11. Simone
SIMONE
I want to murder my husband.
It’s not a euphemism. After he stalks away from me, leaving me breathless and wrung out against my bedroom door, I fling myself back into the room and spend at least fifteen minutes pacing before I change into a pair of yoga leggings, a sports bra, and loose tank top, running through the options for spousal homicide.
A gun? Too messy, and too loud.
Poison? I have no idea where to get it, and what dose.
Smothering him with a pillow in the night? The idea has promise, but Tristan is strong, and I’d need to hit the gym a lot more to have a chance. I pull up my workout app on my phone as I head down for breakfast, looking for strength exercises. I’ve always been a runner, but that could change.
Nora is in the kitchen when I walk in, preparing breakfast. The familiar sight of her moving around the space should be comforting, but right now it just reminds me of how much everything has changed.
I used to sneak in here before mealtimes to hug her and chat for a moment before retreating to the dining room, where my father expected me to eat with him.
Now, I wonder if Tristan will order me to do the same, or if I can hide away in here and eat without having to look at him.
I remember Nora saying that at least my husband-to-be was young and handsome.
I almost wish it were the opposite. I’d be disgusted by having to touch him, but at least I wouldn’t be fighting this inner war, where every time I look at my husband, I both hate him and can’t help but think that he’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever laid eyes on.
It seems unfair that someone so gorgeous is also such an asshole.
“Good morning, mija ,” Nora says without turning around, her hands busily kneading dough.
The kitchen already smells like cinnamon rolls, and I see a bowl of cut-up fruit salad on the counter.
I slide past her to grab a mug out of a cupboard and get my own coffee.
In the days since my father died, I’ve been doing more and more of these small things on my own, things that used to be done by staff.
I don’t know why, except that maybe it feels like, if I can’t run the estate myself, I can at least do these little things. A bit of agency.
“Morning.” I sink into a chair at the table by the kitchen window, where the staff typically eats.
I have a feeling Tristan would pop a blood vessel if he saw me here, but I don’t care.
If he orders me to eat meals with him, I’ll deal with that then, but right now I suspect that he’s only interested in making me submit to him physically.
Which he did . My face burns hot at the thought of what happened in the hallway. I thought the locked door would keep him out, put some distance between us, but it’s clear that he has no respect for my privacy or space. And then…
It felt so good. So good . I bite my lip, trying not to think about it, but it happened too recently.
My body is still buzzing faintly with the sensations: with the memory of his body so close to mine, hard and hot and smelling of warm male flesh and the lingering hints of his cologne.
I can’t help but remember the lingering sensation of his fingers working expertly between my thighs, his roughly accented voice driving me wild wholly against my will.
I don’t want to want him. I don’t want any part of this. And yet, I lost control so easily. Just last night, I was promising him that I’d never allow myself to come for him, and I’ve already broken that promise.
It doesn’t have to happen again, I remind myself.
The best case scenario is, now that Tristan has ‘won’, that he’ll lose interest. He’ll fuck me when necessary and ignore me otherwise, and that would be the most welcome outcome.
There’s no better one; I can’t get out of this marriage.
I have to find a way to live with him, and his indifference would be the easiest way to make that palatable.
“You’re thinking so loudly I can hear it,” Nora says amusedly from where she’s standing, and I blush, hoping that’s not actually the case. “Are you alright, mija ?”
She gives me a concerned look, and I know what she’s thinking—that my wedding night was last night, and that I’m quiet and pensive this morning, and tense besides.
“I’m fine.” It’s far from true, but I can’t fathom how to begin explaining any of this to her. I certainly don’t want to go into the details of what happened last night. The thought makes me blush again, and I stare down at my coffee, trying to force it all out of my head.
“You don’t sound fine.” Nora walks over to where I’m sitting, putting a plate with a cinnamon roll and a bowl of fruit salad in front of me. “Eat, mija . You need to keep yourself sharp, married to a man like that.”
A short laugh escapes my lips as I pull the bowl toward me, reaching for a fork to pick at the strawberries. Nora has no idea just how right she is.
“He’s insufferable,” I mutter through a mouthful of fruit. “I can’t—I don’t know how I’m going to live with a man like that.”
“I don’t know if you have any choice.” Nora’s tone isn’t unsympathetic, but I hate that she’s right.
“He thinks he owns me.” I stab at a piece of banana. “Like I’m… property that he bought.”
“According to the world you live in…” Nora lets out a breath. “You don’t need me to tell you all this, mija . You know how things are. And I know it’s hard.”
“This is forever.” I drop my fork, looking at her. “ Forever. I don’t know how… I can’t handle this. Being married to him for the rest of my life…”
“You’ll learn how,” Nora reassures me. “And he’ll grow bored. He’ll give you children and leave you alone to raise them. It will all be alright, in time…” She frowns, looking at me narrowly. “Unless you’re lamenting that you’ll never have some great love?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Not that.” I never imagined falling in love or having some wild romantic affair. That was never in the cards for me, and I knew it. I’ve never been that kind of dreamer.
I wanted respect. A man who treated me as if I were something he was lucky to have been given, instead of a prize he won.
Tristan acts as if I should be grateful to him for deigning to marry me, when, as far as I know, he’s a second son who is inheriting only because he managed to force me into wedlock.
Just thinking about it all makes me want to scream.
“Patience.” Nora pats my hand in a motherly way. “It will get easier, in time.”
I want to believe her. I finish my food in silence—or as much of it as I can manage, at least, as anxious and overwrought as I am—and get up afterward to go and take a walk around the estate.
The grounds here have always felt like a refuge, acres of gardens and walking paths, space where I know I’m safe but can explore without being bothered.
The open air and warm sun make my chest loosen as I step outside, make me feel as if I can take deep breaths again.
But it doesn’t take long before, even out here, I see evidence of Tristan’s occupation.
The security here has always been subtle, guards moving around the property with an ease and casualness that keeps the estate from feeling like a fortress.
But I’ve lived here all my life, and my father was a man who prioritized loyalty, so the faces of all of the security have become familiar to me over the years, even if I don’t know all of their names by heart.
I’ve also seen them patrolling often enough that it’s easy for me to pick them out, and I quickly realize that the men I see this morning are not familiar.
Just like the men at the guards’ gatehouse last night weren’t familiar, when we drove back after the wedding reception.
I thought then that maybe Tristan had just appointed his own men to watch the front of the estate—annoying, but understandable.
But as I make my way down the walking path, catching sight of men who are clearly security but who I don’t know, a growing knowledge settles in my mind.
Tristan is replacing everyone who worked for my father.
My jaw tightens, any respite that the outdoors and the walk might have given me fleeing.
He’s determined to take over every part of this place.
He might have claimed that it would be ours , but it’s becoming his .
His empire, without any trace of anyone who might have a lingering loyalty to my father, to me .
A small, practical part of me, the part that is the mafia princess my father raised—whispers that it’s what anyone would do, in Tristan’s position.
That replacing old loyalists to an old boss with men who respect and follow him is the smart move.
But I brush it away, because I don’t want to hear it.
I don’t want Tristan here. I don’t want his men here. I don’t want him taking over every part of the life that used to feel like mine and now no longer does.
The realization makes me want to scream.
Instead, I pivot, and head back toward the house and, once inside, straight to the indoor gym. I need some way to work out my frustrations, and a good physical sweat seems like as useful a way as any.
The familiar burn of physical exertion turns out to be exactly what I need.
I start with a five-mile run on the treadmill, pushing myself harder than usual, trying to outrun the memory of Tristan's hands on my body, the way his fingers felt inside of me as he pushed me over the edge.
When that doesn't work, I move to the weight machines, opening the workout app that I pulled up earlier to try and figure out some exercises that will help me build up muscle.
Just in case I do decide to actually smother him with a pillow.
I’m in the middle of my third set of bicep curls with a ten-pound weight when I catch Tristan’s reflection in the mirror in front of me.