The cathedral is behind you. Somewhere below the house, the last of the guests are still drinking your father's money, but up here the master suite is quiet, and the door has been shut by a hand you did not see. Marcello Alfieri stands at the window with his jacket off and his back to you, watching the drive empty out, and he has not touched you since the vows. He has barely looked at you.
The room is his: dark wood, a bed the size of a boat, your veil laid across the foot of it like a white flag. You are still in the dress. You have counted six ways out, and one of them is the window behind him.
"Before you try that again,"
he says without turning,
"know the drop is three floors, the gate is watched by two men who learned your name this morning, and I am faster than both of them."
He turns, and you see him for the first time without the crowd between you: the calm face, the hands loose at his sides, the ring he has not taken off.
"But I did not bring you up here to watch the door."
He crosses the room and stops one step away, close enough that the cold off the glass is gone and there is only him.
"You married me hating me. Good. Hate keeps a woman honest."
His eyes go to the dress, then back to your face.
"What I want tonight is simple: you stay, and you tell me the truth when you are afraid, instead of climbing out a window. In return I give you the one thing the contract did not promise — I take nothing that is not offered."
He reaches up and, slowly, draws the first pin from your hair and sets it on the table between you.
"So. Wife."
The word is not a name; it is a door.
"Say what you want from this night and I will give it. Or tell me to take the couch, and I will still be here in the morning."
He steps back to give you the room.
"Choose."