The only thing that had been keeping her from sinking her claws into me was my hand on her hip, keeping our distance respectable. And I had to be nice to her because she was my mothers goddaughter and therefore untouchable when I wanted to snap at her and tell her to go straight to hell.
We had been broken up for a while. I never wanted it to be as serious as it got, which made me sound terrible. It had been my mothers idea to test it out and see if we got along.
We hadn’t. Much to Gabriella’s dismay.
But she had done her damage, sunk her claws in enough that Ilaria had gotten her feelings hurt seeing us together.
She had left instead of making a scene.
So well behaved.
But as I watched her friends file out after her I felt my stomach go into knots thinking they would already hate me before we ever were introduced.
To make matters, worse my driver had shown up, pulling me aside to let me know Ilaria had sobbed hysterically on the ride home and telling me he had been worried that she was going to get hurt with the way she had run into the building.
Having her not answer my calls was making me so furious. Furious because I was worried about her.
Looking at the clock it was almost midnight and I’d have to go downstairs to make a small speech soon.
One more call.
“Boss.” Nero was outside of the apartment building, he was in charge of making sure that Ilaria was safe and that no one tried to get to her. But I wanted my men to be respectful of the space between my bride to be and them.
Not that business had been especially dangerous but after tonight having her linked to me could mean people trying to get to her to hurt me in some way. I wanted to make sure the most important part of my life was protected.
“Can you go upstairs and just make sure Ilaria doesn’t need anything?” I asked him only to be met with silence that made me instantly have a throbbing headache knowing whatever was about to come out of Nero’s mouth was going to make me furious.
“Boss, she took a car around 9:30 PM. I thought you knew.”
Red.
All I could see was red as fury flooded my brain and I hang up on Nero. My fingers gripped the desk as I thought about flipping it over, smashing my first through the wall.
Gone.
She had just gone. But where?
Justin.
Ice filled my veins as I thought about the bum that was in his apartment probably still pissing his pants over me.
Would she have gone to him because I had hurt her?
My mind was spinning as I pulled up her social media, frowning when I saw she had posted a picture of us without tagging me right after she had left at 9:45.
It was of us walking, matching shoes with our backs to the camera as we walked down the street together hand and hand.
‘7-22-23’
I blinked as I saw it.
It was part of what was going to happen but there was no excitement, nothing about it that showed she was excited or wanted to marry me. It was as if she was posting the picture and just felt resigned to marrying me.
I hated that.
“Dante.” My eyes lifted as I saw Enzo standing in the door, looking at me confused, “You’re supposed to be downstairs now.”
He wasn’t used to having to remind me what I had to do but Ilaria had me so thrown off that I couldn’t even perform my duties.
This was supposed to be the happiest day of my life and she was turning it into one of the worst.
A few hours later, I was pushing my way into the penthouse. Exhausted as I thought about where Ilaria could be; she definitely wasn’t here.
Her dress was discarded on the bed, her things half unpacked as she gave up on the idea of moving in with me. There was chaos around my place and I hated chaos.
One more phone call.
“Hello?”
Someone giggled on the other end and it was most definitely not Ilaria answering her phone.
I blinked, thinking of her friends and reaching into the pocket of my jacket to pull out the list I had Enzo run on them. It had all their information for me to research them.
“I need to speak to Ilaria, please.”
I was trying to stay calm as the girl yelled for Ilaria. There was a brief pause and the whisper yelling girls did before there was a sigh, the sound of a door closing and finally I heard her speak.
“I had a business trip coming up. I’ll be gone until Wednesday morning. I already submitted the picture for the engagement announcement in the Globe. Boston magazine is running an article about Inferno and I spoke to a restaurant reviewer who is coming tomorrow night.”
