I snort. “I won’t regret his death, Janet.”
With that, I walk past her and up the stairs. She follows, but I’m much faster and, a few minutes later, I’m standing inside the master bedroom, a grand room fit for a king but occupied by this peasant.
My father must have been expecting me because he’s sitting up in his large, four-poster bed, the blanket over his legs, a cigar between his fingers, a wicked grin on his rotting face.
“Ah, the prodigal son returns.”
“I’d be more respectful, old man.” The curtains are drawn and the room is dark, the air rank.
“What brings you to visit your dying father?”
Hands fisted, I step deeper into the room, stop a few feet from the bed. “If only I could be so lucky.” I take the crumpled note from my pocket, read it out loud. “What the hell is this?”
“Just want to be sure the girl is on her guard. Her safety is my only concern.”
“The girl is none of your business.”
“Pretty thing, I hear. With a striking resemblance to—”
“You stay away from her. Any of your spies come near her, and I’ll kill them, understand?”
He grins. “Did I hit a nerve?” He leans over to stub the cigar out in the ashtray on the nightstand.
He did. Fuck. I ball up the note and toss it on the bed. “Stay out of my life. Stay out of my business, or I will cut you off.”
“You’re a sorry son of a bitch, you know that?”
“You can say what you want about me, but don’t you dare talk about my mother that way.”
“It’s a fucking expression.”
I walk around the bed and when I lean in, he leans away. He’s scared of me, but his hatred is much more powerful than his fear.
“Hear me, father. Hear me well. The only reason you’re alive is because of my siblings. I don’t want to hurt them anymore than they’ve already been hurt. But you fuck with me, and I will fuck with you back, understand?”
“Threatening an old, helpless man. You make me sick, boy.”
I fist my hands.
“Giovanni!” It’s Janet, standing at the door.
I take my father by the collar and draw him forward. “Do you understand?”
“That’s enough!” Janet suddenly has my arm and is trying to drag me off him.
My father’s watery eyes still have that same hardness in them, that hatred. I wonder if he always hated me or if it was only after Angelica.
I release him and step back.
Janet moves around me and adjusts the collar of his pajamas.
“I’m fine,” I hear him tell her when I reach the door. “You should bring her here,” he calls out as I step into the hallway. I stop. “I’d love to have a look at her with my own eyes.”
My hands fist again. Janet comes rushing out, closing the bedroom door behind her.
I turn to her. “I don’t want any more letters. No contact. You know the agreement.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him. He’s just an old man.”
“Don’t underestimate him, Janet.”
She just gives me a shake of her head. I walk out of the house, glad to be outside, glad to breathe in fresh air after that suffocating room.
I will never bring Emilia here. I will never let him see her. Touch her. Never. I’ll fucking kill him before I allow that.
In a few minutes, I’m in the car and heading home. Maybe what I’m doing is a mistake. When I went to Emilia’s apartment, it was about her brother. Now though, it’s different. It’s more than that. Hell, I’m fucking her. And I can’t get enough of it. Of her.
I’m not fool enough to believe I’ve scared my father off, though. He has nothing but hate. Hate and time.
And I have to be careful with her. I can’t ever allow him anywhere near Emilia.
7
Emilia
“I don’t think I can break you, Emilia. I think you’re already broken.”
I’m glad it’s Saturday, and I don’t have to see Katy just yet after last night. I’m sure she’s spread the news of my being carried out of that club caveman-style over Giovanni’s shoulder. Although at this point, does it matter? With Giovanni hell-bent on finding Alessandro, on using me to lure him, I’m going to have to disappear anyway.
Giovanni is closer to the truth than he realizes.
His was right when he guessed I paid with my skin. But it wasn’t just the brutal physical reminder Alessandro left me with. There was more. Hell, by the time we got to that part, to him opening me up like that, I was already broken beyond repair. The whipping was pure rage. Pure, violent hate.
Tears sting my eyes, and I wipe them with the heel of my hand. I’m sitting in the garden behind Giovanni’s house, watching the moon and forcing down whiskey. When I woke today, I got dressed in the dress I’d worn last night and made my way downstairs, grateful not to run into anyone as I searched for my panties and shoes, which were on the dining-room floor. I’d just slipped into my shoes when a woman came into the room and asked what I wanted for breakfast. I told her I’d be leaving but thanked her and had been informed that Mr. Santa Maria wanted me looked after until he got home that evening. I almost argued with her, but then one of his men turned up behind her—I think he’d been at my apartment too. He dismissed her and told me I would be not be permitted to leave the property. From the tone of his voice, there was no discussion to be had. He told me if I needed anything to ask him, and he would take care of it.
And now it’s past nine at night and Giovanni’s still not here and I’m in his garden, drinking his best whiskey. It burns, and I feel like I want to vomit with every swallow but if I drink enough of it, I can forget that part and remember when I was little and how my father and I would sit in his study and how I was safe. Protected. I remember how powerful he was. Like a king. No, like a god. One word from him and every fear was banished, every enemy slayed. Even Alessandro.
And I know it’s one of the reasons Alessandro hates me.
When we were younger, I taunted Alessandro with my father’s love. That’s another thing Giovanni’s right about. I was daddy’s princess. Even when we were little, from my earliest memories, my brother was as hated as I was loved. In my father’s eyes, he was to blame for our mother’s death.
I didn’t understand then what I was doing. I didn’t understand that Alessandro’s hatred of my father encompassed his whole world, including me. Everything and everyone our father loved, he hated, he would hurt. Even Mel, our ancient dog, my father’s constant companion, he poisoned.
I wonder if I had been kinder to him if things might have been different. I wonder if I’d pled his case to my father, told him it wasn’t his fault mom died, that it didn’t make any sense, that it was as much my fault as Alessandro’s—because she died in childbirth—that things would be different today.
It’s too late for that, though.
My mother was a petite woman and carrying us in her belly had taken its toll on her. Twins would have been hard enough, but we weren’t twins. There were three of us at first. One of my brothers died when my mother was not quite seven months pregnant, which is why they’d needed to operate, to get us out. To get him out.
But during the surgery, she lost too much blood, and she was already so weak, and she died just as they took Alessandro from her belly.
That’s why dad blamed him. And the fact that he looked so much like her, that every time he saw him, he saw what he’d lost. If I look at photographs of her, I can see how people would say he is her spitting image. But to me, the features on her were soft. Warm and full of love. On him, they’re hard. Cold and cruel. Like his heart.
But how much of that is my fault? I am guilty for never having protected him. For wanting to be daddy’s princess. For wanting to be the one he loved most.
Don’t I deserve what I got?
The moon keeps disappearing behind the clouds. I feel light drops of rain, but they’re gone as soon as they start. The relief from the
heat is temporary.
I pour more of the whiskey and get up to walk around the walled-in space. I don’t even hear the sounds of the city here. The garden is nestled in a way that you almost wouldn’t know you were in a city. It’s strange. I’m so used to that noise. I’m going to miss it when I leave. And I do have to leave.
Unless I have Giovanni’s protection.
No, that’s not an option. Protection from him would come at a price. I can’t pay that. I only have one option.
I dip my toe in the pool and watch the surface ripple. I’m tempted to strip off my clothes and let myself slip in, float there. Slip beneath the surface.
But I’m too much of a coward for that.
I think about what he said about his tutor. That I look like her. What does that even mean? Is that why he wants me? I remind him of his first love?
With each passing minute, I’m growing angrier and angrier at myself, at my imprisonment. I looked around his bedroom today. Snooped a little. I figured it was my right. But I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary apart from a stash of cash. I guess a man in his line of work will always have cash like that lying around. I didn’t have much privacy to go through the other rooms, but I should have tried harder. I’m too obedient.
I go back to my seat and lay back and watch the sky, watch the clouds move across it, watch the big trees. It’s so pretty here, different than my rooftop, but I like it.
When I finally hear his voice, it’s close to nine-thirty. I turn my head to look at him. He opens one of the French doors and walks outside. He’s taken off his suit jacket and is rolling up his shirt sleeves. His eyes are all dark and intense, and they trap me the instant he sets them on me. I can’t look away if I try. His dark hair is ruffled, and he has that constant shadow along his jaw, that scruff that I still remember when he surprised me in my bed that first night.
I feel my face heat up at that memory and the one of last night. Of when I came so hard that I passed out.
He stops when he’s a few feet from me, eyes the bottle. I make a point of giving him a smirk as I finish my glass of his expensive whiskey.
“I thought you didn’t like that stuff?” he says, coming around to take the glass from me. He looks distracted. On edge. He pours for himself in the same glass and drinks while standing there, looming over me. “Why aren’t you wearing the clothes I had delivered?”
“Because I have my own clothes.”
“I thought you’d be more comfortable.”
“If you’re worried about my comfort, then you should let me go home.”
He looks over the length of me, and his gaze falls at my bare feet. I think how vulnerable I am. How much at his mercy. I swing my legs off and make to stand, but I must be light-headed because I stumble. He has to catch me so I don’t fall.
“Steady.”
My hands are against his chest. A moment later, I shove against him. “Let me go.”
He does, and I take a step back and wonder where I left my shoes because without my heels, I’m so much smaller than him. I look at his hand as he brings the glass to his mouth. To the dusting of hair on his arm, the expensive watch. I watch him drink, swallow. I remember what he did to me last night. I remember his hands on me. Remember him inside me and again, I feel my face and my core heat up.
When I meet his eyes, he’s watching me. “How much did you drink?”
I shrug a shoulder. “Don’t worry about me. I can hold my liquor.”
“Did you swim at least?”
“I’m not on vacation,” I say. “I was told this morning I wouldn’t be permitted to leave the house, in fact, which makes me a prisoner. What is this, house arrest? Is this what you have to resort to to keep a woman?”
He grins and walks over to the pool. “Nah. You’re just special.”
“I want to go home. I demand it.”
He chuckles, sets down his glass, and starts to strip off his clothes.
“What are you doing?”
He’s got his shoes and socks off, is undoing the buttons of his shirt, and a moment later, it’s off. Then his slacks. He turns to me.
“Swimming. Let’s go. In.”
“No. I told you, I’m not swimming.”
“It’ll cool you down, and trust me, you need to cool down because your attitude’s going to get you into trouble. You don’t want a repeat of last night—or do you? I imagine your ass is probably sore.”
I glare, but he just gives me a smirk before pushing his briefs down and off and diving into the pool. He doesn’t resurface until he’s gone the length of it, and when he does, he gracefully changes direction and swims a lap to the opposite end. All I can do is watch because he’s beautiful. He’s so fucking beautiful. His body is a perfect harmony of muscle, power, and speed. He glides through the water, effortlessly going back and forth and back and forth, seeming tireless. As if he doesn’t have a care in the world. When he does finally stop, he catches my eye. I can’t look away as he draws himself out of the water, his muscles bulging, his hair and body dripping, glistening.
He stands there and lets me look at him, and I do. I’m speechless.
He is your enemy.
He is your enemy.
But my brain can’t seem to make any sense to the rest of me because I’m staring like a fool.
“Come here.”
I clear my throat and shake my head.
All it takes are two steps from him and he’s got his arms around me. He’s wet and cold. The next thing I know, he’s lifting me off the ground, and I scream when he tosses me into the pool.
Panic sets in instantly. I open my eyes. Bubbles are all around me, and that cloudy, echo-like sound drenches my ears, fills me with terror. I think I’m screaming, but then, an instant before I need to breathe, his strong arms are around me and he’s lifting me up. I break the surface.
“You can’t fucking swim?”
I’m clinging to him and sputtering water and I want to cry and scream all at once. He’s got me pressed between the edge of the pool and himself, and all I feel beneath my feet is water. He mutters another curse, this one to himself.
“You really don’t know how to swim?” he asks a little more gently.
I shake my head, and the coughing finally ceases. I’m embarrassed. “I want to get out.”
“You’re fine.”
“No. I want out.”
“I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
I look up at him, and I don’t know if it’s his words or the way he’s looking at me or the whiskey or fuck, I don’t know what it is, but I start to sob. I’m clinging to him and pushing him away all at once and he’s just letting me, he’s letting me and holding me and keeping me up and fuck. I’m losing it. He’s going to make me lose it.
“Let me go!”
“No.”
“Please!”
“No. I won’t let you go.”
I look at him. He’s watching me and next thing I know, he’s got his hands under my arms and he’s lifting me out. He sets me at the edge of the pool and, with his arms on either side of me, he lifts himself out. He kisses me and pushes me backward as he lays his weight on me.
I should fight.
I should want to fight, to hit him, to pound against him as little good as it will do, but I don’t want to. I just want to lay here beneath him, and I want to feel him kiss me. Feel him watch me, feel him want me.
He pulls back, looks down at me. His eyes are dark, the pupils dilated. He nudges my legs apart and then he’s between them and my dress is hiked up to my waist. I feel him at my entrance, feel his thick cock. I reach up to pull him to me, but with his hands on either side of my face, he halts me. I close my eyes when I feel him begin to penetrate, but he stops that too.
“Open your eyes, Emilia.”
I blink them open, and I feel the heat of tears again.
“I want to watch you.”
He kisses me. I taste chlorine and him and I watch him, too, as he enters me. It’s different
this time. It’s slower, and I can feel every inch of him. I’m clinging to him, and it’s like I can’t get close enough, like I can’t get warm enough, like I can’t have enough of him to hide me, to keep me locked beneath him and hidden from view. I’m crying again and fuck, this is going to kill me. This slow fucking, this lovemaking, it’s going to destroy me.
“You are so fucking beautiful when you cry.”
A moment later, I feel the tip of his tongue catch a tear and trace it upward. I hear a strange sound like a sob or something desperate, and I just need him to fuck me. To fuck me hard and make me come. He knows it, and he’s not giving it to me.
“You want to break me.”
He shakes his head. “I told you last night. You’re already broken.”
He did tell me. He did. I dig my nails into his back, and I know it hurts him when I feel his skin give, when I know I’m drawing blood, but he won’t move faster, and he won’t let me go, he won’t even let me look away. But then he moves one hand to cradle the back of my head, but that cradling is only momentary before his hand turns into a fist in my hair and he squeezes.
“Do I need to hurt you to make you come?” he asks, pulling out and thrusting in hard. The movement steals my breath away. I cup the back of his head with my hand and twist my fingers into his hair. One corner of his mouth curves up.
“Say it. Tell me.”
With his other hand, he bends one leg up. His next thrust is deeper and harder and the next one harder still.
“More,” I say, my eyes closing.
“Open. Look at me.”
I do. I reach up to kiss him. “Hurt me,” I say into his mouth. “I need it.”
He takes my arms and spreads them wide. Our fingers are intertwined, and he’s fucking me and looking at me and kissing me—and I’m going to come. Just from his eyes alone, the way he looks at me, the way he sees me, I’m going to come, and he knows it. I feel him too; he’s moving faster and deeper, and his breath is ragged, as ragged as mine. When I feel him thicken and I watch him as he dips his head down and bites my lip, I squeeze my eyes shut, and I come. I’m gripping his hands, gripping him because I can’t let go. I won’t know how to be if I let go, not after this. Not anymore after this.
Giovanni Page 7