Chapter 9 Eleanor
Eleanor
We’re in Leonardo’s bedroom. It’s big. I feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. My suitcases are lined up against a wall, and he seems to think I’ll actually agree to sharing a room with him. He’s leaning against the door frame, looking at me with lazy eyes. As if daring me to disagree.
“I won’t be doing sleeping in here,” I say. My voice is sharp. Precise. I learned from the best.
His eyebrows go up, and he cracks his knuckles. “Oh, really?” He folds his arms across his chest, acting like this is amusing. Like I’m amusing. “You got some fucking nerve.”
“You seem surprised. Was it the ring that convinced you I’d roll over and play the obedient wife?”
His smile gets wider, and my heart kicks against my ribs. I want to claw it out and hand it to him. “The ring? No, babe.” He pushes off the wall. Walks toward me. Slow and steady, like he’s trying not to spook me. “It was the wedding vows.”
His hair is dark red, a wild tangle that falls in his eyes. Tattoos curl around his arms, down to his knuckles. Leonardo Rosetti is a lion in a cage.
“You act like you already own me,” I say. My fingers twist my mother’s ring. My one reminder of a life before it turned to crap.
He laughs. The sound is harsh and bright in the cold room. “I do, Eleanor.” He’s closer now. “I got the papers to prove it.”
My pulse is a traitor. I won’t let him see it. I won’t let him see anything. “This is a marriage of convenience,” I say. “For both of us. Don’t pretend it’s anything else.”
“You’re not that convenient,” he says. His hand closes around my wrist, but there’s no real force in it.
The world tips sideways. The ring digs into my palm. Panic hits me. I picture being pinned under him, helpless and small, forced to share his bed, forced to spread my legs.
As if he sees it on my face, Leonardo leans in.
His eyes are molten. I feel the heat of him, almost feel his skin burning mine.
“You think I’m going to force you?” He says it low, and something in his voice makes my skin prickle.
“You’re in for a fucking surprise, babe.
I’ll have you in my bed, but only when you ask nicely. You’ll be begging for it.”
The words should cut, but they melt the edges of my fear instead. I pull my wrist back, and this time he lets me.
“So I’m just supposed to move in with you?” I ask. “After this?”
“That’s the deal.” He doesn’t blink, doesn’t flinch. “What’d you expect?”
“I expected to be paid for. Not to sleep with the accountant.”
He lets out a bark of laughter. “Christ, you are something.” He turns away and grabs a phone from his pocket. It vibrates in his hand. “No lying, no running, and no touching other men,” he says. “That’s all I demand.”
“I’m not good at following orders.”
The phone rings again, a buzzing mosquito. Leonardo glares at the screen. “You’d better fucking learn.” His thumb moves across the screen, and he starts yelling into the phone, striding out of the room and down the hallway.
I wait for his voice to recede into the distance and take a deep breath. The bedroom smells like him. Soap and smoke. It makes my heart race. I drag two suitcases into the hallway, past the empty, lifeless rooms. They’re full of polished furniture and dead air. This is a house with no heart.
I stop at a bedroom far from his, open the door, and dump the suitcases inside. He didn’t fight for me, not really. Not like I thought he would.
I kick off my shoes and rifle through my suitcases, then shimmy out of my silk wedding dress and change into designer jeans and a simple blouse and sweater, discarding my gown on the floor.
I leave the room. I want distance. Space to breathe.
I wind down the stairs, and the front hall stretches out before me.
Cold marble under my feet. It’s beautiful in an expensive, impersonal way.
I slip out the back door. The estate is huge. Grounds with no warmth, no soul. It’s cold enough to snow, and I wrap my arms around myself as I make my way into the garden. The wind slices through my sweater, but it’s better than being inside.
I sit on a bench in the garden, behind tall shrubs that block me from view., then pull out my phone and call Juliet.
She answers on the second ring, and her voice is breathless. “Eleanor? Are you okay?”
It’s so good to hear her, to know I did this for a reason. For her. “I’m fine, Jules.” I hope she doesn’t hear the strain in my voice. “How’s father treating you?”
There’s a pause, and I can picture her biting her lip, nervous but happy. “He’s... okay. He seems pleased. I think you did the right thing.”
The wind bites at my face. I can’t help thinking that even when he’s pleased, our father is never happy. “And you?”
“I wish you didn’t have to do this for me.” She sounds small, younger than her nineteen years. “The house is so empty without you. It’s just me and father, and even you are better company than him.”
I smile at the gentle teasing. “Surely not. Just… call me whenever you need to. Promise me.” How did it come to this? The only person I love in the world, stuck in a different soulless museum from me.
“I promise.”
“Jules? I love you.” I don’t wait for her to say it back. I end the call and press the phone to my chest, feeling the cold metal through my sweater.
The wind picks up, and I shiver. What kind of man is Leonardo? Is he more than just a thug in an expensive cage?
No lying, no running, and no touching other men. That’s all he asks.
The rules pound in my head as I walk back to the mansion. I don’t intend to obey any of them.