Chapter 9
Alessandro’s shirt is still laced with his scent when I steal it in the middle of the night, and I know he’s awake—no one sleeps that still without practice.
My fingers tremble as I lift the white cotton from the chair where he tossed it hours ago.
The fabric holds his essence like a living thing, releasing that musky floral cologne that makes my treacherous body respond even in the darkness.
I freeze, watching the shadow of his form in our bed, waiting for him to move, to stop me.
But he remains perfectly still. Too still. The kind of stillness that comes from conscious effort, not unconscious rest.
He's letting me take it.
The realization should stop me, should send me scurrying back to the silk sheets or back to the bathroom to dress in my own clothes.
Instead, it makes something rebellious flare in my chest. If he wants to play games, pretending to sleep while I steal his clothes, then I'll play too.
I'll take what I need—this armor of cotton and his scent—and escape to the only place in this mansion where I can breathe.
The midnight shower was supposed to tire me out, help me sleep, but it just fired me up. I slip the shirt over my naked skin, each button a small act of defiance. The hem barely covers my thighs, leaving my legs bare to the cool air.
The marble floor is ice under my bare feet as I ghost toward the door. Each step feels like a held breath, waiting for his voice to stop me, for his hand to catch my wrist and drag me back to bed. But nothing comes except the steady rhythm of his fake sleep.
The service stairwell beckons—my secret discovered while seeking escape routes that don't exist. My heart pounds as I climb toward the roof, toward the stars, toward the only thing that still remembers who Emma really is beneath this performance of Frances Hewson.
The Perseids are peaking tonight, and I'd rather die than miss them because of him. After almost a week as his captive bride, I need something real, something that existed before Alessandro Rosetti claimed me.
The rooftop door opens onto a garden that takes my breath away.
I discovered it two nights ago, this secret oasis above the cage.
Roses and jasmine tangle across trellises, their perfume mixing with the Chicago night air—exhaust and rain and danger.
But I barely notice the carefully cultivated beauty.
Above me, the sky blazes with falling stars, the Perseids at their peak.
I sink onto a stone bench, cold granite biting through the thin shirt, a welcome respite after the hot day, and I tilt my face toward infinity.
The familiar constellations greet me like old friends—Perseus hanging in the northeast, Andromeda forever chained across the horizon. The irony makes my chest ache.
"There you are," I whisper to Cassiopeia, finding her distinctive W shape. "Still on your throne while the rest of us scramble below."
A meteor streaks across the darkness, then another.
I pull my knees to my chest, Alessandro's shirt riding up my thighs, goosebumps rising on exposed skin.
For the first time since the wedding, I remember what it feels like to be myself.
Not the terrified girl playing Frances Hewson.
Not the trembling wife learning to crave her captor's touch.
Just Emma, small and insignificant under an infinite sky.
Tommy would laugh if he saw me now—his sister who taught him constellations from our fire escape, now trapped on a different kind of rooftop, wearing nothing but my captor's shirt. The thought of him locked in his own cage makes my eyes burn with tears.
Another meteor burns across the heavens, and I close my eyes to make a wish I know won't come true. I wish I could disappear into that darkness and finally, truly be free.
"Making wishes without me, cara?"
I leap to my feet at Alessandro's voice, my stolen moment shattering like glass. My whole body starts trembling—actual, visible shaking that I hate myself for. He emerges from the shadows by the stairwell door, and I realize with cold dread that he's been watching me this entire time.
Of course he followed me.
He wears nothing but boxer shorts, his chest vast and bare, starlight rippling over it.
"I couldn't sleep," I manage, pulling his shirt tighter around my body as if the thin cotton could protect me from his gaze. The ground is cold beneath my feet.
"So you stole my shirt." He moves closer, each step deliberate, predatory. "Again."
The way he says 'again' makes my pulse race so hard I feel dizzy. This game we've been playing—him pretending not to notice, me pretending I'm getting away with something—suddenly feels dangerous in a different way.
"I was cold," I lie.
"Were you?" He's close enough now that I can see the scratches I left on his cheek last night, still healing. "Or did you just want something of mine wrapped around that beautiful body?"
Thunder rumbles in the distance. The humid wind picks up, sending his stolen shirt fluttering around my thighs, the fabric lifting enough to bare everything underneath. His eyes track the movement, and something shifts in his expression, hunger mixing with curiosity.
He backs me toward the roof's edge, the low wall the only thing between me and a forty-foot drop. My bare feet scrape against rough stone, small pebbles cutting into my soles as I retreat, but there's nowhere to go.
"That shirt belongs to me," he says softly, his eyes traveling down my body with possessive heat that makes my skin burn. "Everything in that room belongs to me." His gaze returns to mine. "Everything in this house belongs to me."
Including you. He doesn't say it, but the words hang between us like a blade pressed to my throat.
"You're lucky it's me who found you up here," he continues, voice dropping darker.
"I'll return it," I whisper, my voice shaking as badly as my hands.
"Oh, you will." His smile is dark, dangerous. "But first, I want to know why my wife sneaks out of our bed to commune with stars instead of telling me what she needs."
The storm approaches faster now, electricity crackling in the air between us.
"The Perseids," I say, desperate to deflect his attention from my near-nakedness. "They're peaking tonight. I've watched them every year since I was seven. It was—it was all I had."
"Have you?" He steps closer, close enough that I can feel his body heat matching the humid night air. "And what do the Hewsons know about astronomy?"
The fake name stings, reminding me of the lie I'm living.
But something rebellious flares in my chest despite my terror.
"I know Perseus rescued Andromeda from chains.
I know Cassiopeia was punished for her vanity.
I know that meteor showers are just debris from comets, beautiful destruction burning up in our atmosphere. "
"Interesting." His hand comes up to finger the collar of his shirt where it gaps at my throat. "You speak of chains and punishment like you understand them. Tell me, wife, do you feel chained?"
Thunder cracks directly overhead, so loud and sudden that I jump forward without thinking, straight into Alessandro's arms. His chest is solid and warm against me, his hands automatically catching my waist to steady me.
For a moment, we're frozen like this—me clutching his shoulders, him holding me against him, his shirt the only barrier between my naked body and his bare chest.
"Scared of a little thunder?" His voice rumbles through his chest into mine.
"I'm not scared," I lie, even as another crack makes me press closer.
His hands tighten on my waist. "No? Then you won't mind removing my shirt. You stole it from me, after all. Time to pay the consequences."
My blood turns to ice. "What?"
"You heard me." His thumbs stroke along my ribs through the cotton. "Take it off. Now. In my world, theft has consequences. Even for pretty wives."
"I can't—I'm not wearing—" The words dissolve as my whole body trembles harder.
"I know exactly what you're not wearing." His voice drops darker, hungrier. "I knew when you stole my shirts two nights ago. Did you think I wouldn't notice? Wouldn't feel the fabric still laced with your scent when I found it in the morning?"
Lightning illuminates us, and I see the truth in his eyes. Letting me think I had freedom when really I was just performing for an audience of one.
"Please," I whisper, my fingers clutching the shirt closed at my throat.
"That's not a safe word, cara. That's just begging." His fingers find the top button. "And in my world, begging just makes men like me hungrier."
The button slips free under his fingers. Then the second. The third. Humid air drifts through the gap, thick against heated skin, and he inhales sharply as lightning reveals a strip of bare skin from throat to navel.
"Fuck," he breathes, and his hands shake slightly as they hover over the fourth button.
"I've never—" My voice breaks. "No one has ever—"
"Ever what?" He looks up sharply.
"I've never…" I motion to my body, unable to actually say it. "You've slept with lots of women, but I…"
Something shifts in his expression, the predatory hunger mixing with genuine surprise. "Christ, Frances. You're a virgin?"
His gaze never leaves my body as he undoes the last button.
The shirt hangs open now, lightning and shadow painting my exposed skin in stark relief.
I'm trembling so hard my teeth almost chatter.
The rain starts—fat warm drops that quickly soak the white cotton until it's transparent, clinging to my body.
His eyes go dark as he watches the fabric mold to my breasts, my nipples hard and visible through the wet material.