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12
ELOISE
I bite down hard on my lip, ecstasy twisting my face as I choke out a moan. My hands tighten on the chrome handle of the detachable showerhead, my legs buckling as I sag against the tiled walls of the shower.
The rush of warm water pulses against my clit, and suddenly, I’m crashing through my climax. I bite on my lip again, whimpering and moaning and twisting as the orgasm wrenches through me.
Heat tingles over my skin as I slip the showerhead back into its cradle with shaking arms and sink back against the wall of the shower, catching my breath and lazily sliding my hands over my wet, slick skin.
But then, shame and confusion settle in. I reach out and abruptly turn off the water. I wrap one towel around my body and another around my head, trapping my long wet hair before stepping out of the bathroom.
Obviously, Massimo and I have always had separate rooms. I can’t imagine a reality where I share a bedroom, much less a bed with that bastard, considering our “marriage” is based on a solid foundation of distrust, disrespect, and disdain for each other.
I sigh as I step into my walk-in closet. Standing in front of the floor-length mirror, I start to towel off, my thoughts scattered and confused, a mix of pleasure and shame.
Because it was Alistair I was just thinking about in the shower.
What the fuck is wrong with me? Why do we want the very thing we can’t have? Why do we crave the forbidden? And why the hell do we desire the people who hurt us the most?
As usual, my silent questions get silent non-answers. Just more confusion and more questions.
I slip on a cream Chanel skirt, black heels, and a fitted black blouse for work. Just as I step out of the closet, my phone rings from the bedside table. My heart instantly chills when I walk over and see who’s calling.
“Tout bien avec mon père??” I blurt anxiously into the phone.
“Bonjour, Eloise,” Marie sighs in a bored tone. God, I hate the lack of urgency in her voice.
“My father,” I hiss to my stepmother. “Is everything?—!?”
“Oui, he’s fine. Be calm.”
I frown. “Okay, it’s just…”
It‘s just that Marie fucking hates me and has never, and will never, call me just to chat. And since she’s technically my father’s medical proxy…
Yeah. A random call from her has me closing in on a heart attack.
“He’s okay?”
“Oui,” Marie sighs with some exasperation. “Tout le même.”
Same as always.
I exhale slowly. I might be angry with my dad these days for what he did, marrying me off to Massimo…okay, there’s no “might” about it, I am…but it wasn’t always like that.
Growing up in the sort of family I grew up in—i.e., a mafia family—the concept of arranged marriages wasn’t exactly foreign to me. But Papa always told me I’d never be forced into something like that.
My father Andre runs—or, rather, ran; his second-in-command, Luc, is in charge now, given my father’s medical state—one of the more powerful mafia families in France. Which I suppose makes it extra ironic that I decided to go into law, of all things.
But Papa was okay with that decision. I went to Knightsblood University here in the US like so many other heirs of mafia families, and when I chose law school over the family business, my father told me it was my life to live.
Then he got sick. Then he got sicker. Next came the medically-induced coma. And with that came the living will, outlining provisions in the event of him becoming incapacitated.
Provisions like what his actual wishes for me were: marrying the loathsome, violent Massimo Carveli in exchange for my family getting control of a paltry smuggling route into North America.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
“Your father is fine, Eloise,” Marie says in a bored tone. “I merely wanted to call and let you know that I’ll be on holiday for the next few weeks or maybe months in St. Tropez.”
