Chapter 20 Beatrice
BEATRICE
“Ido.”
Marta beams up at her husband, love and devotion spilling from her in a way that feels almost sacred. The kind of love that doesn’t ask permission to exist.
A smile claims me before I can stop it. There is something unbearably powerful about witnessing two people choose each other in front of the world, about hearing vows spoken with certainty instead of fear.
“And do you, Marcello Dante Faravelli, take Marta Riola to be your lawfully wedded wife?” Father Torre asks, his voice warm, his eyes shining with the same joy he wore at our own wedding only weeks ago.
Marcello doesn’t hesitate. He looks at her like she is the axis his world turns on. “I do.”
The words settle into the air, soft but unbreakable, carrying promise and permanence all at once. A breeze slips through the olive trees behind the altar, lifting Marta’s veil as though the land itself is blessing them.
She is radiant. Glowing with quiet strength and joy, her belly gently rounded beneath pale silk, life growing where love already lives. Marcello stands at her side, solid and proud, his hand locked around hers with instinctive certainty, like he was always meant to hold her there.
I sit in the second row with my fingers woven through Matteo’s, his warmth traveling from my palm up my arm and into my chest, anchoring me. The sun kisses my skin. The guests settle around us in hushed reverence, their presence a soft hum beneath the moment.
“So, by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Marcello cups Marta’s face and kisses her with a hunger that leaves no doubt about who she belongs to. The crowd erupts, applause crashing over us, and even Valerio and Matteo, usually carved from stone, surrender matching smiles.
The rings on Matteo’s and my fingers catch the sunlight, a quiet reminder of vows still fresh, memories barely weeks old yet already etched into my bones.
We’ve only been married a short time, yet the days since feel unreal in their beauty. The wedding was everything I dreamed of and more, and somehow life afterward has been even sweeter. A fairytale I wake up inside every morning, my heart still floating despite the shadows that tried to follow me.
I am safe.
I am home.
And still, sometimes, I forget that this life is mine now. That I am allowed to breathe without fear. Allowed to want without punishment. Allowed to be touched with gentleness and claimed with devotion. I let myself believe in forever, even knowing the world has a way of trying to steal it.
Matteo’s thumb strokes over my knuckles, slow and deliberate, as if he feels the shift inside me before I do. He doesn’t look away from the altar. He doesn’t need to speak. His awareness of me is constant, unyielding.
As if my heart beats somewhere in his chest, and he was built to hear it.
I release a slow breath, feeling it catch beneath my ribs before it finally slips free.
Peace has been scarce lately, something fragile and fleeting, but here, wrapped in warm light and quiet celebration, it feels real enough to trust. I let myself sink into it, if only for a moment, letting the stillness settle into my bones.
My hand drifts to my belly without conscious thought.
It is still small, still easily hidden beneath silk and tailoring, but I feel it all the same.
The subtle weight. The undeniable presence.
Life growing quietly inside me—something carried through gunfire and blood oaths, in a world that has never been gentle with me.
Matteo notices immediately. He always does. His fingers tighten around mine, grounding and sure, while his other arm settles across the back of my chair in a way that is effortless and unmistakable, a silent declaration to anyone watching that I am his and under his protection.
I glance at him from the corner of my eye. God, he is devastating.
The sharp cut of his jaw, the dark stubble shadowing his skin, the weight of a thousand decisions etched into his gaze. Yet when his eyes shift to me, all that steel softens into something private, something unguarded, something meant for me alone.
Marcello and Marta make their way down the aisle, and soon the guests are ushered into the ballroom, a space transformed with candlelight and elegance.
Voices blend together, laughter rising and falling as people mingle.
I recognize familiar faces from our own wedding and others I have only ever seen in headlines and whispered warnings.
It strikes me then how strange this world is, how love can be toasted by men capable of so much destruction, how vows and violence exist side by side without contradiction.
Matteo and I stand together, taking in the room as waiters glide past with trays of champagne flutes and delicate bites, but my attention never truly leaves him.
I should be admiring the décor, memorizing the details, yet all I can think about is how impossibly good my husband looks in his suit, how the fabric clings to strength and promise and possession.
Heat coils low in my body, familiar and insistent.
This pregnancy has turned quiet want into something ravenous, something that flares without warning and refuses to be denied.
No matter how many times Matteo takes me apart and puts me back together again, the hunger always returns, sharper, deeper, unrelenting.
“Bella?” His voice is soft, attuned to every shift in me as his fingers brush a loose strand of hair from my cheek. “Are you okay?”
I turn toward him, the heat humming just beneath my skin, alive and aching.
“I…” I lean closer, lowering my voice until it is meant for him alone. “I’m feeling a little… stimulated.”
The word leaves my lips like a confession, forbidden and dangerous.
“Stimulated?” A slow smile curves his mouth, dark amusement lighting his eyes.
“Matteo, don’t,” I murmur, looking away even as my body betrays me. “It’s these hormones. They’re driving me insane and I—”
The words dissolve between us, heavy with meaning, suspended in the charged space where his restraint and my need collide.
“Come!”
He takes my hand without warning, his grip firm and decisive, pulling me just outside the ballroom where the music dims.
“Where are we going?” I ask, though my body already knows.
He glances back at me, a knowing smile curving his mouth, dark and unhurried. “Somewhere private,” he says softly. “Somewhere to take the edge off.”
Heat blooms instantly, sharp and insistent, spreading through me like a slow burn finally fed oxygen.
I follow without hesitation, my steps quickening to match his, my thoughts unraveling as anticipation coils tight in my chest. The hormones surge, reckless and demanding, urging me forward as my body responds long before my mind can catch up.
I will never tire of him. Not in this lifetime, not in any that might follow. Want has never felt like this before, never so consuming, never so inevitable.
With Matteo, it isn’t just desire. It is belonging.
We don’t make it far from the ballroom, only to the shadowed corridor behind the chapel where the stone walls swallow the music and laughter and leave us wrapped in the thick summer air that smells of roses and heat and everything I have been trying not to feel.
The moment we turn the corner, something inside me snaps loose.
I grab Matteo by the lapels, drag him down to me, and kiss him like I’ve spent the whole night starving for him, the heat between us sparking instantly, sharp and consuming.
“I need you,” I whisper, already pulling him deeper into the dark, my voice breaking apart. “Now.”
His gaze sweeps over me, taking in my flushed skin, my blown pupils, the hunger I no longer care to hide, and then he slams me back against the wall with a force that steals every breath from my lungs.
“You’re trembling,” he murmurs, his mouth brushing my ear as one hand pins my wrists above my head and the other slips beneath my skirts with the kind of certainty that tells me he has been imagining this moment far longer than I have admitted to myself.
“Matteo—” I try to speak, but my voice shatters as my thighs open around his hand, desperate for a friction I can’t name and won’t survive without.
His fingers find me instantly, sliding through heat and slickness that makes my knees buckle. A broken sound tears from my throat, but his palm covers my mouth.
“You’ll give us away.”
Two fingers press inside me, slow and deep, curling in a way that sends shockwaves through my spine, and I arch helplessly against him, biting my lip to keep silent as pleasure tightens low in my belly.
His thumb grazes my clit with deliberate, punishing precision while his mouth tugs my neckline aside and claims my breast, his lips closing around my nipple with a possessive hunger that nearly drags a scream out of me.
“I want you inside me,” I gasp, the confession spilling out before I can swallow it, my fingers twisting in his shirt as if I can pull him into losing control with me.
His fingers continue to curl inside me, moving with a slow, sensual rhythm that undoes me in ways I’ve never known.
“Oh God—” I tear my mouth from his as he adds a third finger. “I—I mean your cock, Matteo.”
He drives his fingers into me hard, stealing the breath right out of my lungs.
“Shh.” His tongue traces my jaw before his mouth claims mine again. “You forget,” he murmurs. “I’m in charge.”
I want to argue. I want to tell him I won’t be controlled—but his fingers take my words before I can form them. He bites my ear, and I break, my body reacting to every stroke, every press against my slick heat.
“Fuck—right there, Matteo. Yes… yes—”
“Greedy girl.”
I move with him, meeting his fingers with everything I have, my hips jerking, searching for friction like I might come undone without it.
“Matteo,” I moan. “I—”
“I know, baby. I know.”
He drops to his knees, tugging my dress up and out of the way, baring me to the warm air.
And then his mouth closes over my clit.