PastThe flowers dropped by the doorframe and I peered into the room, confused.Priya’s black eyes are large as she clutches the sheets to her chest and her lips are swollen, injured, from kissing. Her neck is covered in purple bruises and hickeys. Her hair disheveled, her skin sleek with sweat. I fall back a step, the strength in my legs failing me for the briefest of moments. My lungs constrict and trying to take in a deep breath forces the sinful smell of sex and Priya’s orgasm down my throat. It settles terribly, much like poison, and I wheeze the next breath. The male jumps off the bed and bolts out the door, naked. I let him run past me, but not before I mark every damn feature of his face, the damn tattoo that marks him a Rossi.“Zef,” Priya starts, her eyes watering, and she knows better than to try explain it to me. So, she tries something else instead. She gaslights me, and I let her
Susanna and I stare at each other until Rizzi leaves and we’re left completely alone. “I’m leaving,” she tells me, and for some reason, my heart pauses an entire beat. I notice then that she’s out of uniform, wearing black slacks, an oversized sweatshirt, a ridiculous black hat and ugly orange-pink running shoes. There’s a bag hanging across her chest and I wonder just what could fit into there. I stare and stare at her, hiding my traitorous shaking fingers behind my back. “You do not need my permission to leave. I never wanted you here in the first place.” She starts to speak, but I cut in as harshly as I can. “See yourself out, Mrs. Hawke, and never darken my door again.”Her eyes gutter and she turns sharply, heading for the door. I want to reach for her, but I don’t. This is good, I tell myself. This is best, I convince myself. In a few weeks, should my grandmother’s arrangement go acc
Past“Bernard…hmm…” my stepmother ponders, her wicked red nails caressing each dress hanging up in her dresser. She stills on the stained white lace and I can hear the smile in her voice as she says, “This should do.” I rub a spot on my arm, still sore from where Mr. Hawke held me last night while he pleasured me like no other man had cared to. He’s been doing so for a month now. “I…” my voice trailed off. “I can’t. Not tonight.” Morwenna Lancaster plucks out the white dress. “Let your hair down like he likes it…” She goes on like I never spoke. It’s always like this. My words unheard, my pleas ignored. Standing my ground means entertaining more men at night than usual, only the worst of the horde. I swallow the bile crawling up my throat. “Mother…I don’t feel well.” She keeps talking, setting out my outfit for tonight, right to my underwear. Of course, none of them belong to me. I own nothing. I deserve nothing. For the more special guests, she
It is my engagement, but for some reason, she is more excited than I am. Twirling the wine in the glass, I watch her offer the guests a glass with a charming smile. She’s in uniform—black suit pants, white buttoned shirt, flats. It’d be skirts, but I ordered the skirts away. I can’t go around killing every man who sees her ass in them. Still… Where she walks, heads turn. She has no makeup or jewelry on, but she outshines every woman in the room. She could be modeling rags and still look stunning. “Sir?” My eyes reluctantly shift from the outline of her swinging hips to Adrianna’s glowering gaze. “Your fiancée is that way,” she speaks in Italian, inclining her head to the center of the room, where Valentina giggles, surrounded by a horde of drinking Italian wives and a couple of her friends from Korea. She’s a social butterfly, much unlike Priya. I bring the glass to my lips. “I see.” My gaze strays again, and Susanna’s accepting Giovann
Zefiro’s voice darkens to a chilling edge. “I can make her disappear. Permanently.” Is he offering to kill my stepmother? I hesitate, stutter, as I try to find the right words. I want to tell him he’s crazy, but my brain won’t connect with my mouth and my mind starts to conjure up images of walking Morwenna’s grave with roses dyed to the deepest shade of black, flipping her tombstone off and shoving a pole into the earth beside it to belly dance while I drink from her most expensive shelf of alcohol and bathe myself in every fucking bottle. Zefiro huffs a drunken laugh, and it feels like I have been cut open and filled to the brim with jelly. “You’re a wild little thing.” He thumbs a loose strand of my hair, tucking it behind my ear, and then he starts to trace a finger along the curve of my ear, like he always has to be touching me, somehow. “Say the word and it’s done. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty for you.” His expression is
I’ve been kissed many times before. By drunk men who salivated in my mouth and cut my lip. By pedophiles whose fantasies were to ruin a little girl in ways they could never ruin their wives. Or daughters. By Jaxon, who only kissed me after each whipping. I associate the action with pain, disgust. I despise it. Yet, my legs shake. It starts like roaring, turbulent waves. Like an avalanche, rumbling in fury and bringing everything down in its path. Zefiro’s kiss is hostile, angry, hateful even. Like he despises me but can’t stay away, and for that, he is punishing me. Hot. I feel hot in all the wrong places. The angry glide of his tongue against mine mimics the movement I’d like not to think of while he holds me, but I can’t help it. It’s hard not to think of how his tongue would feel against my folds. My core tightens and I clench, twice. Hell, no. I push Zefiro off. But I might as well have hit an immoveable wall. Struggling against him does not
You would think that someone with little to no dignity left wouldn’t be bothered about getting eaten out on a veranda by the groom-to-be at his engagement party, but…it’s my first time. None of the men who ruined me particularly cared enough about that. Jaxon didn’t either, but it didn’t matter. Hard to miss something you never experienced. But more than that, there is a more pressing problem. How can I want this? Why do I keep clenching? I’m not some sex-starved—“Oh my God.” Zefiro has my ass in his hands, parted, and his tongue glides along my entrance as he arches me into a more accessible position. He licks me from my entrance to my clit and back again, and another harsh cry rips from my throat. I grapple for something to hold, my nails scratching against the surface of the wall, and I find nothing. The thumping of the music reverberates off the wall, synching with my heartbeats and drowning the sounds of my cries. I have no words for what his tongue does to me
Past Dressed in nothing but a robe, I walk down the stairs. I have been good for the past four months, and my reward is being let out of my room for long enough to take a dive in the pool. But even that grows old, and I yearn for something different. Something to break me from this unchanging hell I live in. I halt at the base of the stairs, my gaze drifting over to Jaxon on the couch. His head lifts and light blue eyes crinkle with a smile. My stomach flips twice as I beam. It makes me happy when he is pleased. It means he’ll listen to me when I talk. It means he won’t hit me. It means he’ll be gentle when he fucks me. “Work?” I nod towards the laptop sitting against his thighs. It’s been a year since he paid my stepmother off and bought me. One year since he aborted our child, thinking I had no knowledge of it. One year since he held a priest at gun point to officiate our wedding—not that he had to. I would have done anything to get away from Morwenna at that po
He says nothing as he carries me inside. I spot Fabian and Erica pressed against one of the stone gargoyles, kissing like they’re about to rip each other apart.I look away quickly, swallowing the longing in my gut. “You have been avoiding me.”His eyes flick to mine briefly and his throat works slightly. “I’ve been occupied.”“You’ve been sneaking out of your bedroom before I wake,” I counter as he walks us through the crowded hallways of his mansion. His lips press together. His ears go slightly red. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”I sigh, looping my arms around his neck as he ascends the stairs. “I know you’re still mad at me, but you can’t ignore me forever.”He doesn’t answer.“What do I have to do to get you to forgive me?”His gorgeous eyes slant at me suspiciously, but he stays silent. When we reach his bedroom, he sets me down gently on the bed. “You should rest. The party will go on past midnight, and I have business to attend—”“It’s our wedding night.”His eyes
My feet ache from being passed from one dance partner to another, and I lean against the table, swirling the orange juice in my glass. No alcohol for me—not tonight. Not for the baby, though. No, someone’s just terrified I’ll get wasted and take advantage of him again on our wedding night.Erica, on the other hand, is drinking like she’s trying to drown in it. Has everything to do with the fact that she just found out her boyfriend is… well, in the Mafia.“Lying, unfortunate dick,” she mutters, glaring at him as a cluster of women simper and paw at his expensive suit and pretty face. “Said his dad was Italian, his mom was French. That he’d only ever stepped foot in Italy last year to visit his father, since they had a terrible relationship. And I believed him. How the hell am I supposed to believe anything else that comes out of that beautiful mouth?”I bite my cheek to keep from laughing. “So, his mouth is still beautiful?”Her cherry lips twist into a sneer. “No.” A pause. A glance
I don’t have my mother or father to walk me down the aisle, but I don’t do it alone. I clutch Rizzi’s arm like a lifeline, nails digging into the expensive black fabric of his suit as we step past the arched hallway and into the garden. My pulse is a runaway train, my stomach in knots that have knots, and my heels suddenly feel two inches taller.“Is it the nerves or the dress?”My nails dig into his black suit and I try to force down more floral coated air. The yard stretches out before us, decorated in wild flowers, vines and lush greenery, the shaded walk way covered in rose petals path draped unraveling under my feet. My train catches, sweeping across the floors and soft ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ fill the air as we close in on last row of white Chiavari seats.“Both?”“If it makes you feel any better, I was too.”An ugly snort slips past my lips before I can stop it, loud enough to make even the pianist flinch. Christ. "They must think I’m a mess."Rizzi taps the back of my hand, a smirk t
I’m shown to a bedroom beside Mrs. Della Rocca’s, and I barely have a moment’s peace before I’m assaulted by an army of designers.Dress fittings. Jewelry selections. Shoes. Flowers. Colors. Styles. Over and over again, until it finally dawns on me.I’m getting married. Again.The first had been nothing at all like this. There hadn’t been any arrangements made prior and I didn’t have a choice in a single thing. Now, I am consulted about every detail. The colors for the wedding and reception dresses, as well as the designs. The jewelry—Grandmother suggested I wear something of the family heirloom when I found everything I was shown to be more than exaggerated. Shoes. The type of flowers to be used for the decoration of the yard and halls, since we’d decided on a classic romantic garden theme.Not we. His grandmother did with such glee, I couldn’t say no.I often found myself wondering if Zefiro wanted a romantic wedding. If he even had a care in the world left for me at all. Then I’d b
Zefiro doesn’t take the envelope. Doesn’t even look at it. And for a second—maybe longer—I panic.“I’m twelve weeks.” My voice is hoarse, shaky. “I—I didn’t know. Not at first. Thought it was just the stress from exams, my shitty diet, my lack of sleep. But when I couldn’t keep food down, Fabian dragged me to the doctor, thinking I had the flu, and…”My words taper off into nothing as Zefiro takes a slow step back, then another, before sinking into his chair. He drags both hands over his face, through his hair, down again. Lets out a shuddering breath.“There’s a deal with the Chicago Outfit.” His voice is quiet, almost to himself. “This changes everything.”And then, he’s peering at me with a well -guarded, well-controlled expression. His eyes flick down once to my belly, and his nostrils flare. “Do you want it?”It is phrased like a casual question, but I see it for what it is. Another choice. The last choice I’ll ever likely make when it comes to whatever is left of us. And because
I went through day after day like a wraith. And before I could tell, a month had passed since the encounter. By the end of October, I have succeeded in not only failing every class woefully, but getting enough concern to get enrolled for counseling.November is the longest month. I can’t bring myself to do anything but breathe, bathe, eat, sleep and cry. By the month’s end, my clothes begin hanging off my frame awkwardly and my appetite is as dead as I feel inside.I stop calling him and leaving messages. I wouldn’t forgive me either had I been in his shoes.The loud banging on my front door rouses me from tired sleep, but I have no strength in my limbs to answer it. I draw the covers over my face and nestle back into the pillows.My room door slamming open startles me and I turn slowly at Erica’s remark. “It’s a pig’s sty in here.”The covers are thrown off my body and I voice my protest as larger arms yank me off the bed. “Put me down,” I whimper as Fabian takes me to the bathroom a
The memories return to me in bits over the next few weeks, fueling my need to see him. To explain. To apologize. To plead. But he never returned to London, and it took an embarrassing amount of time to realize why.As the owner, it was only normal that he attended the opening ceremony. The woman who had been perched on his shoulder that night is Diana Moreau, and she will be managing Oblio Nero. He has no reason to be here, when he has other engagements elsewhere.I wasn’t enough reason for him to stay. Not anymore. Because I’ve gone and ruined everything. Again.“I can’t have children!” The words rip from my throat like something jagged and raw, something torn straight from the center of my being. I hadn’t known for a long time. Not until a couple of years into my marriage with Jaxon. He’d returned home one night, drunk and angry. I was ill and didn’t feel like being subjected to his rage. I refused and the beating had been so bad, I’d broken a rib.He’d taken me to the hospital in b
Pain.That’s the first thing I register. A dull, insistent pounding behind my eyes, like a hammer striking against my skull. My mouth is dry, my tongue thick and heavy, the taste of last night’s recklessness still clinging to my lips.I groan, pulling the covers over my face to hide from the sunlight and I sink further into sleep. Only to be awoken by a rather violent dream…or memory.“Why the fuck not?!” Zefiro snarls, gripping my naked shoulder. “Why do you say no, still? Look me in the fucking eye while you lie to me and tell me you do not want more than this. Tell me you do not want to be my wife.”“I can’t!”“Again, why the hell not?!”“I can’t have children!”My eyes snap open and jolting up so fast causes a fresh wave of nausea curling through my stomach. What the hell?I blink past the haziness and the pain and look around at the mess in my bedroom. My bedroom. Why…how?The sheets are tangled around my legs as I fall out of bed, confused as hell, only to trip on shaky legs. I
The club looms ahead, sleek and dark, its golden insignia glowing under the London drizzle. Oblio Nero. A long line stretches down the sidewalk, but we don’t need to wait. Our VIP tickets see to that.“You’re insane,” Erica says, gripping Fabian’s arm tightly. “This place is insane!”The latter has barely spoken a word since I informed him of where we were going. His expression is drawn and distant, eyes darting about as if in search of something.I would normally pummel him for answers, but I can’t think past my wracking nerves and anxiety.What if this doesn’t go as planned? I don’t have a plan, even. What if things have changed? What if he doesn’t want to see me? What if the moment our eyes meet, there’s no heat or tingle? What if he’s moved on? What if…I’ve lost him?We walk through the doors, let in quickly by the bouncers outside.The bass vibrates through my ribs. The club is all shadows and golden light, the people a perfect blend of affluence and excess. Waitresses glide by i