Chapter 14 - Emma
The charity luncheon for orphaned children feels like a cruel joke when you’re just back from your single-mom friend’s funeral.
Crystal chandeliers drip light across the Chicago Historical Society ballroom, transforming two hundred of the city's most influential women into glittering predators.
Twenty days of coaching from Alessandro hasn't prepared me for this.
I sit at the head table in my cream Chanel skirt suit, Alessandro selected it this morning, his fingers lingering on each button as he dressed me like a doll, trying to remember which fork comes next.
"The Rosetti family's generosity toward orphans is legendary," the woman to my right gushes, her diamonds catching light with every gesture. "Your mother-in-law would have been so proud."
I nod, smile, deflect. Alessandro's mother is dead, as Frances would know. Emma learned it from kitchen gossip. The woman I'm supposed to be exists somewhere between those truths.
Across the ballroom, Alessandro conducts business near the bar, but his eyes find me every few minutes. Checking. Protecting. Owning. The weight of his gaze makes my skin flush beneath the designer wool, makes me press my thighs together under the table.
"Oh look," my tablemate whispers, "here comes Mrs. Rourke."
The name means nothing to me, although I'm sure it should. I watch the woman approach, seventy-something, wearing pearls, her smile sharp as winter. She moves through the crowd like Moses parting the sea, lesser mortals stepping aside.
"Mrs. Rosetti," she says, voice carrying enough to draw attention. "How delightful to finally meet Alessandro's mysterious bride."
I stand to greet her, and immediately know I've done something wrong. Her eyes narrow at how I rise, servant-quick instead of society-smooth. Her eyes linger on my hands as I adjust my napkin, the same calculating look Mrs. Hewson used to give me when inspecting my work.
"Mrs. Rourke." I extend my hand, but she air-kisses instead, her perfume cloying.
"My dear friend Sofia tells me you're just back from Europe. Did you get to the Louvre?" she asks, settling into the empty chair beside me like a cat preparing to play with its food. "A private tour, naturally, to avoid the hordes."
"Of course," I manage, the same vague answer that's worked before. "I like an evening showing. It puts the pictures under the best, er, lights."
"Indeed." Her smile widens at my awkward sentence.
I follow her gaze and glance down at my hands wrapped around the delicate china, both hands, like I'm afraid it'll escape. Like a servant protecting something precious that isn't hers. My face burns as I adjust my grip to one-handed, pinkie out, the way I've seen other women do it.
"How refreshing," Mrs. Rourke continues, loud enough for our table to hear, "to see someone so… unaffected by traditional etiquette training."
The women around us titter nervously. They smell blood in the water, but aren't sure whose.
I force my spine straighter, channel the persona I'm supposed to be. "I prefer authenticity to artifice."
"As I say, how refreshing."
My hands shake as I reach for my water glass, nearly knocking it over. Several women notice, eyebrows raising.
"Careful," Mrs. Rourke says sweetly. "These settings can be so overwhelming when you're not used to them."
Alessandro's attention sharpens from across the room. I see him excuse himself from his conversation, but Mrs. Rourke isn't done.
"Tell me," she says, voice pitched to carry, "what was your maiden name again? Before you became a Rosetti?"
The question hangs like a guillotine blade.
"Hewson," I manage, but my voice cracks.
"Ah yes, new money. I suppose that explains it." Mrs. Rourke's smile turns predatory.
The other women lean in, sensing scandal. My chest tightens, breath coming shorter.
"It's fascinating," she continues, addressing the table now, "how marriage changes people. Some rise to their new station. Others…" Her gaze rakes over me. "Well, money can't buy breeding, can it?"
The words strike deep. Because she's right. I don't belong here, and I never will.
I can't breathe. The room spins slightly, all those watching faces blurring together. She's right. I'm nobody. A servant girl in stolen clothes, pretending to be someone who matters.
"Excuse me," I whisper, standing too quickly. My chair scrapes against marble, the sound echoing.
"Oh dear," Mrs. Rourke says with false concern. "I do hope you're not ill."
I flee. Not gracefully, not with dignity, but with the desperate speed of prey escaping a predator. My heels click against marble as I rush toward the bathroom, vision blurring with tears I refuse to let fall until I'm alone.
The bathroom door swings shut behind me, muffling the ballroom's noise. I grip the marble counter, staring at my reflection in the gilt-framed mirror. The bathroom's marble feels cold, perfect, like everything in this world that isn't really mine. My reflection fractures through tears.
Look at me. Chanel suit. Diamonds at my throat. Hair styled by professionals this morning. And underneath it all, still nobody. Still the servant who learned to be invisible, who scrubbed these kinds of floors, who doesn't deserve any of this.
My breathing comes in short gasps. Panic attack.
I recognize it from the nights after Mom died, when the weight of raising Tommy alone would crush my chest until I couldn't breathe.
My fingers fumble with the Chanel jacket's buttons, loosening them, trying to breathe.
The sink's edge bites into my palms as I grip it, needing something solid, something real.
The suit feels like it's suffocating me. Designer wool, and it's strangling me. Mrs. Rourke saw right through it. Saw the servant underneath, the nobody playing pretend.
The door opens. I expect another woman, come to witness my humiliation.
But it's him.
Alessandro fills the doorway, green eyes dark with something between rage and hunger. He steps inside, and I hear the lock click behind him. The sound shoots straight to my core despite my panic.
"Stellina."
"Don't." I back against the wall, needing distance. "Please don't."
"She made you cry." Not a question. His jaw clenches, hands fisting at his sides. "That dried-up bitch made you cry."
"She told the truth." The words tumble out between gasps. "I'm nobody. A new-money nobody playing dress-up. Pretending to be somebody."
"Stop." He moves closer, caging me against the wall. His body heat makes my nipples harden despite everything. "Stop right now."
"You don't understand," I sob, the panic making me reckless. "I never even wanted all this. Money, fancy parties, any of it."
"I know." His voice is soft, dangerous. "Let me take care of you."
He drops to his knees.
The sight stops my breath. Alessandro Rosetti, who commands rooms with a glance, who makes grown men tremble, is kneeling on the bathroom floor in his Armani suit. The position puts his face level with my hips, and my pussy clenches at the implications.
"What are you."
"Worshipping what's mine." His hands find my thighs through the Chanel skirt, thumbs stroking in circles that make me wet despite my tears. "You are the most precious thing in my world. Do you understand that? Not the name you wore at our wedding. You. Emma. Whatever name you choose."
"Alessandro."
"That woman out there?" His voice drops to a growl that vibrates through my bones.
"She's nothing. Dust. Forgotten the moment she dies.
But you?" His hands slide higher, bunching the designer skirt, fingertips finding bare skin above my stockings.
"You're everything. My obsession. My perfect corruption. "
"I'm nobody."
His mouth presses against my inner thigh through the silk stockings, and my protest dies in a moan.
"You're mine," he murmurs against my skin, teeth grazing through the delicate fabric. "And I worship what's mine. Let me show you what you do to me, how hard you make my cock when you just breathe."
He pushes my skirt higher, revealing the lace underneath. French, expensive, chosen by him this morning. I'm already soaking through it, my body betraying me even in distress. His eyes darken as he sees the wet spot spreading across the delicate fabric.
"Fuck, look at you," he groans. "Already dripping for me. Your pussy knows who it belongs to, even when your mind doubts."
"We can't. Not here."
"We can and we will." His fingers hook in the lace, dragging it down slowly. "I'm going to make you come on my tongue while two hundred women sit outside. You're going to grip my hair and ride my face until you forget that bitch's name."
The lace slides down my legs, catching briefly on my heels before he tosses it aside. Cool air hits my exposed pussy, making me shiver. I'm completely bare beneath the designer skirt now, vulnerable and aching.
"Spread your legs," he commands, and my body obeys before my mind can protest.
He looks up at me from his knees, green eyes burning with possession. "Watch me worship you. Don't close your eyes. I want you to see who's on his knees for you."
His mouth finds my most intimate place without warning, tongue sliding through my untouched folds in one long stroke that makes my knees buckle. Only his hands on my hips keep me upright as he introduces me to a pleasure I've never known.
"Oh God," I gasp, hands flying to his hair, gripping the dark strands, overwhelmed by this first invasion.
The sensation is shocking, foreign—this is territory no one has ever explored. I feel vulnerable, exposed in a way I've never been before. My body responds to him instinctively, though my mind still struggles to process this new feeling.
"Not God," he growls against the center of my innocence. "Just me. Your husband claiming what no man has tasted before."