Chapter 6
“You need clothes suitable for my world, principessa.”
Marco's voice fills the Escalade as we pull up to an unmarked boutique on Michigan Avenue.
The storefront gleams with understated wealth, just etched glass and a single mannequin wearing what looks like liquid silk.
Twelve days since he stole me from the altar.
Twelve days of sleeping beside him, breathing his cologne, waking with my body aching in need.
I press myself deeper into the leather seat, Mother's rosary beads cutting half-moons into my palm. "I have clothes."
"You have rags from your father's house.
" He doesn't look at me, just signals to Tommy and the bodyguard in the front.
They exit smoothly, Tommy's hand checking his concealed weapon before taking position by the door.
"Nothing suitable for being Mrs. Rosetti.
Nothing that shows the other families who you belong to now. "
The title burns. Mrs. Rosetti. As if saying it enough times will make me accept it, make me forget I was supposed to marry Liam O'Brien instead. My nipples tighten at the memory of Marco's tongue between my legs, making me call him husband as I came. I shift in my seat, hating how wet I already am.
"I refuse to play dress-up for you."
Now he turns, those dark eyes finding mine with predatory focus. "You'll do exactly as I say."
"Or what? You'll shoot me?" I lift my chin, defying him even as my pulse quickens. "Go ahead. It would be better than this."
"No." His voice drops to that dangerous whisper that makes heat pool low in my belly. "But your sister Alice is still unmarried. Still available for the Irish alliance your father so desperately needs. Though I hear the O'Brien's youngest son has… particular tastes when it comes to young brides."
Ice floods my veins. "You wouldn't dare touch Alice."
"I took you from your wedding altar. Do you really think I'd hesitate to collect her too?
" He leans closer, bergamot mixing with something darker, the scent of violence from whatever business he handled before collecting me.
"One call to your father. That's all it would take.
He's already lost one daughter. He won't risk losing both. "
My hands shake. "Don't use Alice as leverage against me."
"Then don't make me." He exits the car with fluid grace, coming around to my door. When he opens it, his hand extends like we're arriving at a gala instead of my continued captivity. "Come. Giovanna is expecting us."
I ignore his hand, climbing out on my own. But his fingers catch my elbow anyway, guiding me toward the boutique with that possessive touch I've grown to expect. To hate. To crave when I'm alone during the day, my fingers between my legs, imagining it's him.
Inside, expensive leather and French perfume assault my senses. Soft lighting, thick carpet, the kind of silence that only comes with astronomical price tags. An elegant woman in her fifties emerges from behind a silk curtain.
"Don Rosetti," she greets him in accented English, actually dropping into a slight curtsey. "Such an honor. It has been too long since a Rosetti wife graced my boutique."
"Giovanna." He acknowledges her with a nod. "This is Valentina."
"The new Mrs. Rosetti." Her eyes assess me with professional interest. "Bella, bella. She will look magnificent at the family gatherings, no? The other families will see the Rosetti power in how she presents."
My stomach turns. Even this stranger sees me as his possession, a reflection of his family's status.
"Whatever she needs," Marco tells her, settling into a leather chair like a king on his throne. "Everything befitting a Rosetti wife. She represents our name now."
The fitting room might as well be a stage, and I'm the reluctant performer.
Each outfit Giovanna brings requires me to strip, change, and present myself for Marco's approval. He sits in that leather chair like he owns the world, which in Chicago, he essentially does. Those dark eyes track every movement as I emerge in designer dress after designer dress.
My hands tremble as I strip again, skin prickling under his gaze. Each dress feels heavier than the last, weighted with his approval or dismissal. Silk whispers against my skin like secrets. Cashmere soft as his threats. Lace that scratches like my conscience.
"No," he says to a conservative black sheath. "Too funeral."
"No," to a bright blue cocktail dress. "Too loud. She's a Rosetti, not a party favor."
"Better," to a cream silk that makes me look virginal. His mouth curves at that one, and I want to tear it off just to spite him. Instead, my fingers find Mother's rosary in my pocket, but even the smooth beads can't calm the heat pooling between my thighs.
Mother would have loved this boutique, before Father crushed her spirit.
Before she tried to run. Before her car wrapped around that tree on a perfectly clear night.
Now I'm here, being paraded before the man who took me, Marco Rosetti, the same predator who's been watching me since I threw that wine at him.
"The red," he says when I emerge in a gown the color of fresh blood. His knuckles go white on the chair arms, and for a heartbeat, I see something raw beneath his control. Not just possession, but need. "Keep that one."
"It's too much," I protest, but my voice comes out breathy.
"It's perfect." His voice roughens. "You'll wear it to the next family dinner. Let everyone see what belongs to me."
Heat floods my cheeks, my chest, pooling low in my belly like liquid fire. My legs clench involuntarily, and I know he sees it, sees everything my body confesses.
"The lingerie department is through there," Giovanna says, gesturing to another door. "Should I pull some options?"
"I will choose them myself," Marco says without looking away from me, rising to his feet. The hunger in his eyes makes my core clench with shameful need.
I quickly undress in the changing room, grab the next dress and storm toward what I think is another changing room, desperate to escape his penetrating gaze.
But I open the wrong door, stepping into racks of silk and lace instead.
I'm standing there in only my underwear, plain white cotton that suddenly feels obscene, when his sharp intake of breath makes me freeze.
His eyes go predatory dark, traveling from my face down my barely covered body with a hunger that makes me want to run and submit in equal measure.
The look is pure possession, pure want, and my traitorous body responds with a flood of wetness between my legs.
I can smell my own arousal, sweet and shameful, and I know he can too.
"Marco," Giovanna's voice breaks the spell. "Should I—"
"Out." He doesn't look away from me. "Everyone out."
The boutique empties in seconds, leaving us alone. I should cover myself, run back to the changing room, do anything but stand here letting him devour me with his eyes. But I'm frozen, caught between humiliation and the arousal making my entire body burn.
"You're exquisite," he says, voice rough.
"This was an accident. I opened the wrong door." But the words come out breathy, undermined by how my back arches slightly toward him, presenting myself like an offering.
"Your body knows who owns it." He stands, moving closer but not touching. "Look how your nipples are begging for my mouth through that plain cotton."
"I hate you."
"Your pussy doesn't." The crude words make me gasp. "I can smell your need, principessa. Sweet and shameful. The cotton is soaked through."
My face burns with shame and arousal. Because he's right. I am drenched. Have been since he looked at me in that red gown with such dark hunger. My body's betrayal is complete, responding to my captor like he's my lover.
I back through the open door behind me, and as soon as I escape his gaze, I dress quickly, my role as his little dress-up Barbie over.
The ride back starts in tense silence, bags filling the trunk with thousands of dollars of clothes I never asked for.
Designer armor for a war I'm losing against myself.
We're three blocks from the boutique when we hit a red light. The city bustles around us, people crossing the street, living their free lives. The door handle gleams in the afternoon sun.
I don't think about escape. I learned that lesson. Instead, I think about rebellion.
"I could scream," I say conversationally. "Right here, surrounded by witnesses. Tell them I'm being held against my will."
His hand shoots out, fisting in my hair with brutal efficiency. He yanks my head back against the headrest, his mouth suddenly at my ear.
"Try it," he growls, his grip tightening until tears spring to my eyes, "and Alice will be married to Patrick O'Brien's youngest by sunset. You know his reputation with young wives. They say the last one wasn't seen in public again until her funeral."
The threat makes my blood run cold.
"Let go," I manage, but my voice wavers.
"Never." His free hand wraps around my throat, not squeezing, just resting there in warning as the light turns green. "You're mine, Valentina. The sooner you accept that, the easier this becomes."
Tommy drives on like nothing happened, professional enough to ignore his boss threatening his captive wife in the backseat. Marco's hand stays fisted in my hair for another block before finally releasing me, sliding down to rest possessively on my thigh.
"You're insane if you think threats will make me submit."
"I don't need you to submit." His voice is calm now, controlled. "Your body does that without permission."
He's right, and I hate him for it.
Because I'm wet. Soaking wet from him yanking my hair, from his hand on my throat, from the threat of what he'd do to protect his possession of me. My body's betrayal is complete, responding to his violence with arousal instead of fear.