Brutal Husband (Brutal Hearts #3)

Chapter 5

5

Rieta

“ Y ou ungrateful, disagreeable little bitch.” Mom is purple in the face as she shrieks with fury amid the ruins of my engagement party.

Everyone has gone home, including Nero, and he’s taken the engagement ring with him. Maybe I should feel guilty about causing a scene at my engagement party and publicly dumping my fiancé.

But I don’t.

I feel great . Putting my foot down was exhilarating. I should have done it sooner.

Mia sits on the stairs and pulls a silly face at me behind Mom’s back, making me smile, but I quickly squash it. Mom’s one provocation away from a nuclear meltdown.

“Three ungrateful, stubborn daughters,” Mom rages. “Isabel won’t marry. Rieta won’t marry. Who will even want sullen little Mia? I’m cursed to be humiliated by my own family again and again.”

“Oh, Mom. We’re stubborn? Who do you think we get it from?” Isabel breezes in from the kitchen, where she’s been cleaning. She comes over to where I’m sitting and hugs me. “How are you doing?”

“I’m—” I start to say.

“Oh, she’s fine.” Mom picks up a handful of forks from the buffet and hurls them across the room. We all wince as they hit the wall and clatter to the ground. “It’s my nerves that are shot to pieces.”

Isabel collects plates with half-eaten food and scrapes them off into a trash can. “Calm down, Mom. It’s not the end of the world.”

Mom glares at her eldest daughter and ticks off my misdeeds on her fingers. “Rieta has refused the most eligible man in the city. She’s broken her promise to him. She’s behaved unconscionably in front of our entire family. She doesn’t get this behavior from me. I was an obedient daughter for my mother and father, and I was married the moment I turned eighteen.”

“Only because it suited you,” Isabel replies with a shrug. “You loved Dad. It’s easy to be dutiful when you’re in love. If you give Rieta the same chance, everything will work out.” Isabel contemplates me with a smile and adds, “I think you did the right thing. A man should be rejected at least once. It deflates their arrogant heads. Bianchi women won’t be walked all over, will we?”

“It would take a falling ton of bricks to deflate Nero’s ego,” I mutter.

“You wait, he’ll be as sweet as a puppy the next time you see him.”

I frown at her. “Next time?”

Mom folds her arms, her fingertips drumming on her sleeve. “Don’t talk foolishly, Isabel. Nero’s been insulted beyond reconciliation.”

“Insulted? Please,” Isabel says with a wave of her hand. “When Rieta slammed his diamond down on that table, he probably thought it was the hottest thing ever. Men love the chase. You’re too close to this, Mom. You’ve been out of the dating scene too long, and you’ve forgotten how to play the game.”

Mom bristles with outrage. “How dare you! I’m very much in the game, young lady. I’m considering a marriage of my own. Perhaps another child as well, one I’ll raise to have some manners, unlike the rest of you.” She crosses the room and examines her reflection in a glass cabinet, turning her head this way and that. “I look excellent for forty. I could easily pass for thirty-two.”

“You look like a harpy after so much crying and screaming,” Isabel says with a nasty snicker and a glance at me, but my stomach is churning too much to join in her idea of fun.

“I didn’t break off the engagement to deflate Nero’s ego,” I tell her. “It wasn’t a tactic. I don’t want to marry him, and I’m not going to marry him.”

Isabel gives me a pitying look. “Oh, Rieta. You’ve got Nero nearly eating out of your hand. Don’t throw it all away.”

I don’t know what she’s talking about. The last I saw of Nero was his car tearing down the street in an angry squeal of rubber. “There are other men. I’ll marry someone else.”

“Mia, bed,” Mom orders my sister, pointing up the stairs. “Isabel, go home. I want to talk to Rieta about her behavior today.”

Mia disappears upstairs, and Isabel goes home to her apartment. The churning in my stomach doubles when Mom and I are alone, and she turns to me with rage sparking in her eyes.

“You made a spectacle of yourself in front of everyone at the party,” she seethes. “What do you think your aunts and cousins are doing right now? They are on the phone telling people just how badly Rieta Bianchi behaved. They are gossiping about you. By tomorrow, everyone in this city who matters will know what happened here today. The Bianchi name will be dragged through the mud yet again.”

“He was rude and cold to me, Mom. I can’t marry a man like that.”

“Then you shouldn’t have accepted his ring,” she shrieks. “Do you even care how disgraceful you’re making your mother look?”

Anger burns in my heart. Of course this is all about her, her reputation, and how she feels. I stood up to Nero, and now I’m going to stand up to Mom. “I’m my own person, and I’m not going to do whatever you say just to make up for all your mistakes.”

It feels good to say it, but a split second later, Mom’s face darkens with rage. She strikes me across the face so hard that I gasp in pain, and my eyes water. Before I have time to blink and clear them, Mom grasps me by the hair and drags me across the room.

“You ungrateful little bitch. I’ll teach you to talk back to me.”

“Mom, let go, please,” I cry out and try to get away, but she’s pulling too hard. My scalp blazes with pain. I can’t see where I’m going, but the living room carpet changes to tile beneath my stumbling feet. I hear a door open, and as Mom lets go of my hair, she shoves me down some concrete steps and into clammy darkness.

I freeze in panic and grip the banister as I realize where I am. Halfway down the steps into the basement.

When I was a child, I was terrified of the dark. A terror Mom stoked by telling me chilling bedtime stories about all the monsters that live down here. The zombie that has lost its legs and drags itself by its arms across the floor, searching for warm flesh to seize and sink its broken teeth into. An evil witch with fingernails like knives that likes to feast on children’s entrails. A boogeyman that skins you alive, laughing and laughing while you scream and beg for mercy.

Mom locked me in the basement whenever I was naughty, for hours on end, until I was sick and nearly fainting from crying. After two seconds of standing on the cold concrete stairs, gazing into black nothingness, all my childhood terror floods back, and I realize something terrible.

I’m still afraid of the dark.

“Mom, no!” I scream and race back up the stairs. Mom’s expression blazes with cruel vindictiveness as she slams the door closed in my face and locks it.

“Mom, please let me out.” I hammer on the door with both fists, screaming and sobbing as panic overwhelms me. I’m old enough to know that there are no monsters in the basement, but knowing doesn’t stop freezing black fingers of terror from wrapping around my throat and choking the life out of me. My panic rises up and spills over until I can’t breathe.

“You can stay in there and think about what you’ve done, Rieta. An obnoxious, disobedient child must be punished.”

Mom’s high heels click on the tiles, fading to nothing. The light switch is on the outside. I’m trapped in the dark. No matter how hard I rattle the doorknob and beg her, she’s not coming back.

I’m hopelessly lost in a storm of screaming and crying, and I sink down until my knees are pressed against the gritty concrete. There’s a sliver of light along the bottom of the door, and I focus on that. While there’s still a tiny bit of illumination, the darkness can’t hurt me. It can’t hurt me. I tell myself that over and over again as I rock back and forth.

Someone’s moving around in the living room and the kitchen. It must be Mom cleaning up from the party. Once she’s finished, maybe she’ll come and let me out.

If I’m very quiet.

If I’m very good.

An eternity later, the light snaps off. Mom isn’t coming to let me out. A scream rises up my throat and bursts from my lips as I realize I’m going to be locked down here all night.

I shriek for Mom to come let me out, but I’m answered by silence. I’m all alone. No one is coming to save me from the monsters. The blackness is so absolute that I feel dizzy. I can’t even see my own hand in front of my face.

My fingernails break as I scratch the door, and the sides of my palms bruise as I hammer on the wood. Desperation has iron hooks in my flesh. The panic and misery are too much, and I hit my head against the door over and over. The splintered old wood cuts into my forehead, and I feel warm liquid trickle down my face.

Tears and blood stiffen my cheeks. My head hangs low. Every scream feels like razor blades in my throat. I can’t think or see. I’m going to die down here.

I’m going to die down here.

There are heavy footsteps in the hall. I can’t even summon the strength to lift my head and hope.

The door is ripped open, and I’m blinded by a blaze of light outlining a dark figure. I topple forward into strong arms.

Nero picks me up and cradles me against his chest, rocking me back and forth. “ Cara mia , what is going on?”

I reach out blindly and cling to his shoulders, whimpering, “Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t. I’ve got you. What has happened to you, my sweet girl? What has she done to your beautiful face?” He gently strokes my tangled, sweaty hair back. I press myself into his chest and wrap my arms around his neck, hungry for his warmth and the steady beating of his heart. I’ve never heard a more beautiful sound.

Nero carries me into the living room and lays me on the sofa. He presses gentle kisses to my bleeding hands.

I panic and grab him, leaving red stains on his white shirt. “No, don’t leave me!”

“Just for a second. Only for a second. I’ll be right back,” he assures me, and I’m finally able to let him go.

Nero vanishes from my side, only to be back a moment later with a warm, wet washcloth in his hand. He gently daubs the blood and dried tears from my face. Some of my fingers are raw and bleeding, and he opens the first aid kit we keep under the bathroom sink and bandages them up.

All the while, Nero mutters and swears to himself. “What did she do to you? What kind of mother is she?”

I was trapped in the dark, but he saved me.

Nero gives me a drink of water and tenderly kisses my lips, and then he growls, “Wait here.”

Nero goes out and stands in the hall. He roars up the stairs, “Giulia Bianchi, get the fuck down here.”

Mom comes down, blinking sleep from her eyes and tying the belt of her red silk robe. Her mouth hardens in disapproval when she sees me sitting on the sofa, hunched over my glass of water. Nero has moved back to stand by my side with his hands on his hips.

“Why was Rieta locked in the basement?” he demands.

Mom’s eyes narrow. “Nero. I don’t understand what you’re doing in my house uninvited. While Rieta lives under my roof, she’s my—”

“ I said , why was Rieta locked in the fucking basement?”

Mom eyes him warily. “Sometimes my daughter is too stubborn for her own good. She should never have behaved the way she did today.”

“That is between me and Rieta,” he says tightly. “Did I ask you to interfere with matters that are between me and my fiancée?”

Mom splutters, “But you are no longer engaged, and—”

Nero strides toward her until his face is just inches from hers, and he seethes, “Are you aware that your daughter is terrified of the dark?”

There’s a beat of strained silence, and then Mom says, “Rieta can be dramatic sometimes. She only carried on like this for attention.”

Nero turns and looks at my bandaged fingers, bruised hands, and cut forehead. My breath rasps in my raw throat.

I couldn’t control what I did to myself in the basement. I was panicking, and I couldn’t stop.

“You knew Rieta would be so terrified that she would hurt herself, and you locked her down there anyway,” Nero accuses.

I’ve never seen Nero talk so much in front of other people. Anger must banish all his social awkwardness.

“Apologize to your daughter.”

Mom jerks back, her expression outraged. “To my own daughter? After the humiliation she caused me today? I will do no such thing.”

Nero seizes Mom by the throat and squeezes so hard her eyes bulge. She scrabbles at his wrist, desperately trying to make him let go.

I gasp and start to get to my feet, but Nero waves me down again.

He drags her closer and seethes, “Apologize to your daughter, or I will strangle the fucking life out of you. This is not a game. I am not playing.”

A distant, loyal part of me wants to tell Nero to stop hurting Mom, but the rest of me is too tired and sore to move.

Mom glares, still fighting against him.

“You don’t seem to understand who I am and how angry you’ve made me. I’m Nero Lombardi. My bride is unhappy. My bride is hurt. It’s your fault, and if you don’t apologize right this second, I will kill you here and now, and your corpse will be picked at by scavengers on the seabed.”

As he speaks, his fingers squeeze tighter and tighter until Mom’s face turns from red to purple and her anger changes to fear.

“I’m—I’m—” Mom wheezes. He lessens his grip a fraction, and she’s able to say, “I’m sorry, Rieta.”

Nero releases Mom with a shove that makes her stagger. He turns away from her and comes over to me, picking me up and holding me in his arms.

“You will never be lost in the dark ever again, cara mia . I will always find you.”

I cling to him with all my strength. I don’t ever want to let go. The warmth of his body banishes the icy chill of the basement. We’re not even technically engaged, and he came to my rescue. He was worried about me, and thank goodness he was, or I would have been locked in that basement all night. Maybe all day as well.

Nero carries me upstairs to bed, tucking the blankets carefully around me. He presses a soft kiss to my lips, and then another between my brows.

“I will see you soon, cara mia . We have many things to discuss.”

Downstairs in the hall, I hear him addressing Mom. “Listen to me, you spiteful bitch. Until Rieta’s mine, I’ll be watching you. Treat your daughter with kindness and respect or I’ll make you pay in blood. Disobey me, and you won’t fucking like what I’ll do to you.”

When I come downstairs in the morning, Nero’s threats to Mom are ringing in my ears. I thought I’d feel terrible if anyone ever threatened my family because of me, but I’m strangely calm about the previous night’s events. If Nero hadn’t come, I’d still be in the basement this morning, bleeding and having screamed myself hoarse. When Mom finally let me out, I probably would have been grateful. Grateful . How pathetic is that?

But Nero’s anger for me has put everything in a new light.

Mom is alone in the kitchen. Her eyes are bloodshot and puffy, and there are dark fingertip bruises around her throat.

I eat cereal and drink a cup of black coffee. Mom doesn’t say a word to me, and she won’t even look at me, but she does bang her cup and spoon hard on the counter when she puts them down, and her mouth is tight with anger.

In the bathroom, I examine myself in the mirror. There are shallow cuts on my forehead at the hairline, not deep enough that they won’t heal on their own, but painful and raw-looking. I peel the bandages from my fingertips, clip my broken, jagged nails, and then bandage them up again. My complexion is pale, and there are dark circles beneath my eyes. I won’t be going anywhere for a few days.

I spend the time in my room reading, and I eat by myself in the kitchen after everyone’s gone to bed. I expect Nero to call me or drop in to see how I’m doing. He doesn’t.

Four days later, my hands start to look normal again, and if I sweep my hair across my forehead, the cuts at my hairline won’t show. I’ve had plenty of time to think about my future these past few days, and I’ve formulated a plan that’s just for me.

I don’t need to please Mom. I don’t need to wait for Nero either.

As I eat breakfast, Mom reads on her phone, pretending I’m not there. I wait until I’ve rinsed my dishes and put them in the dishwasher before I speak.

“I’m going out,” I say casually, but I’m watching Mom like a hawk.

Normally such a statement would be met by rapid-fire questions. Where am I going? Who with? Do I think that’s appropriate? Why can’t I just stay home? Do I have to be such a shameful daughter and parade myself about in public?

Mom opens her mouth but seems to think better of what she was going to say. Without looking up from her phone, she mutters, “If you say so, darling.”

A sense of satisfaction washes over me. Nero’s made Mom as meek as a kitten.

As I leave the kitchen, she calls after me in a cold voice, “Remember this, Rieta. It’s not your kind, loving mother who keeps you in line now. If you continue to act out, you may wish that it was. Your future husband has a short fuse and a nasty temper.”

“He’s not my future husband, remember? Right now, he’s not my future anything. Besides, I don’t believe Nero would ever lay a finger on me.”

Unless I beg him to.

Mom laughs without humor. “Do you really think he won’t turn on you? What a naive little girl you are, Rieta. I can barely believe you’re my daughter.”

I want to forget about Nero and focus on myself for a little while. A career has given Isabel bucketloads of confidence, and I think it could do the same for me. Shortly after graduation, a friend’s older sister told me that she could get me a job at a hotel in the center of town. Mom didn’t want me to work, so I refused, but this morning I sent Lynella a message asking if the offer still stands. She replied straight away telling me to come to the hotel at ten this morning.

I’m dressed in a demure blouse and knee-length pencil skirt, and I’m wearing the sapphire and diamond studs that one of my uncles gave me for graduation. With my hair up in a twist and kitten heels on my feet, I think I look the part for my very first job interview.

My interview is with a cheerful man in a blue blazer who explains that the hotel needs front desk staff to greet guests, hand out room keys, and process credit card payments. He doesn’t seem to mind that I have no experience. When he asks me how I would placate a difficult customer, I just think of Mom and describe how I calm her down. Job interview nailed. My first shift is at the end of the week.

I walk out of the hotel and through the parking lot feeling pleased with myself. My thoughts are filled with possibilities for my future, and I’m not paying attention to where I’m going. I may only work at the front desk now, but if I work hard, I could be promoted. I could become some kind of hotel executive, maybe even travel—

Someone grabs me.

My heart rate shoots through the stratosphere. Before I can shriek, a rough hand clamps over my mouth, and I’m lifted into the air. I briefly see the open door of an SUV before I’m tossed inside.

This is how I die. Kidnapped and strangled in broad daylight in a hotel parking lot.

The car door slams behind us, and suddenly, there’s a heavy body pinning mine to the back seat. The scent of expensive cologne fills my nose. I open my mouth to scream, but the face looming over mine isn’t that of a masked stranger. It’s Nero.

He glares through the window at the hotel and then back at me. “What were you doing in there?”

My heart is pounding a thousand beats a minute, and I gasp in relief and anger. “What am I doing? What are you doing? I thought you were a kidnapper. I thought you were going to kill me.”

“Answer the question.”

Nero must have been following me again. He probably stalked me from my house to the hotel, watched me go inside, and then waited for me to come out. If he wanted to see me so badly, why didn’t he just call?

“I’m not answering anything. Get off me.” I push against him, but he doesn’t move. As I fight him, I can feel my skirt getting rucked up as he pushes his knee between my thighs. I try to pull my skirt down, but he captures my wrist and pins it above my head. The weight of his body on mine sends ripples of heat through me. Goddammit. After I didn’t react to him even a little at our engagement party, I thought I was immune to Nero’s charms.

A slow smile spreads over Nero’s face as the fingers of my free hand clench on his muscular shoulder, and I let out a soft pant.

“But you don’t want me to get off you, cara mia . Answer the question. What were you doing in that hotel?”

His deep words vibrate through my chest and flutter against my nipples. “I had a job interview.”

“My wife doesn’t need to work.”

I hold my left hand in his face, showing him my ringless finger. “We’re not engaged. I don’t want a husband who constantly degrades me.”

He lowers his head, and his mouth presses against my throat. The kiss sends a shock wave through me as he cradles my head in his hand. His lips whisper against me, “I thought you liked it when I talked that way. You worked yourself up with your fingers thinking about me.”

Nero’s knee presses between my thighs and against my clit. I can feel myself getting wet, and I regret what I confided to him at our engagement party.

Nero’s wearing a crisp white shirt and tan pants. I glance down between us and see a telltale bulge at his zipper. I’ve never been this close to a man’s erection before. I want to reach out and explore it, fascinated to know how thick and hot he’ll feel in my hand through the fabric of his clothes.

Instead, I pin him with a sardonic look. “Your cock is surprisingly hard for a man who can’t stand liars. Isn’t that what I am? A disgusting, lying bitch in heat?”

Nero pulls back, his eyes narrowing as he glares down at me. He studies me for a moment. “I have a short temper.”

“You’re an obnoxious ass.”

The annoyance melts from his expression. “I am. I was. I’m sorry.”

His apology is more startling than his coldness. I didn’t think a man as arrogant as him had even one apology in him. “You don’t get to wind me up on a date and then throw it in my face when I reciprocate your desire.”

“That was wrong of me. I love that you’re my horny girl. Just…not around family. It’s difficult for me to relax around family. Anyone’s family.” He strokes my hair back and presses soft kisses to my face. “You forgive me, don’t you? You want your husband to kiss you and make it better, cara mia .” He runs his tongue up the column of my throat.

“I don’t…” Trying to tell him that he’s not my husband and he never will be is getting harder and harder. “We can’t.”

“You’re just so sexy when you’re mad at me.”

Nero squeezes one of my breasts and then reaches down to cup my ass. Family morals dictate that I don’t sleep with any man before I’m married to him, even if we’re engaged. Not that we are engaged. I can’t imagine that Nero cares about the no-sex-before-marriage rule. I doubt he has one scruple in his whole body.

His hand pushes beneath my skirt and wraps around my thigh, his fingers grazing over the lace of my underwear. There’s no space in this car, and I’m pressed tightly against him.

“Stop that. We’re in public, and it’s broad daylight.”

“These windows are tinted. There’s no one in this parking lot.” He drags his fingers over my sex, groaning with his full lower lip caught between his teeth. “You’re so wet for me. I can feel it.”

While I’m fretting about being seen, Nero hooks his fingers into my briefs and pulls them down. I stare in horror at the sight of the lace slipping down my legs while I grasp fistfuls of his shirt. “I’m not marrying you.”

“If you say so,” Nero murmurs, reaching up to unbutton my blouse. I’m enraptured by the soft expression in his eyes as he drinks in the sight of my lacy bra. He pulls down one of the cups, and my rosy nipple tightens. He sucks it into his mouth, and I can feel his tongue moving against me.

Shit. What am I doing? My arms are wrapping around his shoulders. My fingers are pushing into his thick hair. As my body heats, I melt for him. Open for him. We’re wrapped around each other, and his hips thrust against mine. His erection slides against my sex.

“Nero,” I whimper.

He lifts his head. His dark hair is falling over his brow into his dark, glinting eyes. I could never gaze like this into the eyes of any other man. He tilts his head and kisses me, a delicious, parted-lips kiss that’s as sweet and luxurious as honey. His tongue caresses mine, thrusting into my mouth at the same time as he moves his hips against me.

I’m certain of very little in my life, but I know that sex with Nero Lombardi would be equal helpings of heaven and hell.

“We can’t do this,” I whisper urgently. “Someone will walk past and see us.”

“I will hear their footsteps. I’m covering you. I won’t let anyone see you but me.”

“But—”

“I’m too possessive of you to let any other man see you. Look at me, cara mia . I want to make you come.” Nero scrunches my panties in his hand, holds them over his nose, and breathes in while gazing into my eyes. He groans, his eyes half-lidded with pleasure. “You smell like everything I’ve ever wanted. There’s no room here, but the next time I see you, I’m going to spread your naked body open, suck your clit, and fuck you with my tongue.”

Nero throws my underwear aside and his fingers find my slit, sliding possessively over my clit and my sex and back up again. He’s coated in my slipperiness.

“You’re a virgin, aren’t you, cara mia ? I’ll be so careful with you.” He brushes his lips over mine and reaches down to drag two fingers up my sex and rub slow, firm circles on my clit. Heat blooms in my cheeks, and my head tips back with a cry. Nero makes a deep, decadent sound in his chest.

Nero groaning is my new favorite sound in the world.

My favorite sound ever .

Every time I think I’m going to come from the way he’s massaging my clit, he slides his fingers down and pushes them inside me. Not very far, but a little deeper each time, making me burn around him.

I keep my lips clamped tightly together, terrified and embarrassed that someone is going to hear my cries of pleasure. Nero’s touch is dangerous. I can’t believe I’m letting him do this to me in a parking lot like I’m his dirty little secret.

Nero gazes down at me with a wicked smirk, his forearm braced by my head. “You think you’re doing such a good job holding it together, don’t you? You’re not. That dazed expression in your eyes, those flushed cheeks. I can see what a panting, desperate mess you are. You’re thinking about getting your hands on my thick cock. Your sweet little fingers wrapped around it, begging for it in your mouth, your pussy, your ass.”

One of his fingers moves down to my ass and presses against the tight ring of muscle.

I gasp in shock. “Please, stop, not here.”

“Yes, here. I want you here. The perfect, precious Rieta Bianchi getting so turned on in the back of my car. I bet I could make you so horny that you’d suck my cock in a crowded restaurant for everyone to see, just for the chance to hear me call you my good little slut.”

Nero’s finger slips into my ass, and I cry out from shock and pleasure. I put my hands over my face, embarrassed that he’s seeing me fall apart like this. His fingers pump in and out of me. God, that feels incredible. I thought it would hurt, but I feel myself coming apart on the leather seat. I’m completely at his mercy.

Mom and her morals can go to hell. I want this. I want Nero. I wrap my arms around his neck and draw my knees up so they’re hugging his chest. “Please, please call me your good little slut.”

Nero’s eyes glint with menace. “I’ll call you that when you’ve earned it. Tell me how it feels to have my fingers in your pussy and your ass at the same time.”

“So good,” I gasp. “I love it.”

He kisses me hard, forcing his tongue into my mouth, and I open for him, wishing it was his cock thrusting into my pussy. My lower belly is balled up with delicious tension.

“Seeing you looking so prim and perfect on your pedestal makes me want to tear you down to my sordid level. I want you to know what it feels like to be fucked by a man who definitely doesn’t deserve you.”

I’m on the verge of coming, but he slows down, and I cry out in frustration and dig my nails into his shoulders.

“Would you crawl to me on your knees if I asked?” he asks.

“Please let me come. Please.”

“Would you? Say you’ll do anything for me.”

“I’ll do anything for you. I’ll crawl on my knees. Sit at your feet and beg. Ask you to slap me and call me names. It’s what I deserve.”

A wicked smile spreads over his face. “That’s right, my beautiful girl. Now, come for me.”

He pumps his fingers into me while drawing his thumb over my clit, the triple stimulation overwhelming me. I cry out and bite down on his shoulder, my climax bursting through me.

I collapse in his arms, shuddering and moaning.

He strokes my hair lovingly back from my face. “Look at you. Pathetic. How I adore you.”

I cover my face with my hands and groan in horror at the things I just said and what he did to make me come. “I hate you so much,” I whisper through my fingers. I can feel tears stinging my eyes. “Why do you say such horrible things? Why do you make me say them?”

Nero wraps both arms around me and holds me close, rocking me in his arms. “Cry all you want, but it won’t change anything. I say them because you like them.”

I press my face into his chest and sniffle. Is that true? I did come so hard I saw stars. I’ve never been this close to a man before. I don’t know what’s normal and right.

“Your husband has a present for you.” He digs something out of his pocket. Carefully, he lowers it between my thighs, and I feel the cold kiss of something against my clit. He rubs it against me and then seizes my hand. The engagement ring is wet and slippery as he slides it onto my finger.

He kisses the ring before gazing up at me with dark eyes and a possessive tilt to the corners of his mouth.

“If you ever feel like taking it off again and throwing it in my face, remember this moment. You want me, cara mia . And I want you. You’re mine.”

To prove he’s changed, Nero throws a second engagement party.

He doesn’t smile when he greets me, Mom, Isabel, and Mia at his front door, but he does press a brief kiss to my cheek in front of them. That’s new. I suppose it means he’s trying, but it’s clear he despises having company. I wonder what happened in his childhood to make him hate family so much.

He does want a family with me, doesn’t he? I’ve always loved children, and if I’m getting married, then having children would be a big part of that.

Dinner is just the five of us, and as we eat, Nero and Mom politely discuss news from the city. Which businesses and families are integrating through mergers and marriages. It’s a dry, tedious conversation, and to keep myself from sighing with boredom, I replay the heated moments I spent with Nero in his car the previous day.

That works for thirty minutes, and then I’m suppressing yawn after yawn. I’m thankful that once we’re married, the time I’ll spend with Nero will be us alone together, and he’ll be his usual animated self. I just need to get through all these family moments that are served up alongside an impending wedding.

Just before we leave, Mom glances into the lounge at the garden beyond the French doors. “Nero, may we take a look at your lovely garden? Isabel. Mia. Come with me.” Mom gives me a pointed look as she hustles my sisters out into the night to look at plants they won’t be able to see. She’s leaving me alone with Nero so we can properly kiss and make up because she doesn’t know that we already did that in his car.

I turn to my fiancé, hands clasped in front of me, and gaze solemnly at him. I’m playing the role of the demure, chaste wife while other people are around, as he’s asked. But I’m hoping he might drop his frosty facade and tell me my dress is pretty, but it would look better on his bedroom floor.

Nero assesses me thoughtfully. “Your behavior has improved.”

“Oh, I aim to please,” I say dryly. “You don’t have to come to family dinners after we’re married. I don’t much like you around other people.”

Nero glances toward the French doors, through which my mother and sisters have disappeared, and he clenches his jaw. “That would be agreeable, and it’s probably best that neither of us are around your mother.”

“As long as you’re not like this with me when we’re alone. Can you promise me that?”

“That’s up to you. If you behave yourself and you’re a good wife, then you’ll be happy.” There’s zero emotion in his tone.

“It’s not up to me. It’s up to both of us to make this marriage work. Promise me that you’ll be a warm and loving husband the next time we’re alone together, and…”

I break off, frowning at something over Nero’s shoulder. I’m facing the staircase that leads up to the darkened second floor, and I could have sworn I saw something move in the shadows. I thought we were alone. Are we not alone? Is that why he’s still being stiff and controlled even though Mom and my sisters are outside?

“Is someone there?” I ask.

Nero doesn’t turn around. “No one’s there.”

I take a step toward the stairs, but Nero takes my jaw in his hand and makes me look at him. I hunt the depths of his eyes for a spark of love, but perhaps it’s too dark in here to see anything other than his almost-black liquid irises.

“Rieta. We’re talking about us.”

I glance past him to the top of the stairs. Nothing moves. Maybe I imagined it. “Then promise.”

His fingers tighten infinitesimally on my jaw. “I promise, Rieta. If this marriage fails, it won’t be because of me.”

As Mom, Isabel, Mia, and I walk to Mom’s car, Mom reaches for my left hand and examines it in the semi-darkness. The diamond is sparkling on my finger.

“Still engaged?” she asks.

“Still engaged.”

Mom drops my hand with a smirk. “I’m happy for you, Rieta. You deserve a man like Nero Lombardi.”