“Have you met the man? Pretty sure he was born a bad boy. It’s his DNA.”
“Well, your father said he’s already got a lawyer drawing up the divorce papers, so there’s that.”
“Santino won’t sign them,” I sighed.
“Not unless you give him a reason to,” she said, her tone laced with mischief. “You can’t escape him, but maybe you can make him regret marrying you. Make him believe you’re not the woman he thinks you are and you're not worth the hassle.”
A slow smile crept onto my face. “You mean be such an insufferable pain in his ass that he’ll be begging me for a divorce before the end of the week?”
“Exactly. Do everything men hate. Be needy, clingy, high-maintenance, hysterical, emotional, and annoying. Drive him nuts at every opportunity, but not so much that you know… he tries to kill you or anything. Actually, maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
“He won’t kill me,” I said quickly. Maybe it was foolish to believe it, but after last night, he’d at least convinced me of that. “I’m the only leverage he has against my father.”
“True. Well, is there anything I can do to help?”
“I’ll message you if I think of anything. I'd better go and start being the wife from hell.”
“Okay, have fun in your villain era! Make him suffer. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I sighed at the dozens of missed calls and texts from mypapiand a few from Callum. Callum. Shit. The guilt of barely giving him a thought and leaving him high and dry at the altar without an explanation festered in my chest.
I quickly sent a message to them both so they wouldn’t worry that I was dead in a ditch somewhere, and that I’d call later when I could. I needed to build myself up to speak to my father. He was going to have questions and demand answers, which I wasn't ready to give.
I contemplated having a shower and making myself look less like a feral badger, but thought better of it. This was the perfect look for what I was going for. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone, was I?
I walked out of the bedroom, padding barefoot along the corridor towards the open-plan living space. I still couldn’t get over how stunning his apartment was. I hadn’t expected it to feel so… lived in. It was bold and daring, with a touch of sophistication that felt masculine yet warm. It was very… Santino. And I didn’t hate it.
I froze when my eyes landed on the eight-foot-long dining table that was covered with a breakfast spread fit for a king. The smells of cinnamon, honey, coffee, and cooked meats filled the air, and my stomach grumbled rather embarrassingly.
“Buongiorno, moglie mia,”his voice husked against the shell of my ear as he ran his fingers up the outside of my thigh. I jumped out of my skin and turned around to glare at him. All of him.
He was wearing gym shorts and nothing else. His broad chest glistened with sweat, and his black hair was damp, curling more than usual at the tips as it fell into his eyes. He smirked and casually walked past me towards the table. “Sleep well?”
My mouth opened and closed repeatedly, trapping air. Give a woman a breakand a chance to reboot her brain. He wasn’t playing fair with those sweaty, bulging muscles, fresh from a workout. But neither would I.Make him regret you.I stood taller, pushed my shoulders back, and walked over to the table as he popped a blueberry into his mouth.
“Very well, actually. I had some amazing dreams. Woke up feeling very… satisfied.”
“Don’t think they were dreams,mia amore.”
I glanced over the table spread with disappointment, ignoring his teasing. “Is there porridge?”
“Porridge?” He frowned, twisting around to glance at the ridiculous number of choices. “Why would you want that when you could eat all of this?”
“I like porridge,” I huffed, pulling out a chair and sitting down. I dropped my chin into my hand like a sulking teenager, then grabbed a croissant. “I guess this will have to do.”
Santino stared at me as I ripped into the pastry like a crazed animal, making a mess without a care in the world. It took everything I had to keep up the act of an ungrateful bitch and to go against my instinct to thank him for going to all this trouble. It was actually quite sweet, but no. I wasn’t falling for it.
“So…” he said, smirking again and folding his arms across his chest. “Tell me more about those dreams.”
“Hmm.” I nodded, sinking back into the chair. “I should thank you. I’ve always had a bit of a spanking fantasy. When I was eighteen, I had this really hot tennis coach back in the UK who always made me call him sir. I would fantasise about him spanking me over his knee with a tennis racket whenever I lost a game. And after last night, I dreamed of him again for the first time in years. It was…” I fanned my face, blowing out a breath as Santino’s entire body stiffened. The darkness that fell over his eyes was… for a moment, utterly terrifying, but also… hot. I made a mental note of that to add to my therapy list. “...unbelievable.”
His jaw clenched, a muscle twitching to the beat of his pulse as he glared at me. “Are you trying to get yourself punished again?”
I cocked my head to the side, enjoying how easy it was to rile him up, and gave him my most flirtatious look. Was I feeling a little too brave? Probably. But fuck it.
“Only if you let me call you 'sir'. Keep the shorts on, too. He wore ones just like that.”
