Chapter 28
Luca
“OWN ME.” SHE didn’t know how her demand destroyed what was left of my desecrated soul.
Because I’d given her the truth—I would ruin hers.
The future was not as bright as what she envisioned, but the vow was done.
For better or worse, Vivienne was a Mancini, and with her God as witness, I would never let her go.
I brushed my lips across her forehead, then rested them by her ear to whisper, “My innocent bird, you will present your fucking gorgeous body to me when I say it’s time and without question. First, we celebrate your new name.”
After a deep inhale of vanilla and sin, and with a hard thump of my heart, I withdrew from her hold.
She was flushed and primed for the taking.
Christ, I wanted nothing more than some privacy to strip her bare, but Francesca waved us over for pleasantries and a feast she started preparing the minute we announced our intentions.
But first, I held up her hand and showed everyone the crest resting below Vivi’s knuckle, where it would remain forever. “La mia sposa, my beautiful wife, Mrs. Vivienne Mara Mancini.”
She stiffened at my side, probably because Damian’s glare resembled Sam’s.
I couldn’t blame them or the priest’s grave expression as we bent to sign the marriage certificate.
This union was wholly unexpected, yet it was cemented when Vivienne’s signature dried on the paper, and a sick satisfaction burned through my veins.
Then her friends stole her away from me, and I scowled my displeasure.
“Keep that up, and you won’t have any friends,” Dante said, handing me a crystal tumbler. “I thought you might need a drink.”
I downed half the contents in one swallow, then stared in appreciation at the glass. “Smooth.”
“Double Eagle. Only the best for my fratello.”
I grunted and finished the bourbon.
“You did the right thing,” he countered.
“Did I?” I asked while watching Vivi laugh with her friends. “They may be new and different, but she still has chains.”
“And the alternatives? Death or another man? Nah, even with that heinous face, you’re the better option.”
The corner of my mouth curled up. “So that’s how you treat family.”
He sipped from his own glass, and our attention focused on Vivi accepting a present from Father Musa. Probably some forsaken pendant to bury with the other one in her luscious cleavage. A make-believe symbol protecting her from evil. To protect her from me.
“That’s how I roll, my brother.” Dante laughed, dark and somber.
“All warm and fuzzy and shit. Stefano and Vigo, not so much.” Our attention shifted to the king as he entertained guests with kind gestures, as if he hadn’t threatened to kill his daughter if she refused my hand.
“They are not so welcoming. Remember your promise. One week. Learn her secrets, or he’ll use his own tactics to make your wife speak.
Right or wrong, that is the corner Simone backed her into when she passed on incriminating information.
The Cabello business always comes first.”
He pounded my back and slicked on a smile, leaving no room for rebuttal. “But today we celebrate, sì?” He plucked a ball of fresh mozzarella and a glass of champagne from a tray passed by a waiter. “Come and dance with your bride and let us congratulate the birth of a new family.”
His voice was loud, and the clinking of glasses was louder as he nudged me toward Vivienne.
Wide-eyed and innocent, her hand clung to mine.
I found her ring and rubbed it with a searing possession I’d never felt, even as his toast echoed across the compound.
“May you have many babies and name them all Dante. Evviva gli sposi!”
Cheers rushed in. Vivi blushed, and I forced the contents of my stomach to stay down. We would have no children—that was a promise I made to myself and any God who cared to listen.
Vivienne was perfection. Our children were just a dream.
I wouldn’t bring a child into a lie, and marrying their mother was a deplorable sin I’d never confess.
I wanted her too much. I wanted a life with her, so she could never know the truth of our situation.
Affection would bleed into hate, and I wouldn’t survive an empty future.
Her head tilted back as she looked at me.
Her pink cheeks and bright smile assaulted my dour mood.
I kissed her supple mouth, hoping one day my wife would find forgiveness in her heart. She would need it.
?
THE RECEPTION WAS something I tolerated because it was Vivienne’s only chance for the experience. Hours in, I’d had enough small talk and waiting. I was hungry for solitude and her skin. My own vibrated with need as I swept her into my arms.
“It’s time,” I announced to all who remained.
“I’m perfectly capable of walking,” she said while snuggling into the crook of my neck as I made my way to the water’s edge.
“Just as well, I carry you, uccello. Sand and heels will slow us down.”
She perked up enough to see the thirty-foot cruiser docked with a crew of my handpicked men.
“Where are we going?”
“A surprise for your wedding night. I thought you’d rather be anywhere but on Cabello property.”
The only response I received was her nose to my throat and the brush of lips against my pulse.
Thanks enough for the effort it took to secure this outing with little time to plan.
As soon as we boarded, I removed my jacket and covered her shoulders from the wind.
We rode on the bow, my hands braced on the rail, with her back to my front.
Vivienne was unnerving; the effects were intense.
As we cut through each swell, her body found mine until the last twenty minutes, when we stayed flush.
Heat seared my veins. I trembled with a raw, undefined need.
If Vivienne sensed the urgency, she didn’t say a word.
She only leaned her head onto my shoulder, soothing my beast as if she understood I needed the balm.
“Hancock Island.” I pointed to the pinprick of lights on the horizon, which grew into starbursts as we approached. “Doc Straus and I talked—in fact, we had four days’ worth of time to fill. I called this morning to ask about the cottage he mentioned.”
She glanced at my chin, studying the five o’clock shadow, and then at my lips. “And to collect a favor?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“How many people are in debt to you, marito?”
“Enough. Look.” I pointed to Doc’s summer place as we slowed.
The cottage was small and blue. Black shutters lined each of the four windows bracketing the canopied entrance.
I had no idea what we’d find inside, but it didn’t matter because of Vivienne’s bright smile.
Her excitement was catchy, and I bit back a grin as I assisted her to the dock.
I kept her hand in mine as we walked to the door.
Then I stopped, picked her up, and carried her across the threshold—a small tradition I could provide when she missed so many others on her wedding day.
After I set her down, she slipped out of my jacket and spun around in the center of a long room with whitewashed knotty pine.
Her laughter bounced off the walls and settled deep in my chest. Francesca’s staff had prepared the cottage before our arrival.
Fire crackled in the hearth. Candles flickered.
Blinds were shuttered, and fresh sheets were drawn to the foot of the bed as if we’d sleep there. I had other plans.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered, when, in reality, it was Vivienne who was perfection.
The moment the guys dropped our bags on the floor, I locked the door behind them and turned toward my wife. Christ. My pulse thrummed. Something electric buzzed beneath my skin. Vivienne stared into the hearth, the flames illuminating the delicate slope of her jaw and the plump outline of her lips.
I loosened and stripped my tie, removed my gun, and left everything on the table next to the bed.
Then I went to her. Vivi’s eyes blinked to my own just before I pressed myself against her back, dropping my nose into her nape and breathing in vanilla and sin.
A tremor rocked her shoulders. I held on tighter, giving us both a moment to sit in the silence of our thoughts.
Mine were too chaotic, amped up on adrenaline and lust.
“I want to see you,” I murmured, then nipped her neck.
She moaned, and the sound shot straight to my dick. “Haven’t you already? Over those four days when I slept, you took care of me.”
I pressed my smile into her hair as my fingers worked on the line of buttons beginning at the middle of her spine. It was a tedious task that served as a long wick to my explosive need. When the last one popped open, she shivered, but the cottage wasn’t cold.
“You want me to share all my secrets?” I asked while sliding the silk from her shoulders. I traced each vertebra with my fingers as the dress fell, but she caught it before it pooled by her feet.
“Just this one. For now,” she added.
I held her around the waist but used my other hand to stroke over her lingerie-covered breast on its way to her throat.
My thumb found her frantic pulse, and mine exploded.
Flames licked under my skin. My monster shook against my rib cage.
Take her. Own her. Make her mine. Instead, I inhaled a shaky breath and spoke into the sensitive flesh below her ear.
“Day and night, uccello, I stripped and cleaned every inch and every bruise, and I cursed your father and his bastard son for the welts and for forcing me to take liberty with your body. But I also confessed my sins and gave you my promise.”
She tilted her head, resting her cheek against my forehead. “Tell me.”
I sighed, holding her tighter. “My confession: I lied and hoped you’d punish me for the injustice. I’ve cared, little bird. I do care. I have for so long I don’t know when the emotion started, and I promised I would until the day I die.”