Part One
Not for the first time, Amalia Rai gazed in the mirror and wondered how the hell she had gotten here. This is the twenty-first century, right? And, yet, she, a successful classical pianist and music professor, was about to be married to a man she barely knew—and who she could barely stand.
Amalia closed her eyes. She could hardly stand to look at the sadness in her own eyes. At twenty-seven, she had accomplished so much and had thought herself free of her controlling father and all the bullshit that went on in their family. If it hadn’t been for her desperation to save her little sister’s life, she would never have agreed to this.
But her father held all the cards. He would not allow Selima to divorce her abusive husband unless Amalia agreed to marry Jackson Gallo—her father’s
