He seemed to sleep.
I sat awake for a while, clicking through the images on the TV before I found one that reminded me a lot of my aunt’s farm from when I was a girl.
You may buy whatever you want.
Those words came back to me as I was just starting to drift off to sleep.
Well.
That certainly gave me an idea, didn’t it?
Sure, I might have been forced into this marriage. I lost contact with everyone who was near and dear to me.
He got everything out of this, and I got absolutely nothing.
Except an open invitation to spend as much of his money as I wanted.
And I suddenly wanted to spend a boatload of it.
CHAPTER SIX
Isabella
I woke up on top of him.
There was no nice way of putting it.
I was sprawled over him like he was the damn mattress itself.
Leg over hip, head on chest, arm resting on his shoulder.
His body was warm beneath me, his strong chest rising and falling rhythmically enough that I figured he was still asleep, that I could slowly and carefully move off of him before he noticed I’d climbed him like a damn tree in my sleep.
“Comfortable, lamb?” Primo’s voice met my ear the second, the absolute second, I tried to lift my head.
Damnit.
“This is my side of the bed,” I said as my leg shifted and I became intimately aware of Primo’s cock pressing against me. Hard. And, well, big. And my body absolutely did not respond to that. Nope. Not at all.
“It’s my side of the bed,” Primo clarified. “I might not mind sharing,” he added, his hand sliding down my spine. And because of the barely-there silk material of my dress, he might as well have been caressing my bare skin. A tremble moved through my insides at the soft touch, reminding me how long it had been since I’d felt that from a man.
“Well, it was my side of the bed in my old apartment,” I told him.
“And the draping yourself over me part?” he asked as I pulled away, going as far to the other side of the bed as possible.
“I, ah, I had a body pillow,” I told him, leaving out the part that I actually named the damn thing. “That’s how I sleep…on the body pillow,” I added. “I will have to add it to the list of things to pick up today,” I added.
“No.”
“No?” I asked, looking over as he got out of the bed.
“You heard me. No,” he said as he got up and walked toward the bathroom.
Alone, I took a second to try to collect myself before getting up to rummage through his dresser, finding a simple black t-shirt. Eyes on the door, I quickly shrugged out of my wedding dress and pulled the shirt on. Once he got out of the bathroom, I would put on my pants I’d been abducted in then tie up the shirt in the front. It wouldn’t be high fashion, but it would do until I could buy something more suitable to wear.
Feeling antsy to get out of the bedroom and away from the bed where I’d made a fool of myself, I rushed out, going down into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, then look through the cabinets and fridge, finding eggs, mozzarella, and spinach, and making myself an omelet.
This is going to sound absurd, given that I wasn’t exactly a willing member of this marriage, but as I heard Primo coming down the stairs after his shower, I actually felt a surge of guilt at making food only for myself. I couldn’t help it. It was how I was raised. You never, ever cooked for just yourself if someone else was around. Hell, my mother never cooked for just herself even if she was the only person around. She always made extra and had it in the fridge just in case someone popped over. If they didn’t, she would pack it up and bring it out to hand off to a homeless person.
Primo’s gaze moved over me standing in his kitchen, his eyes lingering on my bare legs for a moment. He watched as I took my omelet and coffee toward the dining room table, but said nothing as he made his own coffee and eggs.
“Dawson and Dulles will be here within the hour to take you whoever you need to go.”
“Okay.”
“And then you will be meeting me for dinner.”
“I remember. Where?” I asked. “I need to know what to wear,” I added.
“I doubt you know any of the restaurants in the Bronx,” he said, and he wasn’t exactly wrong. “A dress is fine.”
A dress was always fine. For literally almost every activity or venue. But there were different kinds of dresses.
“How formal?”
“Not formal.”
I said nothing to that, simply focused on my food.
In turn, so did Primo.
In fact we said nothing else as we ate then took turns putting our dishes in the dishwasher.
It wasn’t until his brothers showed up—all three of them and without knocking—that there was noise in the apartment again.
“Did you get the text I…” Terzo started, coming to a dead stop at seeing me there, like he’d forgotten completely about the whole kidnapping, meeting, and forced marriage thing just the day before.
Then his gaze slid down, taking in my bare legs the same way his big brother had.
“Yo,” Primo called, voice a whip cracking in the space, making Terzo straighten and turn. “Don’t look at her like that,” he said. “Isabella, it’s time to get dressed,” he added. “You will need to get going,” he concluded.
And because I was suddenly very aware of my half-nakedness, I didn’t think twice about the command. I just rushed across the apartment. I was halfway up the stairs before I remembered to worry about their gazes on me as I went up the steps with nothing on but a pair of panties under the shirt.
But when I looked, Terzo, Dawson, and Dulles were looking at Primo.
It was only Primo whose gaze was on me.
That weird flip-flopping sensation in my belly had to do with, you know, the anxiety of carrying out my plan to spend a ton of his money without checking with him about it. It didn’t make sense that it could be anything else.
By the time I came back down, Primo and Terzo were gone and Dawson and Dulles were waiting patiently by the kitchen counter.
“I hope you two are wearing comfortable shoes,” I said, getting a smirk out of Dulles.
“That sounds like a threat, woman,” he said, those green eyes of his brightening.
“It is,” I confirmed, feeling my lips twitch at his chuckle.
“We are at your disposal,” Dulles said, waving an arm.
“Do you have a jacket?” Dawson asked, looking at my short-sleeve outfit.
“I wasn’t exactly given a chance to pack,” I reminded them then waved down at my outfit. “This is all I have. Unless I want to shop in my wedding dress.”
“Let me see if Primo has anything,” Dawson suggested.
“Anything that fits that man would be a floor-length dress on me. It’s fine. I will grab a jacket at the first stop,” I said.
“What is the first stop?” Dulles asked as we made our way to the elevator.
“What is the closest, but most expensive store?” I asked, getting a chuckle out of Dulles.
“Oh, you’re fixing to do some damage, huh?” he asked, sharing a strange look with his brother.
“I’m figuring my husband has earned it,” I said, giving them a long look.