Chapter 3

I chose a hospital far from Family ground on purpose, but as fate would have it, I ran into Marco and Adriana anyway.

Adriana was cradling her hand, the one that hadn't even been so much as bruised, crying out in pain.

Marco, in that soft way of his, lifted her into his lap and carefully pressed the doctor for anything she ought to watch for.

When we first belonged to each other, he had fretted over me the same way.

One night, when a fever took me, he was so rattled he didn't even bother with shoes, and only afterward, once he'd made certain I was safe, did he notice the glass had opened the sole of his foot.

"Bianca, you're my treasure. I can't stand to see you hurt."

As I stepped out, I walked straight into him coming in.

"Bianca, Marco was only bringing me to have my injury seen to. Are you so restless you had to trail us all the way here?"

Marco raked me with a contemptuous look. "Weren't you the one going on about how we're finished? So what is this? Bianca, you've no shame left. Lay a hand on Adriana again and I won't be gentle with you."

I lifted my hand, still stained with blood. "Look at the injury, and move aside."

Marco froze where he stood, a flicker of guilt passing behind his eyes.

"Bianca, is it bad?"

He tried to come toward me, but Adriana's scream cut him off.

"Adriana, my hand hurts so much…"

Marco stopped paying me any mind, turning on his heel and carrying her away.

The next morning, the moment I woke, a message came from Lorenzo, asking me to set aside time to try on the custom ring.

After I'd washed and dressed, I was startled to see Marco walking into the room carrying breakfast.

"You must be starving. Come and eat."

A basket of crab roe buns and a bowl of pumpkin porridge. One would set off an allergy, the other was something I couldn't stomach.

"Take the day for yourself. The seasons are turning. Let me buy you some new things."

It was the old rhythm. A little sweetness pressed into the palm right after the blow, a thing he'd done for years.

Yet when the hour came, he slid into the back seat. "You drive today. I didn't sleep well."

I looked down at my hand, bound in bandages, and mocked myself in silence.

In the rearview mirror he sat with his phone, a faint smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

Not until the car stopped and he caught sight of the jeweler's sign outside did his face go dark all at once.

He blocked the doorway, his expression full of displeasure.

"Bianca, I told you already, let's wait. Why must you force me like this? I'm only signing a certificate with Adriana, not holding a wedding before the priest and the bosses. No one has to know. Once the whispers die down, we'll quietly part ways."

Before he could finish, another voice broke over his. "Marco, don't you think this diamond ring is beautiful?"

Adriana wore a one-carat diamond, lifting her hand and leaning into him, all sweetness.

Marco's face rearranged itself into a smile at once.

"If you like it, then it's beautiful. Our union's in five days. Shall I buy this one to seal it?"

I stopped in my tracks, just in time to catch Marco turning his head, awkward.

Every word out of him was a lie. But it made no difference. In five days I would be married too, my own union sealed before the priest and the bosses. It only seemed to prove the old truth, that a man and a woman marry and then go their separate ways.

The clerk carefully brought over the ring Lorenzo had ordered. A pink diamond, the only one of its kind in all the world, stunning and bright enough to draw the eye across the whole room.

Adriana looked at the ring on my hand, her eyes full of greed.

"Bianca, I really do love the ring on your hand. May I try it on?"

The clerk beside me apologized at once.

"I'm sorry, this piece has already been reserved. Would you care to look at something else?"

Adriana's eyes reddened in an instant. Her fingertips drifted delicately to her collarbone, though her gaze flicked sideways first, gauging who in the shop was watching before the tears came.

"Bianca, you know our wedding is in five days. Are you deliberately putting your head together with the staff here to make trouble for me? I love this ring. I only want to know what it feels like to be a bride. Can't you just let me try it on?"