Chapter 14
Anya
I count the nights by the number of times I pass Ezra in the hallway leaving Renata’s room. After that first family dinner and the red wine incident, I was desperate to get to him, to find out how Renata was treating him, and most importantly, to tell him that I wasn’t upset with him. He did what I’d helped him learn to do—keep his mouth shut and do as he’s told to survive.
It was difficult to watch his movements during that first week leading up to Vigo’s funeral weekend. The home was such chaos until that was over. I vomited during the eulogy Renata gave at his funeral mass. It was lucky that I was pregnant because I could blame my sickness on that. But really, it had only to do with the picture they painted of Vigo Vittori.
They said he was a strong and ferocious leader. A family man devoted to protecting and caring for his loved ones at all costs. A shrewd businessman whose savvy amassed a fortune that safeguarded the future of their entire extended family. An adoring cousin who loved playing with children.
That was the line that did me in.
But it was good to see for myself that he was well and truly dead. It brought me some semblance of peace and comfort, though it wasn’t much. After the funeral weekend, the extended family began to depart in small groups. The mansion became less and less chaotic over the week that followed, and soon, I was able to see a routine develop.
I started to watch Ezra, tracking the routine Renata created for him. I made a point of cataloging when and where I ran into him, the times when he was with Renata, when he was with Luca, and when he was alone.
Renata had padlocked the collar to his neck, and I learned by asking Lorenzo that it kept him confined within the house. Every time I caught a glimpse of him—shirtless, wearing jeans that hugged his hips just right—I wanted two things more desperately than freedom. First, I wanted to find a strong pair of scissors and cut that fucking collar off him. Second, I wanted to...Well, there were actually a lot of things I wanted to do to him.
Initially, it had been only by sheer luck that I’d run into him, but I started to see the patterns in his days and nights. I kept quiet, watched, learned, waited until I knew with confidence when I could catch him alone without Renata noticing if he was gone for more than five minutes.
That time is now—just past midnight on our third Tuesday at the Vittori mansion.
I’m desperate for what we’ve both been denied for far too long—a touch, a breath, a kiss—just a moment of connection, if that’s all that can be spared. I come out of my bedroom—Vigo’s old bedroom that I stubbornly refused to leave after Renata’s challenging remarks—and turn left, just as I always would to walk toward the staircase. But instead of descending, I keep walking to the opposite hallway. Renata’s bedroom is at the far end.
I pause by the staircase, checking the watch I asked to have purchased for me. Ezra will exit Renata’s room within the next five minutes or so. I’m going to walk down the hallway when he does, reach out for him, touch his hand, take what I can get for that brief moment.
Hardly a minute passes before I hear the sound of a door opening at the far end of the hall.
It’s him.
I watch as he closes the door behind him. He pauses for a beat, looking down at the floor, his body riddled with tension that I wish I could release for him.
Oh, God.
I can’t let my mind wander too far on such thoughts. I no longer feel sick all the time from these pregnancy hormones. Instead, they’ve turned me into a lust-filled, sex-starved woman who can’t seem to keep her mind out of the gutter.
My mouth suddenly feels dry and I lick my lips as I watch Ezra rise to his full height and turn toward me. I step forward, directly in his path, only six doors separating us from meeting.
We see each other and there’s a pause—a perfect pause of peaceful nothingness that I always get with him when we steal glances this way.
It’s not that the pause is filled with nothing.
It’s filled with everything.
But it’s everything that’s good and right and beautiful about the world—even if it’s a world we’re not given the privilege of living in.
His chest rises heavy and falls the same and I see his cheek twitch, curling one side of his mouth into a smirk. I gasp noiselessly, the way he looks at me sending shameless need straight through my core.
I stride forward confidently, wearing the same form-fitting, knit black dress I’ve been wearing all day—I’ve been wearing it all day for him. My breasts are growing along with my stomach, not to say my pregnancy bump has grown all that much. In fact, if I weren’t wearing such a tight dress, you would hardly notice I was pregnant at all, even at nearly four months.
Doctor Lombardi assures me it’s nothing to worry about, often reminding me that pregnant bodies come in all different shapes and sizes. By all accounts it’s true. Olivia is only three months along, though her stomach looks much bigger than mine.
Regardless, I feel confident in this dress, confident that Ezra will like to see me in it with the way the V-neck cuts down between my full-cup-size-larger breasts.
God, this feels so strange.
By all accounts, I should be ashamed of myself for wanting what I want from him.
How can I be so goddamn horny after all I’ve been through?
But the way he looks at me now as we walk toward each other in the empty hallway; he looks as needy as I feel. My heart flutters inside my chest, wings flapping desire through my body, making me feel lightheaded from lust. I feel like I can’t catch my breath and I don’t know what’s come over me.
His eyes flick over my body and I see his chest rise and fall as his pace quickens. He needs me as much as I need him, and that makes me want him all the more.
I want more.
More than a touch.
I think we’re going to collide as he aligns himself directly with the path I walk. He’s not moving aside to brush past me. He’s walking straight toward me. He moves with such determination to get to me, that I actually stop and take a step backward as he moves unexpectedly into my space.
We have to be careful that no one sees us—Renata would lose her mind.
“What are you—” I start, lifting my head to look up at him as he pushes me back.
“Come with me.”
Ezra flashes me a perfect, white smile and I feel every organ inside my body liquefy. I’m a useless puddle for this man and I don’t want it any other way. He drags me sideways, opening a bedroom door that’s close to the staircase—the farthest from Renata’s room. He pushes me inside.
I whirl around to face him as he slips in behind me, pushing the door shut and turning a deadbolt lock from the inside. I open my mouth to tell him I love him, but he swallows my words as he crashes into me, his lips landing on mine, bruising and desperate.