Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Zara
I stared at the ceiling of my room and tried to convince myself that the ache between my legs was a bad thing.
Except every time I shifted, every time I squeezed my thighs together, I felt him. The ghost of his hands. The burn of his possession. The way he’d filled me so completely that I couldn’t remember where I ended and he began.
I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes and groaned.
What the fuck did I just do?
The words echoed in my head, mixing guilt with raw need. I wanted to crawl out of my skin, ashamed I’d given in—but another part of me, darker and wilder, was buzzing with excitement. Was I more ashamed that it happened, or thrilled? I didn’t know.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I reached for it blindly, squinting at the screen.
Jaime
Hey, no worries. I’m sorry if that was your boyfriend or something. I didn’t mean to cause trouble. Hope you’re okay.
I’d sent Jaime a rushed apology text the second I’d stumbled out of that bathroom, my legs still shaking, my dress hiked up and hastily smoothed down, my face flushed with a color that had nothing to do with shame and everything to do with the orgasm still ringing through my body.
The restaurant staff looked at me with a mixture of pity and judgment. And Lorenzo had been waiting outside in his car, window rolled down just enough for me to see the hard line of his jaw.
He didn’t say a word the entire drive home.
Neither did I.
What was there to say?
Sorry, I went on a date behind your back.
Sorry, I did it subconsciously to make you jealous.
Sorry, I came harder than I ever have in my life when you bent me over that sink and fucked me like I was the last woman on earth?
No. None of that.
I typed back a quick response to Jaime, then tossed my phone aside and rolled onto my stomach, burying my face in the pillow.
The truth—the ugly, shameful, beautiful truth—was that I’d wanted it.
I’d wanted him.
From the moment I’d walked into that bar a week ago, crying over a man who didn’t love me, I’d felt Lorenzo’s eyes on me like a brand. And some sick, broken part of me had been chasing that feeling ever since.
I rolled onto my back again, staring at the ceiling.
The penthouse was silent. Lorenzo had disappeared into his room the moment we got home, muttering something about sleep. The doorman, Jensen, had given me a knowing look as I shuffled past him toward the elevators, my cheeks burning.
My body still hummed with the memory of him. I could feel the ghost of his hand around my throat, the pressure of his chest against my back, the way he’d growled in my ear— “I own you, Zara. You’re mine.”
I should have been horrified.
I should have been packing my bags and calling a lawyer to annul this ridiculous marriage that was just consummated in the Koto bathroom.
Instead, I was lying in his bed, in his penthouse, with his cum still drying on my thighs, and I was smiling.
No, I wasn’t smiling.
I was grimacing.
That’s what it was. A grimace of regret and self-loathing.
I sat up abruptly, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. The ache between my thighs pulsed, a sweet, deep soreness that reminded me exactly how thoroughly he’d taken me.
But this was only a marriage of convenience, I reminded myself. A contract. Nothing more.
Yet the way he’d looked at me in that bathroom—the way his eyes had gone dark and feral, the way his voice had dropped to that low, possessive growl—that wasn’t convenience. That wasn’t contractual.
That was an obsession.
And I was starting to wonder if I was just as obsessed as he was.
I stood and crossed to the mirror on the closet door.
The woman staring back at me looked different from the one who’d left this apartment earlier today. Her hair was a mess, tangled and wild. Her lips were swollen, slightly bruised from biting back moans. Her eyes—those were the worst part. They were bright, alive, and hungry.
I looked like someone who’d just been thoroughly fucked by a man who knew exactly what he was doing.
Because I had.
I shouldn’t like this.
The thought was a mantra, repeated over and over in my head like a prayer I didn’t believe in.
I shouldn’t like the way he controls me. I shouldn’t like the way he tracks my phone. I shouldn’t like the way he grabbed me in front of a whole restaurant and dragged me to the bathroom like I was his property.
But I did.
God help me, I did.
I’d spent my whole life being overlooked.
Being the girl who wasn’t quite enough. My father had left when I was eight, and I’d spent the next decade trying to earn love from men who didn’t know how to give it.
My last boyfriend had made me feel like a convenience, something to be used and discarded when it was no longer useful.
But Lorenzo?
Lorenzo looked at me like I was the only woman in the world.
Lorenzo touched me like he was afraid I’d disappear.
Lorenzo had punched a man for putting his hand on my arm.
That should have terrified me. It should have made me run.
Instead, it made me feel seen because, in some twisted way; he cared enough to track my phone, to show up at that restaurant and make a scene. And he wanted me enough to fuck me in a public bathroom until I couldn’t remember my own name.
I turned away from the mirror, disgusted with myself, and crawled back into bed. The sheets were cool against my heated skin. I pulled them up to my chin, curling into a ball, and tried to make sense of the chaos in my head.
A notification on my phone pulled my thoughts after a few minutes of chaotically writing in my journal, trying to process the thoughts before I had another panic attack.
Carla
Zara, I made you some tea. It’s outside the door. Please drink it. You look like you need it.
I smiled despite myself. Carla was the only person in this penthouse who seemed to genuinely see me—not as a possession, not as a contract, but as a person.
I got up, opened the door a crack, and found a steaming cup of chamomile tea on a small tray, along with a handwritten note.
“He’s not as scary as he pretends to be. Give him time.”
I snorted quietly, shaking my head.
Time wasn’t going to fix whatever was wrong with Lorenzo Falcone. Time wasn’t going to un-break the parts of him that made him track my phone and punch strangers and fuck me like he was trying to brand his name onto my soul.
But maybe time wasn’t the point.
Maybe the point was that I was just as broken as he was.
Maybe the point was that we deserved each other in some wicked, toxic way.
I took the tea back to bed, wrapping my hands around the warm mug, and let the steam curl up around my face.
I could still smell him on my skin.
Could still feel him inside me.
For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel empty.
I didn’t feel unloved.
I felt wanted.
And that terrified me more than anything else.