Keeping My Bride by Angela Snyder
Chapter 10
Luca
IWATCH ON the security monitors as Benito takes Dante and Verona on a tour of the property. For some fucked-up reason, I want Verona to like it here. But I watch her indifferent reaction to each room, and it pisses me off. I don’t know what I expected really. The girl grew up mafioso royalty and in opulence. She’s used to this. It just doesn’t impress her.
The three of them pass by my office, and Benito doesn’t so much as try to reach for the doorknob, which is what I expected of him. He knows my boundaries, and this room is off-limits to everyone except myself, him and whoever we are having a meeting with. This office will be my sanctuary, the place I can go to when I need to clear my head or escape the world for a little while. Once I have the keypad installed, no one will be able to bother me here, and I like knowing that fact.
Standing, I leave my sanctuary and follow them silently outside.
“You’re welcome to swim anytime you want,” Benito offers Verona.
She emphatically shakes her head like the very idea of getting in my pool disgusts her. And the look of what can only be described as revulsion on her face sets me off.
What the fuck is her problem? Is the pool not good enough for her? Is it not clean enough? I hired a pool guy. And if he didn’t do his goddamn job, heads will roll.
“What? The pool isn’t big enough for you?” I ask, stepping forward. I walk over to the edge and inspect the pool and the attached hot tub situated in the middle of a huge pad of stamped concrete. It looks clean to me, and it’s the standard size, if not bigger than other pools, so what is her deal?
I turn to her. “Can’t swim?”
Instead of answering me, Verona stands there, not moving or speaking. Angrily, I grab her arms and turn her towards me. “I could always throw you in and find out,” I threaten. I’m not truly serious…or maybe I am. I don’t know. This girl has me so riled up that I am tempted to throw her in and give her a lesson in respect.
Tears fill her eyes as she stares up at me and begs, “No, please, no!”
And while I normally like it when women beg, this is not turning me on. I can hear the tremor in her voice and see the fear in her eyes. But why?
Before I can even ask, she tears out of my grip and runs inside the house like her ass is on fire.
Standing there, feeling confused, I turn to Dante for answers. Even though it pisses me off, I understand he knows Verona much better than me. “What’s her fucking problem?” I demand. I know for a fact that her family had a swimming pool. I remember her bragging about it as a kid. I didn’t have one, so it always made me jealous.
“You don’t know?” Dante asks with a cocked brow.
I shake my head, internally seething because he obviously knows something I don’t. “What is it?”
“Her mother drowned. Verona is the one who found her floating face down in the pool. And she almost drowned trying to save her mother.”
My eyebrows crease in confusion. I knew Verona’s mother died when she was young, but I never knew the details. “How old was Verona?” I have to ask.
“Nine.”
Fuck.
Suddenly, Verona and I have a lot more in common than I had originally thought. At least my family wasn’t responsible for the murder of her mother, though. I can’t say the same for her family and my mother.
Curling my hands into fists, I give him a nod before I turn and make my way back into the house and towards my office.
Verona is terrified of water. And while normally I would use that little tidbit of information against someone, I know I never will with her. Her fear of water runs much deeper than simply not knowing how to swim. She was traumatized that day. Probably never got in the pool or any body of water after that.
That’s what death does to children. It scars you so deep that you never forget, always remember…and you never, never forgive.
