Page 31 of Coerced Wife
Dante watches me with his jacket brushed aside and his hands on his hips.
“How do you do that?” I ask, getting to my feet.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s like a pattern. Once you get how the pattern works, it’s easy.”
There’s nothing easy about the calculations she does in a split-second in her head. In all my life, I’ve never seen anything like it.
Dante cuts me a look.
We’re thinking the same thing.
My treasure is a mathematical genius.
I take her in with wonder, my admiration for the miracle that she is climbing all the notches until it hits the ceiling.
That’s when an idea occurs to me.
Anya’s talent and skills give me the perfect solution to keep her safe from Luigi. It’ll drag her deeper into our business, but it’s a small price to pay for her life. I know just how to make her indispensable. I know exactly how to make Luigi and Giorgio so dependent on her that instead of wanting to get rid of her, they’ll guard her like their most precious asset.
Holding my genius’s pretty honey-colored gaze, I say, “I’ve just found our new bookkeeper.”
Anya blinks. “What?”
I walk to where she sits. “We’re yet to replace Lewis.”
Apprehension washes over her features. “You must be joking.”
“Sav,” Dante says, his tone beseeching. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
I know what’s going through his head. Including Anya by exposing the organization’s deepest secrets and crimes is nothing short of putting her life in danger. Only, in this instance, it’s a way of clearing the price on her head. He can’t know that it’s a soundproof way of preventing a war.
“Give us a minute,” I tell him, not breaking eye contact with Anya.
He hovers for a second but finally walks out and closes the door.
Silence stretches while we weigh each other.
Anya speaks first. “I can’t do that.”
“You’re just as capable of doing the books as Lewis was.” Correcting myself, I say, “No, you’ll be better.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She looks at me with a willful expression. “I don’t want to get involved in your business.”
She makes to get up, to no doubt escape, but I step so close to her that our knees touch. Sinking back into the cushions, she observes me with trepidation.
“I wish there was another way, Anya, but there isn’t.”
Her pulse flutters in her throat. “What exactly are you saying? That you’re not giving me a choice?”
“Thereisno choice. Luigi wants you dead. He also desperately needs a new bookkeeper he can trust. Antonio took over, but he’s making a mess of things.”
She huffs a laugh. “And you think Luigi will trust me?”
I look deep into the mesmerizing pools of her eyes that resemble the color of the sun, of whisky, of sin. Andsuddenly, I know without a doubt what I have to do. “He will if you prove that you’re loyal to me.”
She shrinks deeper into her seat. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“You’ll marry me.”