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Alessio seems to take it at face value, though, leading me out onto the dance floor to the swelling sound of the string quartet. His hands are light on my waist, and he leaves space between us as we dance, his every movement stiff and formal—entirely unlike what it should feel like to dance with my husband on our wedding day. My heart aches with every step, but there’s a buzzing tension between us, too. I wonder if only I can feel it—if it’s somehow elevated for me because he’s told me so clearly that nothing will happen between us tonight. Even the light touch of his fingers feels as if it’s burning through my dress, an echo of what they would feel like against my skin, his other hand on my arm searing me like a brand. I want him to pull me against him, to feel the pressure of his body against mine as we dance, for him to do and be everything I dreamed of. Everything I want.
The careful distance between us feels like a gulf that I desperately want to make disappear, but there’s no way across it. If Alessio feels anything about tonight, he’s keeping it carefully hidden, his face implacable as he turns me around the dance floor, each step feeling like another echo of his obligation to me.
Maybe that’s all I’ve ever been. An obligation.
It’s not until it’s nearing midnight that he returns to the table again, where he left me after the dance, leaning in with the barest touch on my arm, one that still fills me with frustrated heat. “Do you want to go upstairs?”
For a moment, my heart races with anticipation and a flicker of hope. There’s no scent of wine or other alcohol on his breath—he’s very carefully avoided drinking anything tonight, which I assumed was a means of making sure he kept his resolve not to sleep with me tonight. But his hand is on my arm still, helping me up as I nod, and I’m glad for it, because my legs suddenly feel weak and shaky at the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he’s changed his mind. That hope persists when he leads me into the largest of the guest suites upstairs, which someone from the household staff must have cleaned and prepared this morning, taking the dustcovers off of the usually unused furniture and remaking the bed with heavy cream-colored linens and a floral duvet.
I turn to look at Alessio as he shuts the door, hope flaring wildly in my chest. He looks at me with an unreadable expression, and all I can think is that any moment now, his hand will reach for my waist with intent this time, drawing me to him so he can press his lips against mine, and then—
Then, I’ll finally get to find out where all those lessons lead to.
He walks past me, to the bed, and some of the hope gutters and flickers out. I watch, confused, as Alessio pulls down the covers, exposing the cream-colored sheets underneath.
I want to be in that bed with him. I want his skin against mine, warm and smooth, learning every inch of his body as he explores mine. I want my wedding night the way it’s supposed to be.
But instead, Alessio just glances at me without a hint of heat in his gaze. “I hope you don’t mind sleeping in here,” he says slowly. “If anyone knew you slept in your usual bedroom, the one that was just yours, they might find it strange. And I didn’t think you would want to sleep in the master suite. So here we are. As for the rest of it—”
It takes me a moment to realize what he’s doing—and by the time I do, it’s nearly done. He slips something out of his pocket—a pin, I think—and pricks his finger, blood welling from the tip as he turns to the bed. He swipes his finger over the cream-colored sheet once, twice, a third time, and then wipes his hand on a handkerchief pulled from his pocket, sending a flare of heat through me as I remember the ‘lesson’ in the library, and how he’d cleaned himself off as I sat there frozen in stunned fascination over what I’d just seen.
“It’ll be dry by morning, and I’ll send the sheets to Fontana as proof.” Alessio puts his hands in his pockets, looking almost pleased with himself for outfoxing the old Don.
I stare at him, trying to hold back the burning tears at the back of my eyes as the hope I had, vanishes. I look at the bed—not even my own, but a strange one I’ll sleep in alone tonight—and then away from it, refusing to look at Alessio at all.
I can feel him hesitate as he walks past me. From under my lashes, I see him stop at the door, his hand hovering over the knob, emotion twisting his face for the first time all night. I can see uncertainty, regret—and a flicker of what looks like desire there, too, but I don’t know that well enough to know for sure it’s what I’m seeing.
“I’m sorry, Gianna,” he says finally, his voice low and soft. “I don’t know how to make this easier.”
And then, before I can answer, he opens the door and is gone.
Below the room, I can still hear the faint sounds of the reception still going, the hints of music, and a hum of conversation. I fumble for the zipper of my dress, avoiding the mirror as I yank it down and step out of the pool of falling satin, hugging my arms around myself as I walk to the dresser.
There are a few things that must have been brought up for me, in case I wanted them. I grab the first tank top I see, pulling it over my head as I retreat to the bed in nothing but that and the lacy panties that I’d worn beneath my dress—again, in a flicker of hope that maybe things would go differently tonight than I’d thought.
Everything went exactly as Alessio promised me it would—and it leaves me feeling empty and hopeless, the years of my new marriage stretching out in front of me like a lonely wasteland. I take off my jewelry with trembling fingers, yanking the pins out of my updo hard enough that a few pieces of hair come out with them. Then I fall into bed, the tears finally overflowing as I curl around a pillow that smells like laundry soap and dried flowers. There’s nothing familiar about it, nothing comfortable. And as I cry myself to sleep on my wedding night, I’ve never felt so alone.
Alessio
Leaving Gianna on our wedding night feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I lay awake that night in my own room, sleepless and exhausted, far more sober than I would like to be and thrumming with unfulfilled desire. My every thought is plagued with imaginings of how beautiful she looked in her wedding dress, how much I wanted to take it off of her, to feel that heavy satin sliding between my fingers as I lifted the skirt up to her thighs and pressed my mouth between them for the first time. A dozen images like it fill my sleepless imagination—Gianna on her knees in her virginal wedding gown, bits of her updo coming loose around her face as I guide her through sucking my cock for the first time. Sitting on the edge of the bed with the skirt around her hips, obediently spreading her legs first for my mouth, then for my cock as I slide into her, staining the white of the skirt with her innocence. The fantasy veers between filling her with my cum and pulling out to splash it across her perfect breasts under that fragile floral lace, defiling the pristine gown, and all the while, I lay there in bed achingly hard, forcing myself to keep my hands away from my throbbing cock.
I haven’t touched myself since I signed that goddamn contract, feeling somehow even worse about jerking off to fantasies of Gianna now that she’s going to be my wife. It makes no fucking sense, and anyone I told would probably want to have me committed. Still, it feels worse knowing that despite all my efforts, we’ve been backed into this corner anyway. It feels as if I’m supposed to try harder to protect her innocence now, not the opposite.
But my imagination isn’t as easy to control, and it means I spend the night as sleepless as if I’d spent it in her bed. I get up the next morning feeling exhausted, guilty over my dreams, and guilty over my intention to avoid her this morning, going straight to my office after instructing one of the staff that I pass to bring me breakfast and coffee there.
Work will be the best distraction. It always has been. I do my best to keep my thoughts off of my neglected bride, who will be waking up alone this morning, without even a honeymoon to look forward to. I feel guilty about that, too—but a romantic vacation away would have made it harder to keep my hands off of her, not easier. And knowing Gianna, she would have tried to tempt me. Here, it’s hard enough to resist. In some tropical location with her perfect body swathed in a tiny swimsuit every day, sleeping next to me or nearby, I might have driven myself insane wanting her.
Work.Leads on who might have murdered Giacomo—emails from Theo McNeil and Nikolai Vasilev with names of other criminal leaders in the city, those who owed him money, whose men had gotten on the wrong side of his, or who had other reasons to want to see him gone. Even as I sort through the names, look up information about them, and reference the emails, none of it feels quite right. None of them feel like players who would have been able to bypass Giacomo’s security and send someone to murder him in his own home. It would take a hitman of considerable skill to do that. Someone trained specifically for it.
I frown, scribbling down a name before I can forget it. One of Luca’s allies, a Bratva leader by the name of Viktor Andreyev, had an enforcer who worked for a mercenary organization in Moscow. It feels like a leap, but as I consider the possibility, it feels more and more like there might be something there. I’ll need to follow up on it, and I grasp at that particular task, grateful for anything to distract me from the complexities of my current marital situation.
It works, to some extent. There are other tasks that need doing, more business to be sorted through, and it carries me through the day until just a little while before dinner, when it occurs to me that leaving my new wife entirely alone for a full twenty-four hours the day after our wedding likely isn’t the best idea. I get up, stretching, and walk out to the hall. Jeanie, one of the cleaning staff, is dusting in the hall, and I stop, clearing my throat.
“Yes, Mr. Mancini?” She glances up at me, the name change so quick on her lips that I expect the household manager briefed them all on it ahead of time.
“Have you seen Gianna today? What she’s been doing?”
“As far as I know, she’s been upstairs all day. I cleaned up there earlier, and she was still in her room. But I don’t see everything, Mr. Mancini.”
