friends who would always stick by her. “And for agreeing to give me away.”
“You did me an honor when you asked me.” Still smiling, he cast a quick look ahead. “I can feel Stefan’s gaze drilling holes in my head. Not even my enemy country’s politics make me shudder so,” he said with a mock shiver. “Are you ready for him, Clio?”
Sucking in a deep breath, Clio turned toward her waiting bridegroom.
Dressed in a black evening suit, his thick hair combed back, he stood out so prominently amidst the rest of the men.
He had promised her he would help her. And that he kept his word—even though a wedding, even of the fake kind, clearly filled him with utter fury—she hugged it to herself.
Whatever else he claimed, Stefan Bianco was a man of honor.
“I’m ready, Zayed,” she whispered.
Her hold on