Chapter 11
EMMA
It’s been three weeks since Leo Santoro kidnapped me on my wedding day, and I’ve stopped trying to escape.
I’m not sure when exactly it happened, but at some point I stopped testing the locks and memorizing guard rotations and hiding maps under the loose bathroom tile.
Maybe it was gradual, a slow erosion of my determination.
Or maybe it was sudden, a single moment where I realized that I can’t leave until Leo decides to let me go, and that doesn’t look like it’s happening anytime soon.
So I might as well make peace with my situation.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway. It’s easier than admitting the truth, which is that some part of me has stopped wanting to leave. Some traitorous, stupid part of me has started to feel comfortable here. Safe, even, which is batshit considering I’m being held here against my will.
But three weeks is a long time to spend with someone. Long enough to start understanding them, even when you don’t want to.
Leo Santoro is brutal and ruthless. I’ve seen evidence of that in the way his men jump when he speaks, in the coldness in his eyes when he’s discussing business, in the scars on his knuckles that tell stories I probably don’t want to know.
But he’s not cruel. Not to me, at least. He’s never made me feel unsafe in that way, beyond the first encounter.
I’ve come to understand over these three weeks of dinners and conversations that Leo is grieving.
He is a man consumed by grief for his brother, by rage at my father, and this need for revenge that he doesn’t know how to let go of.
Underneath all of that, I think he’s lonely.
Desperately, achingly lonely in a way that he’d never admit out loud.
And somehow—impossibly, inexplicably—I find myself wanting to fix him.
Which is stupid. I know it’s stupid. You can’t fix people, and even if you could, I shouldn’t want to fix my kidnapper.
But I do. And that’s the problem.
This morning starts the same way the last week of mornings have started: with coffee in the garden.
Leo brings two cups from the kitchen, one black for him, one with cream and two sugars for me because he’s memorized how I take my coffee.
We sit at the wrought-iron table under the pergola while the sun comes up.
It’s become our routine, this quiet morning ritual where we pretend that our situation is normal and we’re just two people having coffee together.
The pretending is getting easier. That should worry me more than it does.
“You’re staring,” Leo says without looking up from his phone, where he’s scrolling through what looks like emails.
“Get out of here, I’m not staring,” I lie, quickly redirecting my gaze to my coffee cup even though he’s right. I was staring. I’ve been staring a lot lately.
“You were definitely staring.” Leo finally looks up at me with this small smile playing at his lips that makes my stomach do an unwelcome flip. “I could feel it.”
The early morning light does unfair things to Leo Santoro.
It catches in his dark brown hair, highlighting subtle hints of warmth, and makes it look softer than it has any right to be.
I’ve noticed he has a slight wave to it when it’s not styled with product, like right now when it’s still damp from his shower and falling across his forehead.
I want to reach out and push it back so badly.
His eyes look different in the sunlight too.
In dim lighting they appear almost black, intimidating and intense, but in the morning sun I can see they’re actually this deep chocolate brown with these amber and gold flecks scattered through them that I’ve spent way too much time thinking about.
They’re framed by dark lashes that are criminally unfair on a man, and when he looks at me the way he’s looking at me right now, amused and knowing, I forget how to form coherent thoughts.
He’s thirty-five to my twenty-four. Eleven years older, which should feel like a lot but somehow doesn’t.
Maybe it’s because he doesn’t act like he’s that much older.
There’s none of that condescending patience that some older guys have with younger women.
He argues with me like an equal, challenges me, and listens when I talk.
But there are moments where the age difference shows in small ways: in the confidence he carries himself with, how he commands a room, in the decades of experience I can see in his eyes when he thinks I’m not looking, and in the references he makes that I don’t understand.
Sometimes I catch myself wondering if that’s part of what attracts me to him—this combination of maturity and intensity that boys my age don’t have. Then I remember I shouldn’t be attracted to him at all and I spiral into self-loathing for a while.
“Earth to Emma,” Leo says, and I realize I’ve been staring at him again, lost in thoughts about him again.
“Sorry,” I mutter, feeling my face heat. “I’m just…tired. Didn’t sleep well.”
“Nightmares?” Leo’s expression changes to concern, and the fact that he cares enough to ask makes my heart speed up.
“Something like that,” I say, which is sort of true. I did have dreams last night, though they were less nightmares and more extremely inappropriate fantasies involving the man sitting across from me.
Leo sets his phone down, giving me his full attention. The weight of his gaze makes my skin feel too warm. “Want to talk about it?”
“Definitely not,” I say quickly, because there’s no universe where I’m telling Leo Santoro that I dreamed about Leo’s face in between my thighs. “It’s fine. Just…my brain being weird.”
“Your brain is never weird.” The gentle sincerity in his voice does things to my heart rate. “It’s one of my favorite things about you.”
My breath catches. “One of your favorite things?” It’s amazing I was even able to get that out.
Leo seems to realize what he’s said, his expression shifting to something more guarded. “I meant—”
“No, tell me,” I press, leaning forward before I can stop myself. “What are your favorite things about me?”
I watch his throat work as he swallows, his eyes never leaving mine. “We shouldn’t—”
“Shouldn’t what?” I challenge, even though I know he’s right. We shouldn’t be doing this, whatever this is. “Have a conversation?”
“You know that’s not what I mean,” Leo says, his voice dropping lower. The sound of it makes heat pool in my stomach.
Leo’s voice is something I’ve become obsessed with without meaning to.
It’s deep and smooth with just this hint of roughness around the edges, like expensive whiskey and dark chocolate.
When he’s giving orders to his men it's hard and cold and commanding, but when he talks to me it’s…
different. Softer. Warmer. There’s this intimate quality to it that makes me feel like I’m the only person he talks to this way.
And when he says my name—god, when he says my name in that voice—it does things to me that should probably be illegal.
“Then what do you mean?” I ask, my own voice coming out breathier than I’d like.
Leo leans back in his chair, studying me with those dark eyes and warring with himself.
Finally, he says, “I like how you argue with me. How you don’t back down even when you probably should.
I like that you’re smart enough to keep up with every conversation we have and stubborn enough to make me work for every point I score.
I like that you bite your bottom lip when you’re concentrating”—my face is reddening—“and that you hum when you’re sketching and that you always read the last page of a book first even though it drives me crazy that you spoil the ending for yourself. ”
My heart is pounding so hard I’m surprised he can’t hear it. “You’ve been paying attention.”
“I pay attention to everything about you.” There’s something almost helpless in his expression. “I can’t seem to stop.”
The air between us feels electric. Under the table, I press my knees together to keep from doing something stupid like moving closer to him.
“Leo,” I say, and I don’t even know what I’m asking for.
“We should—” He stops, shaking his head. “I have meetings this morning. With Dante. About the Corsican situation.”
“Right,” I say, trying to sound normal even though I feel like I’ve been hit by lightning. “Meetings. Work. Very important.”
Leo stands up but doesn’t immediately leave. He just looks down at me for a long moment, and I swear I can see the same want I’m feeling reflected in his eyes.
“Emma,” he says in a low murmur, a thousand emotions seeming to pass over his face before he takes a deep breath. “I’ll…see you at dinner?”
“Dinner,” I confirm, my mouth dry.
He leaves, and I sit in the garden for another ten minutes trying to get my breathing under control and failing miserably.
I spend the rest of the day trying to convince myself that nothing happened, that the moment in the garden was just my imagination running wild. But when Leo joins me for dinner that evening, all my attempts at self-delusion evaporate.
He’s changed into fresh clothes, and fuck me he looks good. He’s wearing dark slacks and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing his forearms. It shouldn’t be that distracting but it is.
His hair is still slightly damp, like he showered before coming down, and when he sits across from me I catch his scent: cedar and bergamot along with something clean and masculine that I’m becoming addicted to despite myself.
He smells so good. Like high-end cologne and quality soap and something that’s just him. There’s this underlying masculinity that makes my brain go stupid every time I get close enough to breathe him in.
“How were your meetings?” I ask, desperate for something normal to talk about.
“Frustrating,” Leo admits, pouring wine for both of us even though I haven’t asked for any. He knows I’ll drink it anyway. He knows everything about me now. “The Corsican leads keep going nowhere. It’s like chasing shadows.”