Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Alessia
I've built many walls in my life—emotional ones, mostly, designed to keep pain at bay and predators at a distance. But I'd never built a wall out of pillows and sheer stubborn will.
The bed is enormous, easily large enough for four people, but somehow it feels claustrophobic with Matteo Romano lying just three feet away from me.
The pillow barrier I've constructed down the center looks ridiculous—a child's fort built by desperate hands—but it's the only defense I have against the man who's made it clear that I belong to him now.
"Comfortable, principessa?" His voice drifts through the darkness, low and amused, as if my makeshift wall is the most entertaining thing, he's seen all day.
"Perfectly," I lie, clutching the silk sheet to my chest. Without underwear beneath his shirt, every movement of the fabric against my skin feels intimate, dangerous.
"Really?" There's something predatory in his tone now, something that makes my pulse quicken despite my best efforts to remain unaffected. "Because you seem... tense."
"I'm fine."
"Are you? Because from where I'm lying, it looks like you're wound tighter than a spring.
" I hear him shift on his side of the pillow wall, the mattress dipping slightly under his weight.
"Tell me, what has you so on edge? The fact that you're in my bed, or the fact that you're not wearing anything under my shirt? "
Heat floods my cheeks. "I don't know what you mean."
"Don't you?" His voice is closer now, as if he's moved toward the center of the bed. "You keep shifting around like the sheets are on fire. Are you thinking about what I can picture right now?"
"Stop," I whisper, but my voice lacks conviction.
"Stop what? Acknowledging that you're practically naked in my bed?" I can practically hear his smile. "You built this little wall to keep me away, but it won't work, you know."
"It's working fine."
"Is it? Because all it's really doing is making me think about how easy it would be to tear it down. How easy it would be to reach over these pillows and touch you."
My breathing quickens despite my attempts to control it. "You said you don't hurt women."
"I don't. But I never said anything about not touching them." His voice drops to something barely above a whisper. "About not making them feel things they've never felt before."
The words send electricity through my veins, pooling heat low in my belly that I don't understand and don't want. This is wrong. He's my captor, my enemy, the man who's holding me against my will.
So why does part of me want him to tear down this wall? Why does the thought of his hands on my skin make me burn instead of freeze?
"You're vulnerable here, Alessia," he continues, his voice like velvet in the darkness. "Defenseless. At my mercy. Doesn't that frighten you?"
"Yes," I breathe, but it's not entirely fear that's making my heart race.
"It should. But I don't think it's fear I hear in your voice."
Before I can protest, I feel the mattress dip as he moves closer to the pillow barrier. Not crossing it, not breaking the boundary I've set, but close enough that I can feel his presence like a physical weight.
"What would happen," he murmurs, his voice so close now that it feels like he's whispering directly into my ear, "if I reached across this wall right now? If I slid my hand under this shirt and reminded you that you're completely at my mercy?"
My body responds before my mind can catch up—a sharp intake of breath, a tremor in my hands, heat blooming across my skin like I've been touched by flame. I want him to do it. Want it with a desperation that terrifies me because I've never wanted anyone before.
Just as I'm beginning to wonder if it would be so terrible to let him touch me, to find out what it feels like to be wanted instead of owned, he pulls away.
The mattress shifts as he settles back on his side of the bed, leaving me gasping in the darkness like I've been running for miles.
"Sleep well, principessa," he says, his voice carrying satisfied amusement.
He played me. Drew me in, made me respond to him, then pulled back just to prove he could. To show me exactly how much power he has over my reactions, my treacherous desires.
I want to scream. Want to tear down this ridiculous pillow wall and hit him until the smug satisfaction disappears from his voice. But more than anything, I want to understand why my body is still humming with unfulfilled need, why I feel empty and aching and furious all at once.
I hate it. Hate him. Hate myself for responding to him like some kind of desperate creature who's never been touched with anything resembling gentleness.
"Bastard," I mutter under my breath.
"I heard that."
"Good."
His soft chuckle makes me want to throw something at his arrogant head.
Silence settles between us, but it's charged now, heavy with unfinished business and sexual tension that seems to thicken the very air. I lie rigid on my side of the bed, willing my heart rate to slow, my breathing to steady, my body to stop betraying me with its obvious arousal.
"Tell me about him," Matteo says eventually, his voice cutting through the darkness. "Your husband."
"No." The answer is automatic, instinctive.
"Why? Loyalty?"
"Privacy."
"You don't have privacy anymore. Not from me."
The casual statement of ownership should make me angry, but I'm too wrung out from our earlier exchange to summon much indignation.
"What do you want to know?" I ask, resigned.
"What was he like? As a husband."
I consider lying, giving him some sanitized version of my marriage that doesn't reveal how pathetic and powerless I really was. But what's the point? He already knows I'm not pregnant. Already knows I was desperate enough to fake medical records.
"Controlling," I say finally. "Everything had to be his way. What I wore, where I went, who I spoke to. What I ate." I pause, surprised by what comes out next. "What I drank."
"He controlled what you drank?"
"Among other things. Coffee was forbidden. Made me too alert, too difficult to manage. I was supposed to drink herbal tea, something that would keep me calm and compliant."
"But you drank it anyway."
It's not a question. Somehow, he's read between the lines, seen the small rebellion hidden in my words.
"Sometimes. When he was traveling or sleeping off a particularly heavy night. I'd sneak down to the kitchen and make myself a single shot of espresso with just a dash of milk. Stand at the window and pretend I was someone else."
I hear him shift again, and I wonder what he's thinking. Whether he sees me as pathetic for staying, for enduring, for not fighting back harder than I did.
"Did you ever try to leave?" he asks quietly.
"Once," I whisper. "Early on, maybe two months into the marriage. I made it as far as the train station."
"What happened?"
"Lorenzo found me. Dragged me home." I touch the spot on my ribs where the worst bruise used to be, the one that took three weeks to fade completely. "He made it very clear what would happen if I tried again."
Silence falls between us again, but it's different now. Less charged, more... understanding? I can't tell what he's thinking, but something in the quality of his breathing suggests I've given him information he didn't expect.
I roll onto my back, staring up at the ceiling, and find myself studying his profile in the dim light. Even in the darkness, he's handsome—all sharp angles and contained strength, the kind of masculine perfection that belongs in museums or medieval poetry.
But it's the scar along his jaw that draws my attention.
The thin line of raised tissue that mars his otherwise perfect features, telling a story of violence and survival that matches my own in its brutality.
I trace the memory of it in my mind, wondering what violence left that mark, as if the scar itself holds a secret he refuses to give away.
Without thinking, I reach toward him. My fingers extend past the pillow wall, seeking the damaged skin, wanting to trace the evidence of whatever pain carved that mark into his flesh.
His hand closes around my wrist like a vice, stopping my fingers inches from his face. The grip is firm enough to bruise, sharp enough to make me gasp.
"Don't." The word is deadly quiet, carrying a weight of warning that makes my blood run cold.
"I was just—"
"I know what you were doing." His fingers tighten fractionally around my wrist, and I can feel the strength in his grip, the violence he's holding back through sheer force of will. "And I'm telling you not to."
"It's just a scar."
"It's off-limits." He moves my hand back to my side of the bed with deliberate precision, his touch impersonal now, clinical. "Don't ever reach for it again."
The command settles between us like a physical barrier, more effective than any wall of pillows. I've found his boundary, the one line I'm not allowed to cross. Whatever story that scar tells, it's not one he's willing to share.
"Understood," I say.
"Good." His voice is normal again, the dangerous edge contained once more. "Now sleep. Tomorrow will bring its own complications."
I close my eyes and try to follow his command, but sleep feels impossible with the memory of his grip still burning around my wrist and the weight of all his secrets pressing down on me.
Eventually, exhaustion wins out over anxiety, and I drift into restless sleep filled with dreams of coffee and scars and hands that could kill or caress with equal skill.
I wake to the sound of running water and pale morning light filtering through heavy curtains. For a moment, I'm disoriented—this isn't my bedroom in the Moretti house, with its cream walls and carefully chosen artwork designed to make me feel like a guest in my own life.
This is Matteo's domain. Dark wood and masculine luxury. The pillow wall I built last night is still intact, though it looks even more pathetic in the daylight.