“Yes?”
“Come here, please.”
I point to the ground beside me, slightly damp with morning dew.
She doesn’t come at first. She looks back over the vineyards with a look of sadness on her face. My hands clench by my sides. What’s she playing at?
But before she’s made the decision to disobey me, she turns and walks to me. I take her hand and drag her right up next to my body, so her chest brushes mine.
I need to question her. I need to make sure there isn’t a thing she’s hiding from me. But when she reaches me, the scent of roses and lilacs wafts through the air and I’m caught in the spell of her amber eyes.
“I love you,” I tell her, the words springing up without my consent, as if they’ve grown out of my very soul and won’t be hindered any longer.
“Do you?” she whispers.
I don’t know what I expected her to say, but this isn’t it. I don’t care.
I kiss her. I lace my fingers through her hair and pull her to me, my mouth on hers so insistent she gives a little startled cry. I let her go with reluctance and take her by the hand.
“Where are we going?” When I don’t respond, she fidgets anxiously. “Tavi?”
We go around the back of the house to where a greenhouse sits. I open the door and tug her in, grab a stool and sit her on my knee.
“We need to talk.”
I don’t miss the way her eyes grow wary. So it surprises me when she nods. “We do.”
“And this is how we’ll talk.”
I spread my knees and pull her belly down. She kicks her legs and squirms.
“Hey! Wait. Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”
“You can’t lie to me when I’ve got you in this position, baby.” I lift up the little skirt she wears and pat her ass. “Can you?”
I rest my palm on the swells of her cheeks.
“Well… Well, no, but I don’t lie to you.” When she turns to me, her cheeks have reddened. She’s obviously angry. Without hesitation, I give her a sharp smack.
“Did you have anything to do with Santo missing?”
“What? Are you out of your mind? Tavi! No. No, of course not.”
I give her another sharp slap. “Did you know about his disappearance?”
“No. Tavi, no, of course not. Let me go! Let me up. This isn’t fair. My God, who do you think—”
“I am? Your husband. And I’m not punishing you. You’re not in trouble. I’m getting the truth out of you in a way that I know works. You can’t hide from me like this.”
Her mouth drops open as I spank her again, and again, until she bucks on my lap. I press my fingers between her legs to where the fabric’s gone damp.
She always likes it when I dominate her.
“Did you know your mother was coming to our house the day of our wedding?”
“No. No, I have literally nothing to do with any of this. Why would I be so upset you didn’t tell me? Now let me up.”
Unable to stop myself, I stroke between her legs, but she pushes off of me until her knees hit the soft outdoor carpet we keep in here. She’s damp with sweat, small curls of hair curled around her forehead. Predictably, it’s warm in the greenhouse.
Furiously, she scrambles to her knees and comes to me, resting her arms on my legs. It’s an odd position for her to try to take control. She’s literally kneeling between my legs. But there’s a look in her eyes I haven’t seen since I imprisoned her in The Castle dungeon.
“Now you have questions to answer,” she says.
“Watch that tone of voice, woman.”
But she ignores my warning and plows ahead. “You married me. You said for better or for worse. You said all of that. And in the plane after our wedding, you said we were starting fresh. Only I was the one that came fresh, Tavi. Not you.”
Her chest heaves. Goddamn it. I had to get the truth out of her, but now she needs to get the truth out of me.
“Go on,” I say, my voice husky. It’s time she knows. It’s time I told her. But I don’t want to take this away from her. She has the right to ask me anything she wants, and I don’t want to assume anything.
“Why did you marry me?” she whispers.
“You know why I married you.” I hold her chin in my hand, my eyes fixed on her. “Your marriage to me was to be your punishment for your betrayal, wasn’t it?”
“Ottavio,” she says reproachfully. It always gets my heart when she calls me by my full name.
“Yeah?”
“What did you have to do with Piero?”
I close my eyes as the heat of emotion chokes me. I’m a coward for not telling her sooner. I fucking hate cowardice. I force my eyes to open and shake my head.