I blink hard and force myself to smile. “You did, didn’t you?”
I watch as his dark blue eyes narrow on me. Slowly, he shakes his head from side to side.
“I thought a woman raised Regazza would know better.”
Jerk. My own anger fizzes and boils, threatening to explode. “Know better about what?”
He shakes his head from side to side. Caged in his grip, I take the opportunity to look at him. Really look at him.
He’s tall like all of them, much larger than I am. While not quite as big as Orlando, Tavi’s features are rougher, sterner. He’s ruggedly handsome with the shadow of a beard on his square jaw, full lips cast downward in a perpetual frown, and not a trace of humor in the glacial blue of his eyes. It isn’t his classically sexy Italian looks that get my attention, though. No, any handsome man from Italy knows the art of seduction from the cradle, but this guy… there’s something almost regal about him, something almost cruel that should terrify me, but it doesn’t. I’m intrigued.
As he holds me in place, I’m vividly aware of the way his muscles ripple under the shirt he wears, the way his broad shoulders fill his suit coat. It doesn’t take much to imagine being pinned under him, while he—
“I’d think Regazza’s daughter would know better than to mouth off to someone who’s bigger, stronger, and more powerful than she is.”
Oh fuck off.
“Bigger, yes. How nice of you to point that out. Some of you like to chew bricks for breakfast and spit them out, but I’m not much of a breakfast eater. Stronger, of course, you have biology on your side, don’t you?” The skin on my face tightens when his fingers constrict my windpipe by a sliver, enough to make it harder to breathe. I draw in a staggering breath. “But more powerful? Don’t fool yourself, handsome. Those who need to brag about their power aren’t as strong as they think, are they?” I gasp, my voice high and reedy, but I press on. “Machiavelli once said the measure of a man is what he does with power.”
If there was anything I learned while observing my father, it was that people who are powerful don’t need to call themselves powerful.
Asshole.
A cold smile plays on his lips so briefly, I wonder if I imagine it.
“Aren’t you clever. Machiavelli, is it? He also said that never was anything great achieved without danger. So you learned nothing from your father? Perfect. Just what I needed. A wife I need to train from the ground up.”
Ooooh, he knows how to push those buttons good and hard. I want to slap his beautiful, arrogant face and teach him what male chauvinism gets him.
“I learned how to buck up, buttercup,” I snap, barely containing my rage. “I learned—” I can’t talk anymore. The air in my lungs freezes when his hand clenches harder. I gasp for breath and smack at his hands. Stars blur my vision, the room spins, and I have the stark, terrifying realization that he’s choking me to death just seconds before he releases my throat. He holds me pinned in place, gasping for air.
His mouth comes to my ear. “When I tell you to be quiet, I fucking mean it. Do that again, and I’ll gag you all motherfucking day. Now take my hand and walk with me, like we’re two lovers going to bed, and not a prisoner about to face punishment from her captor. Got it?”
I nod, still unable to speak. When he releases my throat, I stagger. Tears spill onto my cheeks, but I turn away and swipe at them angrily so he doesn’t see. I stand and walk with him, my head hung low.
I hate him so much it makes me cry.
Somehow, he opens the door. I don’t watch. There’s a series of codes and locks and clicks, but I don’t pay attention. It doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters.
The door slams behind us.
“Strip,” he grates. “Take all your fucking clothes off and leave them by the door.”
Right, like I don’t know what strip means. He continues, seemingly oblivious to the vitriol I’m mentally castigating him with. “When I come back out here, I want you bent over the arm of that couch, hands in front of you, palms down. You have sixty seconds.”
And then he’s gone. I turn in the direction of a door that just clicked shut and blink.
Where am I?
Where did he just go?
I glance around, acutely conscious of the downward clicking of the timeline he just gave me.
I’m in a sitting room of sorts, and beyond where I’m standing there’s a kitchenette, a desk and bookcase, and several closed doors. The one on the left is the one he just entered, and the one on the right is still shut.
Bathroom? Bedroom? Office?
But why would he have an office if the desk and bookcase are out here…
I remember with a sudden tripping of my heart that he gave me sixty seconds. I probably have thirty left, and I think this is probably not a hill to die on.
I tear off my clothes and leave them in a heap by the door. Whatever.
There’s a dark, chocolate-brown leather sofa and matching armchair in the living room. He wants me bent over the arm of the couch.
Lovely.
He could do damn near anything to me in that position and he probably will.
Before today, he’s barely touched me. I doubt he’ll fuck me, not now, not when there are four weeks left to the wedding. Traditionally, in an Italian mafia wedding the marriage is consummated on the wedding night, or is supposed to be, anyway.
I flounce naked over to the couch, glad that at least Tavi can’t take my virginity.
It’s the one thing I gave Piero that could’ve killed him even before his betrayal did, the one act of treachery my father never found out about. It’s my secret. My dirty, painful secret.
I shove the memory away again and mentally count to sixty.
Then I count again.
Where is he?
I don’t hear a thing, but I’m wide awake, vividly aware of my naked body on display. My breasts are small but pert, pressed up against the smooth, cool leather. My hands are splayed out like he commanded, palms down on the soft leather, my forehead pressed between them. My legs are parted, cool air kissing my naked sex and ass while I wait for him.
And wait.
And wait.
My back begins to ache like this. My belly and breasts nearly fall asleep, all tingly pressed up against the couch. I try to roll my neck, but it’s too awkward a position to really move at all.
I close my eyes, but this is too uncomfortable to really fall asleep. All I can think about is what the next decades of my life will look like, married to a man like him. I want to sob. I’d rather be a nobody on the street than shackled to a guy who commands my every goddamn move.
I start when a door opens behind me.
“Good girl.”
I don’t expect his praise, and I don’t expect the way I react to his words.
Nobody has ever called me a good girl before. Ever.
I like it.
I wish that I didn’t. I wish I wasn’t relieved he’s finally here.
I wish I didn’t want him to touch me.
“You did exactly what I said for once.” Noiselessly, he walks up behind me. My pulse races when I feel his hands spanning my hips possessively, his rough, calloused palms gliding up my sensitive skin. I close my eyes, not surprised to feel his hardened length pressed up against my ass. It isn’t the silky fabric of his pants that keeps me from touching bare skin, though. I turn my head to the side.