Brutal Husband (Brutal Hearts #3)

Chapter 8

8

Rieta

“ T his is the Eiffel Tower. Well, you know that. Everyone does! But it’s a lot bigger in person than it looks. And this is the Arc de Triomphe. My goodness, the traffic in Paris. Oh, this is the most adorable little bakery where we bought croissants. It’s called a bolong — boulang —something like that. Anyway, it’s a bakery.”

I talk quickly as I swipe through the photos on my phone for my mom and sisters, hoping that no one notices that they’re just about all scenery. Nero is in none of the photos. All the pictures of me are selfies in which I’m trying to smile convincingly.

Isabel and Mia seem to believe we had a lovely honeymoon, but I can tell from Mom’s expression that she’s not buying it.

Isabel has an eyelash appointment and says goodbye, and Mia heads upstairs to do her homework. Mom and I are alone.

From across the kitchen table, she gives me an appraising look. “It’s just the two of us, so you don’t have to pretend anymore. Well?”

“Well, what?” I say with a shrug, putting my phone back into my handbag.

“Rieta, you’re married. I’ve been married. We can talk to each other as equals.”

Equals. That’s new. Until a few weeks ago, I was a disobedient daughter to be locked in the basement. I don’t trust Mom, and I don’t want to confide in anyone about my marital problems.

We sit in frosty silence.

“Did Nero do something to make you angry?” she asks.

“He’s angry with me,” I mutter.

Angry is an understatement. He won’t look at me. He won’t even share a bed with me. As soon as we returned from Paris, Nero told me to sleep in the master bedroom and made up a different bed for himself down the hall. It’s utterly confusing and humiliating.

“What did you do?”

It’s not like there’s anyone else in my life who I can talk about this with, and I dearly want to defend myself to someone. “I didn’t do anything wrong. He’s being unreasonable.”

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the whole truth.”

“I never betrayed him or pretended to be someone I wasn’t. I only acted in a way that I thought was making us both happy.”

“Oh, Rieta,” Mom says with a pitying sigh. “You slept with him before the wedding, didn’t you?”

Anger bursts through me, and I say defiantly, “I don’t see what’s so bad about that or why I’m to blame. It takes two people to make something like that happen. He’s acting like I cheated on my husband by having sex with my fiancé.”

“You little fool. Seducing you before the wedding? That was a test, and you failed. He’s thinking that if you slept with him before you were married, who’s to say you won’t sleep with other men? That you haven’t already? You should have told him no and preserved yourself for your wedding night. Men want a fantasy. They need perfection.”

“That’s not what love is!” I exclaim.

“Love? Who said anything about love?” Mom scoffs. “Your marriage was arranged by him and me. I thought I raised you with more sense.”

More sense than to believe a husband and wife should love each other? Maybe I am naive, but I truly thought Nero and I had something special.

“There’s more,” I tell her, dreading bringing this up but needing to get it off my chest. “There was a man at our wedding I recognized from the news who was accused by several children of being a rapist.”

“Your aunt Francesca mentioned this to me,” Mom says, and a line of concern appears between her brows. “She wondered if she’d seen him there and told me that he was found murdered the next day. She was right? He really was at your wedding?”

“Yes, he was there.” I hesitate and then blurt out, “I think Nero killed him.”

Two shadows hung over mine and Nero’s miserable, silent honeymoon. The first one was the terrible things Nero said to me on our wedding night. The second was the very real possibility that I was sharing a bed with a murderer. If Nero and I had shared a beautiful, sexy, happy wedding night and then I’d turned on the television and seen that Shields had been murdered, what would I have felt? Nero murdered the man who’d made me upset. A man who deserved pain for the things he’d likely done to children. Did Nero force him to confess as he was beating him to death? Should I feel relief that a predator is dead, or should I feel sickened that my husband is a killer, and he’s turned the same coldness on me?

Mom’s silent for a moment, and then says briskly, “Your husband’s dealings with his associates are his business. You need to put that piece of human garbage from your wedding out of your mind and focus on mending your relationship with Nero. How are you going to fix things?”

I shake my head helplessly. “I don’t know. Nero won’t look at me. He won’t talk to me. Before we were married, he was attracted to me, but Nero and I haven’t slept together since that first time. Should I try to seduce him?” I don’t even know how I would do that. He didn’t so much as touch my hand on our honeymoon. Perhaps I could walk around the house in sexy lingerie and see if he notices?

“Absolutely not.” Mom shakes her head. “You mustn’t give Nero any reason to believe you’re a loose woman or that you’re even thinking about sex. You need to remake yourself into the woman he believed you to be before you were married. A good, obedient, and chaste woman, and eventually he’ll be able to forgive you for your terrible mistake.”

I give Mom a doubtful look. Nero never believed I was good, obedient, and chaste, and he didn’t want me to be either. He said the most depraved things to me on our first date.

But perhaps I’m reading things wrong. He enjoyed it when I blushed and squirmed and told him no like a good little virgin, but as soon as I gave myself willingly and enthusiastically to him, he was disgusted with me.

“I don’t know, Mom,” I say, rubbing my forehead tiredly. “Perhaps we should just get an annulment. The marriage hasn’t been consummated. We could talk to the priest who married us and dissolve the whole thing away.”

Mom slaps my hand away from my face. “You will never speak that word again. You made a promise to that man in front of all our family and friends. When I made my mistake, did I run away or take the easy way out? No, I kept my mistake.”

“Don’t talk about Mia that way.”

“You made a mistake, and it’s up to you to fix it.”

“I don’t think it can be fixed. Nero is too strange and angry. I don’t understand him.”

Mom’s eyes narrow, and her voice turns cold. “You signed a prenup before you married Nero, and I know what was in it. You’ll get nothing if you leave him before five years is up, and I won’t give you a penny either. What will you do if you get an annulment, Rieta? You’ll be destitute. I’m not having you back in this house.”

I recoil from her cruel words. “You would just abandon me? Even after everything I told you just now? How is this failed marriage my fault from any sane person’s perspective?”

“I will threaten you for your own good. Do not throw away this marriage at the first hurdle. Listen to your mother, and everything will work out.”

“You don’t understand,” I say desperately. “I think there’s something wrong with my husband. There are things he says and does. Names he calls me…”

“Like what?”

My pretty piece of cunt.

If I tell Mom about that, she’ll no doubt twist it so it’s my fault as well, and I’ll have even more things to feel ashamed about. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“You have a duty to your family and to your husband,” Mom says with an air of finality. “Show Nero that you’re an obedient wife, take care of him, and he’ll forget about your misbehavior before the wedding. Listen to your mother, Rieta. I know better than you.”