I remained silent and let her struggle just because I wanted to see what she would say, but, unfortunately, she was interrupted by a cavalier voice behind us.
“Allister.”
Gianna tensed.
I slid a hand to her waist and turned toward her father.
“Saul,” I said, the name familiar on my lips.
I didn’t look at her, but the betrayed gaze I could feel on my face sent an odd tightness to my chest.
“I didn’t expect your presence today.” Saul’s eyes drifted to my hand on Gianna’s waist. “And with my daughter, no less.”
“You’d think a man your age would have learned to expect the unexpected by now.”
Gianna sucked in an uneasy breath.
It was a cheap insult, but I’d learned over the years that cheap got the quickest results.
Saul’s expression didn’t falter as he held my gaze. But, as his eyes finally drifted to his daughter, his
next words came clipped with the slightest clench of his teeth. “I’d like to talk with you at home before the reception, Gianna.”
“I’d love to, but . . . I swear, our schedule has been filling so fast I can hardly keep up with it.” She blinked at me. “Do you think we’ll have time, Christian?”
I wanted to smile. To kiss her for being such a good little wolf. Instead, I only said, “I think we can fit it in.”
Uncertainty crossed her expression.
I liked Gianna’s father about as much as I’d liked Antonio. Accepting a hit on their heads would have been a vacation for me. But if Gianna didn’t deal with him now, he’d keep coming back until he got whatever he wanted.
“I’m glad to see you can spare a few minutes for your papà.” A subtle threat flickered in Saul’s eyes. “Until then, cara mia.” The tightly-reined venom in his voice drifted past us as he headed up the aisle to take a seat at his pew.
Gianna was internally shaken but was hiding it well. Her anger? Not so much.
“Gianna—”
She left me standing there.
As much as it pissed me off that she’d jumped so fast to think the worst of me, I let her have her anger, because it was what she needed right now.
The Catholic ceremony was long and a little melodramatic. Gianna hadn’t said a word to me since she’d taken a seat on the pew beside me. Not a single joke or insult. I didn’t like it.
She stared out the window and stayed silent on the way to her papà’s house. When this was over, I was going to force her to talk to me for two hours straight before she got her orgasm.
One of her cousins, who Gianna had called “Guccio,” and who couldn’t be more than a teenager, answered the door and led us to her father’s office.
Guccio avoided my gaze. “He wants to, uh, talk to you alone, Gianna.”
“Fine,” she sighed.
I grabbed her wrist when she took a step toward the door. “You don’t have to go in there alone.”
“It’ll be fine. I’ll try to make it quick so you two will have plenty of time to talk business afterward.” Her eyes flashed with resentment.
My jaw tightened, but I let her go.
She shut the door behind her.