Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dante
I stay away all day on purpose.
Meetings that could have been phone calls. Lunches that stretch into late afternoon. Anything to avoid going home and dealing with the aftermath of my decision about her clothes.
It's cowardice, and I know it.
But after last night—after what happened between us—I need space to think. To get my control back. To remember that this is business, not personal.
Even if the lines have blurred so badly, I can barely see them anymore.
By the time I pull through the gates, it's after eleven. The house is mostly dark, just a few lights on in the upstairs windows. The security team gives me a nod as I pass.
Inside, everything is quiet.
Too quiet.
I loosen my tie as I climb the stairs, already bracing myself. Bianca's had all day to work herself into a fury about the clothes. She's probably planned seventeen different ways to murder me in my sleep.
I push open the bedroom door.
She's in bed, covers pulled up, back to me. Exactly like last night. Except this time, I can tell she's not asleep. Her breathing is too controlled. The kind of fake sleep where you're pretending not to notice someone.
"I know you're awake," I say, shrugging off my jacket.
"Go away."
I move to the closet, stripping off my shirt, hanging up my jacket. "We need to talk about—"
"About how you threw away all my clothes? About how you violated what little privacy I had left? About how you're a controlling bastard who thinks he owns everything?" She still hasn't turned around. "No thanks. I'm done talking."
"Bianca—"
"I hate you." Her voice is flat, cold. "I thought I hated you before, but I didn't understand how much until today. Until I realized you took everything that was mine and replaced it with... with..."
"With appropriate clothes for your position."
"With slut clothes!" She whips around now, sitting up, and I can see tear tracks on her face. "Every single thing you bought me is designed to make me look like I'm for sale. Like I'm your property that you're showing off."
The tears hit me harder than her anger.
"They're designer clothes. Expensive—"
"I don't care if they cost a million dollars each!" Her hands are shaking. "They're not mine. They're yours. They're what you want me to be, not who I am."
"You need to look the part—"
"Of what? Your whore?" She's out of bed now, stalking toward me in that t-shirt that's somehow survived the purge. "Because that's what those clothes say, Dante. That I'm available. That I'm yours to use however you want."
"That's not—" I run a hand through my hair, frustrated. "You're deliberately misunderstanding—"
"I understand perfectly." She's close now, close enough that I can see how red her eyes are. "You don't see me as a person. You see me as an accessory. Something to dress up and parade around and mold into whatever image you need."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it?" She crosses her arms. "You took my clothes, Dante. Not just the skirts and blouses. Everything. My pajamas. My underwear. Even the stuff I wore around the house when no one was looking. You took it all and replaced it with what you wanted."
Guilt twists in my chest, unexpected and unwelcome.
"I was trying to help—"
"Help?" She laughs, bitter. "You were trying to control me. Again. Like you control everything else in this arrangement."
"I control things because I have to. Because maintaining appearances matters. Because—"
"Because you can't stand anything you don't own completely." She's right in front of me now, jabbing a finger into my chest. "Well guess what? You don't own me. Not really. You own my time, you own my mother's health, you own this contract we signed. But you don't own who I am."
"I never said I did—"
"You didn't have to say it. You showed it." Her voice cracks. "Those clothes were mine. They were the only things in this house that were mine. And you took them."
The vulnerability in that admission does something to me I don't want to examine.
"I'll have Maria get you different things," I say finally. "More like what you had before."
"I don't want your charity."
"It's not charity. It's—"
"Control. Everything with you is control." She backs away, wrapping her arms around herself. "I just want to sleep. Alone. But apparently, that's not allowed either."
She climbs back into bed, pulls the covers over her head like a child hiding from monsters.
And maybe I am the monster.
I stand there for a long moment, trying to figure out how this got so twisted. How a simple wardrobe update turned into this.
But I know how.
Because I went too far. Because I didn't just buy her new clothes—I erased her old ones. Took away one of the few things she had control over and replaced it with my vision.
It was a power move, that’s why I did it.
But it’s also cruel.
I move to the other side of the bed, strip down into my sweatpants, and lie down.
She shifts away from me immediately, putting as much distance between us as the mattress allows.
"Bianca," I say quietly.
"Don't."
"I'm not trying to erase who you are."
"Yes, you are. You just don't realize it." Her voice is muffled by the covers. "Or maybe you do and you don't care."
"I care—"
"You care about appearances. About making sure I fit into the box you've created." She's quiet for a moment. "But you don't care about me. Not really."
The accusation stings more than it should.
"That's not true."
"Prove it."
"How?"
"Give me back my clothes. Or at least let me pick out my own things from what you bought. Something that doesn't make me feel like I'm a doll playing dress-up as your fantasy."
I could do that. Should do that.
But it would mean admitting I was wrong. Admitting I went too far.
Her breathing is still ragged from her tears, a soft, hitching rhythm that fills the silence I let stretch. I should give in. Tell her she can have whatever clothes she wants. It’s the right move. The smart one.
But something in her tone ignites a different response entirely.
I turn onto my side to face her. She’s just a shape under the duvet, turned away, but I can feel the heat coming off her.
“You want me to prove I don’t just see you as a thing to control?” My voice is low, a rough murmur in the quiet room.
She doesn’t answer, but her shoulders tense. She’s listening.
I move slowly, giving her every chance to pull away. My hand finds the edge of the duvet. I don’t pull it down. I just rest my fingers there, on the linen. Her body goes perfectly still.
“Then stop hiding from me.”
A long moment passes. The air is thick, charged. Then, with a sharp, frustrated motion, she shoves the covers down to her waist. She’s still wearing that soft, worn t-shirt. Her face is turned away from me, her profile sharp in the moonlight. Her chest rises and falls too fast.
My gaze travels down the line of her throat, over the frantic pulse beating there, down to where the thin cotton of her shirt strains across her chest. Her nipples are hard peaks against the fabric.
Fucking hell.
I shift closer. My bare chest doesn’t touch her back, but I feel the warmth of her skin through the emptiness between us. A phantom pressure. I bring my mouth to the shell of her ear. Her breath catches. A tiny, sharp intake of air.
“You think I bought those clothes to humiliate you?” I whisper, my lips so close they almost brush her skin. A tremor runs through her. “You think I want a doll to dress up?”
I let my hand settle on her hip, over the shirt. My fingers press into the soft give of her flesh, feeling the solid bone beneath. She’s rigid, holding herself so tense she’s practically vibrating.
“Look at me, Bianca.” I purr in her ear.
She shakes her head minutely, a stubborn refusal that makes my blood heat.
I apply the slightest pressure, urging her onto her back. She resists for a heartbeat, two, then relents, letting me roll her over. Her eyes are wide, glossy in the dark, fixed on the ceiling. Refusing to look at me. Her lips are parted.
I lean over her, one arm braced beside her head, caging her in. My face is inches from hers. I can smell the faint scent of her shampoo, the clean sweat on her skin, the unique, warm fragrance that is just her. My gaze drops to her mouth.
She’s so fucking beautiful.
“I don’t want a doll,” I murmur, my voice dropping even lower.
“Dolls are cold.” I bring my other hand up, but I don’t touch her face.
I hover my fingers just above her cheek, feeling the heat radiating from her skin.
“They don’t flush like this.” My fingers trail down, a hair’s breadth from her jaw, her throat. “They don’t get warm.”
I let my knuckles brush against the side of her breast.
She jolts as if electrocuted, a full-body spasm, and a broken sound escapes her lips. Her eyes finally slam shut.
So damn responsive.
“They don’t make sounds like that,” I say, my own breath starting to labor. The front of my pants is straining, painfully tight. The need to pin her down, to crush my mouth to hers, to tear that shirt aside is a screaming impulse in my veins. I clench my jaw, fighting it.
I lower my head until my lips are beside her ear again.
“The clothes aren’t entirely for them, Bianca.
They’re for me. So when I look at you across a room, knowing what’s underneath…
” I let my words trail off, letting her imagine it.
“It has nothing to do with control. And everything to do with this.”
This time, I do touch her. I slide my hand down her side, over the curve of her waist, down to the hem of her shirt. I slip my fingers beneath it, finding the bare skin of her stomach.
She gasps. Her skin is like silk, hot and smooth. Her abdominal muscles contract under my touch, a frantic flutter. Her eyes fly open, locking with mine. There’s no anger in them now. Just shock. And a deep, dawning hunger that mirrors my own.
I splay my fingers wide, palm flat against her stomach, holding her there. The feel of her is incredible. Her hips give a tiny, involuntary jerk.
A slow, wicked smile touches my lips. “See?” I whisper, my thumb stroking a slow, maddening circle just below her navel.
“You’re not a doll. This isn’t control.” I press my palm down more firmly, feeling the rapid, shallow pulse of her breathing.
“This is the one thing I can’t control. And neither can you. ”
I lower my head again, my mouth hovering over hers. Our breaths mingle, hot and desperate. I can almost taste her. Her lips are right there. Right there. It would be so easy.
But I don’t.
I stop.
I just hold myself there, a fraction of an inch away, letting the tension coil to a breaking point. Letting her feel the full, unbearable weight of the want that’s been building between us for days.
Her chest is heaving now, her body arching slightly, seeking a contact I’m deliberately denying her. A soft, frustrated whimper escapes her throat.
I’m totally fucked.