Luca tightened his fingers around my shoulder, digging his nails in.
“Smile, Jessi,” he whispered near my ear, his voice laced with cold threat. “Don’t embarrass me.”
I lifted my head slowly. White frosting covered my hair, eyelashes, and the front of my silk wedding gown. A thin, hot streak of blood ran from my left nostril.
The laughter weakened. My maid of honor, Phoebe, had gone deathly pale by the catering tables.
Luca noticed the blood and rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Jessi. It was a joke.”
That sentence frightened me more than the impact. Because I had heard variations of it for eighteen months.
When he punched a hole beside my head during an argument, he called it “losing his temper.” When he squeezed my wrist until purple bruises appeared, he said I was “too sensitive.” When he took my phone because I hadn’t answered him immediately, he said married couples shouldn’t have secrets.
And three nights before our wedding, when he whispered, “Once we’re married, you’ll stop acting like you can just walk away,” I had finally understood what I was marrying.
So I had prepared.
Not enough to cancel the wedding—not yet. Luca had access to my apartment, my schedule, my family, and enough charm to convince everyone I was unstable. But enough to survive if something happened.
I wiped frosting from my eyes. Luca raised his champagne glass to the room.
“To my beautiful wife,” he announced.
