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I told her how I’d grown up here, that my mother had died after my birth from complications and that my father who had reigned before me had lived a good life as king, only to get caught up at the wrong end of a gun during one of his business deals. I have taken the throne once I’d turned twenty-five. It hadn’t been easy, and I’d been forced to foil a number of treasonous plots that the court arranged to end my own life and take my kingdom for themselves.
She listened with interest and I was as transparent as I could be because if she was going to be my queen one day, she had to understand what she wa
s getting herself into. She told me about herself too, how’d she’d grown up in the States and come to Italy to finish up her master’s in business. Hesitantly, she admitted to me that she was adopted when she was only a toddler and had no memories of her birth parents either.
I knew much of what she told me already, but I didn’t spoil it for her. I’d created an extensive portfolio on her life. I’d even sent a sample of her DNA that I had collected from underneath her nails once she’d arrived to make certain that everything suggesting her lineage was correct.
It was.
She was Isabella De Luca Ardulini and I was certain that one day she would be my queen. She would choose me in the end. I was sure of it.
I would enjoy her screams of pleasure when I finally showed her what it really meant to be mine.
Chapter Nine
Isabella De Luca
The rest of the dinner passed uneventfully. True to his word, Matteo spoiled me with several glasses of wine and the richest piece of German chocolate cake that I had ever tasted. Shortly after that, we watched a copy of a movie that wasn’t due in theaters for several months. He’d been able to procure it and I didn’t question how he knew that I had wanted to see it.
I’d never mentioned my interest in the production of it, but he’d known anyway.
I wasn’t sure if I should be alarmed or impressed. Maybe he’d just gotten lucky in his guess. Knowing him though, this was all planned. He probably knew more about me than I even realized. Hell, he’d known about my birth parents when I had never learned their names. And I had tried.
The knowledge that I was descended from an ancient Italian family that used to rule over part of Italy and was involved in the same dangerous world that Matteo presided over was humbling and a bit shocking. I had done my very best to hide my surprise so that he didn’t know how I really felt, but I was still processing it.
It felt heavy, as if the weight of the world was suddenly on my shoulders.
To be honest, I didn’t really know how to feel yet. It was overwhelming and even though he promised protection, I wasn’t certain he could keep me safe when his own position was precarious enough that he had to ensure his people feared him in order to continue his rule. If I wanted to stay though, I’d have to say goodbye to so many things in my life, from my home back in the States to my aspirations to run my own business someday.
I hadn’t foreseen becoming queen to a secret world that didn’t even exist in the eyes of the common people, that was only empowered by the very, very rich.
Matteo was a part of that.
I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about him. He plagued my thoughts like an addiction. At every turn, I found myself reacting to his dominating nature, to the way he held my hand in his possessively, to his promises of taking me roughly like I was meant to be taken. I feared him, but at the same time, I couldn’t ignore the fact that my heart pounded when he came near and that my body desired him far more than I cared to admit. That wasn’t what bothered me the most out of everything I had learned tonight though.
I was truly afraid that I might be falling for him, that I might love him.
I needed to get out of here. I needed a place to think where I wasn’t surrounded with unfamiliar people, with things that only existed here and in fairy tales, but most of all, I needed some distance from him to figure out how I really felt.
I was going to leave. He’d hinted at the way out several times today and I was going to find it.
That night, he tucked me into bed with such tenderness that I questioned my own intentions, along with what I really wanted.
Although he was gentle tonight, he wasn’t always that way. Sometimes, he took me over his knee and taught me a firm lesson regardless of where we were or who was around, one that left me sore and unable to sit down for quite a while. I remembered how he’d thrown me over his windowsill and fucked me in front of his people and how he’d taught me about just how terrible ginger was as a punishment, all before the impeccably dressed court.
He was cruel. He was kind. He was both things and in order to have him, I had to accept all of it.
Today had been a wonderful day. He’d spoiled me and had been sweet with me when we’d been together all alone. I’d seen the man beyond the crown, and I liked him.
But...
Was it enough for me to stay?
He was quiet as he watched me, and I smiled a little at him. Warily, he cocked his head to the side. He had stripped me, and I was naked in the bed. I pressed my thighs together and reached for him.
“I was a good girl today for you, right?” I asked anxiously.
“You were very good, baby girl,” he answered. I didn’t say anything more and he continued. “I should reward you, shouldn’t I?”
