Lily
The bathroom door closes softly behind Damiano and I let my tears run free, my fingers curled into the sheets.I’ve never felt like this…so exposed, so raw.My body is spent, aching in ways that leave me trembling, while my emotions hang by a thread, wrung out and unraveling.Damiano has stripped me bare, not only my body, but parts of myself I didn’t know, my defenses, my secrets…my sense of control.
And that terrifies me.
He touches me like he owns every inch of my skin, and somehow, it feels like he does.I crave him even when I know I shouldn’t.Especiallywhen I know I shouldn’t.
But my mind, or what is left of it, fights to stay above the pull of him.I can’t afford to surrender.I can’t let myself drown in the darkness he wraps around me like velvet.He shattered me into tiny pieces and built me up again, but the pieces don’t fit the same way they used to.I don’t know who I am anymore.And worse… I’m not sure I want to go back to who I was before him.
‘Do you want a villa of our own?We will need more space when we have kids.’
Kids.
What is he really offering me?A gilded cage disguised as a dream?
I would be his mistress, tucked away in a luxurious villa, hidden behind silken curtains and locked doors.A secret he visits in the dead of night, never in the light of day.At best, he’ll eventually grow tired of me, release me quietly before he marries some mafia princess with a bloodline as clean as her image.At worst…I’ll have his child, just like he said.He’ll settle us in some secluded house on the outskirts, a shadow family he’ll visit less and less until we’re nothing but a fading inconvenience.
Exactly like Father did with Mom and me.
Mom loved me fiercely, no question about that.But love doesn’t erase loneliness.I felt it in every birthday we spent just the two of us, in every sideways glance from other children who didn’t understand why my father never showed up.And I can’t even begin to imagine what it was like for Mom to live in the silence of broken promises, watching from the sidelines as the man she loved built a life with someone else.Publicly.Proudly.
That’s not the life I want for myself.And it’s sure as hell not the life I’d ever want for a child.
I have to walk away, before history slips its chains around my neck and starts the cycle all over again.
The shower in the bathroom has stopped and the silence is only interrupted by the soft rustling of Damiano getting dressed in the walk-in closet.I roll to the side under the covers, hugging my knees to my chest, and close my eyes, pretending to be asleep.
Damiano comes into the room and pauses by the bed.The silence is deafening.After an eternity, he lets out a sigh and leaves the room.Sleep soon pulls me under.
In the middle of the night, I dream of Damiano’s hard body against mine, of his hot kisses between my thighs, his hands caressing every inch of my body, and of our moans of ecstasy disrupting the silence of the night.
* * * *
The next morning, I blink against the sun rays spilling through the window, the bright light piercing my eyelids.I groan.
Why have my mornings been so grueling since…I bolt upright.
Since I was held prisoner here.
And fucked into oblivion every night.
My skin is humming, my thighs tender from the ghost of his grip.Was it a dream, though?
I get up, shower and get dressed.When I step out into the living room, Lucas is lounging on the couch.He jumps up when he sees me and walks over to give me a bear hug.
“Hey Lil-girl!How’ve you been?”
I laugh at his bright mood.“Hello, Lucas, I’m good and you?Looks like you drew the short straw for babysitting duties today, huh?”I snicker.
“Never!I volunteered because D has a meeting he can’t get out of, and Teo is busy.”
He loops his arm around mine and leads me to the kitchen, where Rosa is busying herself with breakfast.“Hello, Rosa, it smells amazing.”
She turns around and beams at me.“Hello, Lily.Sit down, pancakes will be ready in a minute.”Lucas whoops and I have to laugh again.He is like an endearing big brother.
We eat and banter until we are full.Then we relocate to the living room.
“Can I make a phone call?”I ask.My call to Erin is overdue.
