Damn it all.

I stood. “We need to get ready. The women will retrieve the sheets soon.”

Giulia took my watch from the nightstand. “It’s only eight. Do you really think they’ll disturb us this early after our wedding night?”

They probably wouldn’t, but I had no intention to waste time in bed. I had scheduled several meetings throughout the day, the most important with Luca for lunch. I needed to use the opportunity of having him in town. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and sent Mia a message that they could pick up the sheets in thirty minutes. Her nosy reply came immediately.

Won’t you even sleep in after your wedding night?

Stay out of my business was all I wrote back.

I put the phone back down, ignoring Giulia’s appraisal. I’d caught her watching me last night and now this morning. Her reaction surprised me. Of course, it was a pleasant surprise that she seemed attracted to my body and not appalled like Gaia.

“Mia and the others will come by in thirty minutes. Do you want to shower first? I can shave in the meantime.”

Giulia bit her lip, looking away before she nodded. “All right.” She shoved the covers off and stood. My eyes took her in, and for a moment I considered telling Mia that they could wait after all. Giulia was impossibly beautiful, and the idea to bury myself in her tight pussy once more was far too enticing, but the bloodstain on the sheets reminded me why that wasn’t going to happen.

Fifteen minutes later Giulia was showered and dressed, and I headed toward the shower. She’d chosen one of the dresses I’d sent to her parents, an elegant long-sleeved knee-length red piece that hugged Giulia’s slender body. It still didn’t make her look close to my age, but at least not quite the teenager she was.

“Should I cover my puffy eyes with makeup or do you want people to know I cried?”

I paused, one foot inside the shower. Turning back to my wife hovering in the doorway to the bedroom, I frowned. “I didn’t want you to cry. Why would I want people to know you did?”

She gave a small shrug, searching my face. “I thought maybe you’d want people to think you hurt me enough to make me cry.”

I considered it. The men downstairs would draw the wrong conclusions and fear me for it. It wasn’t a decent thing to consider, but the men downstairs weren’t decent, and I wasn’t either. “I’m feared as it is… and for good reason. I don’t want my sisters on my back like they’ll undoubtedly be if they see that you cried, so cover it up with makeup.”

She regarded me a moment longer, and I couldn’t tell why. It was unnerving.

“Okay. I don’t want to keep you from showering. I know how busy you are today.”

The hint of disapproval rang in her voice. She hadn’t reacted when I told her I was going to spend the day in business meetings until we’d head to my mansion and children in the late afternoon. “I work a lot, Giulia, and I won’t explain myself to you. As a woman, your only job is to raise my children, but I can’t afford that luxury.”

Anger flared in her eyes, but she turned and left.

I wasn’t in the mood to consider her teenage antics. She’d better get rid of them soon.

When I emerged fully dressed in another dark three-piece suit fifteen minutes later, I found Giulia on the sofa in the living room of our suite, typing on her phone. She was smiling softly. I stalked over to her. “Who are you talking to?”

Her head shot up, her brows drawing together. “Excuse me?”

“Who are you talking to?”

Anxiety crossed her face, but I didn’t care if she was bothered by me towering over her. “Who?” I growled.

“Your sister Mia.”

I took the phone and Giulia released it without a protest.

I apologize for my brother’s rudeness because I know he won’t ever do it. I’d say it’s because he’s a man, but his dickheadedness has nothing to do with the Y-chromosome.

Giulia stood. “I told you the truth.”

I scanned the previous messages to see what Giulia had told my sister, but she’d only written that she still had to get used to me after Mia had asked if she was all right.

Giulia shook her head then sighed. “Trust is the base of a marriage.”

“How would you know?” Was she really trying to tell me something about relationships? “I think I know more about the workings of a marriage than you, girl.”

Her expression flashed with hurt. “I wonder if Gaia would agree.” She snapped her lips shut, her eyes growing wide.

Fury burst through me the same time a knock sounded. Swallowing my anger, I headed for the door, glad for the distance this put between Giulia and myself. I ripped open the door, feeling my pulse pound in my temples.

Mia’s smile fell when she spotted me. Her eyes darted to something behind me. “Everything okay?” she whispered.

I opened the door wide. Behind Mia, Ilaria, Giulia’s mother, Aria, and other women waited for the ceremonial retrieval of the sheets. “Go in. Grab the sheets. I don’t have all morning.”

“Rude as usual,” Ilaria said as she walked past me. Mia hesitated, which was just as well. I pulled her to the side. “I saw what you wrote my wife.”

Mia huffed. “Are you spying on her?”

“You will stay out of my marriage, Mia. I’ll only say this once. Remember your place. And most of all, don’t talk to Giulia about Gaia, understood?”

She shook my grip off, then nodded. “Of course.”

Giulia smiled at the women who gave her compassionate looks. I walked over to my young wife before one of the women, especially Mia, could involve her in a nosy conversation.

Giulia touched my forearm lightly. “I’m sorry for mentioning your late wife, Cassio. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Surprise filled me. Her eyes and expression were earnest.

I gave a curt nod and put my hand on her lower back. “Come on. Let’s head down to the banquet room where breakfast will be served.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for them to be done?” She nodded toward the bedroom door. The women’s voices were a low buzz of gossip.

“I don’t need to see this.”

She smiled sheepishly. “You are right.”

I hesitated, on the verge of saying more, then I steered Giulia out of our suite. Our elevator ride passed in silence, but Giulia’s tension was palpable.

“The worst is over,” I said.

Her head shot up and her lips twitched. “Are you talking about our wedding night?”

I tilted my head, considering her. She was obviously fighting amusement. “You don’t have to pretend the night didn’t harbor great fears for you. I felt your trembling.”

“It scared me, true. But it’s over and it wasn’t as unpleasant as I’d thought it would be.”

My eyebrows shot up, not sure what to make of my wife’s honesty. Even though we were married, the unguarded way she spoke to me took getting used to. “That’s good, I suppose.”

She leaned into me with a small laugh. “Yeah, I suppose so too.”

The elevator doors opened, cutting our strange conversation short. I led Giulia toward the biggest banquet room, which was already filled with the men of my and Giulia’s family, as well as the most important members of the Famiglia.