Chapter 9 Lucia
LUCIA
It only takes four measly days for Giovanni Dragoni to erase every remaining trace of the woman I was pretending to be.
Just a handful of days under his roof, our roof, as everyone keeps insistently calling it, and the world I built on a Caribbean beach feels like something I dreamed up during a fever.
As I expected, luxury presses in from every angle.
There’s the very obvious kind, the marble floors that feel warm beneath my bare feet no matter the hour, the windows that frame the Hudson like a living painting, the quiet hum of security so constant it fades into the background like white noise.
And then there’s the subtler kind.
Surveillance disguised as service. Men who open doors before I reach them while melting into the background.
Staff who glide into rooms to offer tea, coffee, silk robes, options.
And the most disconcerting thing of all?
They answer to me. Not around me.
To me.
“Yes, Signora.”
“Of course, Mrs. Dragoni.”
“Whatever pleases you, ma’am.”
“Shall we inform your husband?”
The first time it happens, I correct them.
The second time, I stiffen and let it pass.
By the third day, the word husband settles into my chest like a weight I can no longer pretend I don’t feel.
And while I know full well I’m being managed, the only person I take my disgruntlement out on is Giovanni, who looks at me as if daring me to protest the obscene luxury and endless pampering.
I try to mount a subtle rebellion only to find out my island suitcase never made it onto the plane. Shocker.
With only the pair of cheap, dirty trainers and the island dress I wore on the plane now the only reminder of my time on Antigua, I greet this news with a hollow, humourless laugh as I stand barefoot in the dressing room on my second morning back, staring at a closet that looks like it was curated by Milan itself, while a handful of stylists I didn’t invite and barely tolerate flit around me, flashing designer labels.
Prada. Dolce & Gabbana. Versace. Bottega Veneta. Valentino.
Silk blouses in jewel tones, tailored trousers that whisper instead of wrinkle. Dresses that cling and slash and drape like they were designed with a single purpose: to remind me exactly whose world I’m standing in.
“Not a cotton sundress in sight, am I right?” I say to no one in particular.
“Snarky commentary?” Giovanni asks mildly from the doorway, phone pressed to his ear as he listens to someone speaking urgently in Sicilian.
“I assume my things are… delayed,” I say dryly.
“If by delayed you mean lit on fire with the nearest incendiary device to hand, then sure.”
“They were my things, Giovanni.”
“They were unnecessary. Cheap crap that was an affront to your beautiful body.”
I turn to glare at him, even as my insides light up at the gruff, unabashed observation, tossed out without once looking up from his call.
“Unnecessary,” he repeats calmly, then switches languages mid-sentence, German this time, his tone dropping into something darkly appreciative when he looks up at last and his gaze flicks over my body.
I feel it like a physical touch, fighting the urge to squirm when my skin prickles. “What did you just say?” I demand.
He ends the call and smiles faintly. “Nothing you need translated.”
I narrow my eyes and pull out my phone, typing fast. “Repeat it,” I dare him.
With a dark gleam in his eye and one thick shoulder braced in the doorway, he does.
A second later I wish he hadn’t when Siri’s voice fills the room, bright and merciless, translating his words aloud for the stylists hovering nearby.
If my wife keeps looking at me like that, I’m going to fuck her senseless before dinner.
The room freezes.
Someone drops a hanger.
My face goes nuclear. “You… you didn’t just say that!” I protest hotly.
Giovanni merely shrugs and goes back to his phone as if he hasn’t just detonated a bomb.
Something kicks inside me then. Sharp and fizzing and dangerous. Like one of Marcel’s extra-strong cocktails hitting my bloodstream all at once.
I tell myself I’m not feeling what I’m feeling. That this lightness, this illicit flicker of excitement and elation, is just adrenaline. Just proximity. Just my body being stupid.
I will endure this nonsense until I find a way out. But since I’m here now…
What’s wrong with looking the part?
The dress I choose is black and unapologetic, cut low enough to make a statement and fitted enough to make it impossible to ignore.
When I step out of the changing area, Giovanni looks up.
Really looks.
His conversation cuts off mid-word and the room goes very still.
He lifts one hand, fingers snapping once. “Out.”
Everyone freezes.
“Now.” It’s low and lethal and spine-razing.
Stylists scatter to the four winds, the door clicking shut behind the last.
He crosses the room in three strides and catches me before I can even breathe, his hands firm on my waist as he lifts me effortlessly onto the nearest surface.
“Giovanni—”
“This,” he says quietly, his mouth near my ear, “is not helping my patience. And my fucking balls.”
The rest of the world falls away. I’m aware of his hands, his breath, the way the air thickens between us.
His fingers trace the edge of the dress’s neckline, deliberately slow, deliberately torturous.
“Eighteen months,” he murmurs against my neck, his lips brushing skin that suddenly feels too sensitive, too alive. “Eighteen months of restraint, amore. Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. His mouth finds mine instead, demanding, possessive, the kind of kiss that tastes like barely-leashed control.
When he pulls back, his dark eyes are molten.
“I’ve been patient. I’ve been good.” The word drips with irony. “But this dress, you in this dress, looking at me like you want me to break…”
He drops to his knees in front of me, and the sight of Giovanni Dragoni, the Don, the man who commands empires, on his knees before me steals my breath.
His hands slide up my thighs, pushing the fabric of the dress higher, and I realise with a jolt of electricity that he has no intention of stopping.
“Tell me to stop,” he says, but it’s not really a question. His mouth is already moving against my inner thigh, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. “I fucking dare you,” he challenges thickly.
But we both know I won’t. We both know I can’t.
He drags my panties down with strong, impatient fingers, and I hear them rip even before they reach my knees.
Between one heartbeat and the next, I’m scrambling to brace my hands on the flat surface of the dressing room’s island as he snags one knee and throws my leg over his broad shoulder.
Dark eyes bore into me, still daring me, as his tongue finds me with devastating precision, and I gasp, actually gasp, my hands flying to his shoulders, his hair, needing something else to anchor me as sensation floods through me like wildfire.
His groan is thick and guttural and primal, his brazen kiss all-consuming.
He’s methodical about it, almost reverent, his mouth working with the same focused intensity he brings to everything else.
There’s no rush, no desperation despite the tension that’s been coiling between us. He takes his time, savouring, learning me, tasting me, his low groans vibrating against my skin in a way that makes my thighs tremble.
“Fuck, you taste like heaven,” he breathes against me, and the profanity sounds like a prayer in his accent.
His hands grip my hips, holding me steady as he intensifies the pressure, driving me higher with each deliberate movement.
I’m falling apart, actually coming undone, my breath fragmenting into gasps and his name, over and over.
I yelp as he snags my waist, driving me higher until I’m fully situated on the island, then he lays me flat, wedges both shoulders beneath my legs.
My husband feasts on me with the ravenous devastation of a lion, and I…I can do nothing but gasp and moan and beg him not to stop.
I barely last a handful of seconds longer than the last time before I finally break.
With a muted scream, my orgasm crashes through me like a wave, and he doesn’t stop, doesn’t ease up, just keeps going until I’m shaking, until I’m begging him for mercy.
He pulls back slightly, pressing a kiss to my inner thigh as I come down, his breathing as ragged as mine.
When he rises, his eyes are dark and satisfied and still hungry.
I feel the force of his erection, right there against my melting core as he kisses me, lustily inviting me to taste my release and my surrender.
When I gasp in shock at the sweet, decadent taste, he uses the opportunity to delve his tongue between my lips, to tangle hot and urgently with mine for a full minute before he withdraws.
I’m trembling and breathless and furious with myself for how completely he still owns my body as he straightens my dress with almost ceremonial care.
“That,” he says calmly, “is what you’re wearing tomorrow night. I love the idea of recalling you like this as you play hostess to our guests.”
I frown, forcing my brain to track because I know I’ve missed something vital. Or maybe something I’m hearing for the first time? “Guests? What are you talking about?”
“We’re hosting a dinner party. Our first as a married couple. The staff are taking care of everything but feel free to get involved with the planning if it pleases you.”
I shake my head, scoffing weakly. Until I realise he’s not smiling. “You’re joking. Aren’t you?”
He brushes a light kiss over my lips, then straightens. Curls his fingers through his hair to straighten strands I dishevelled during my ride to nirvana. “No, ragazza. I never joke about timing.”
I scramble upright, missing a few vital lungfuls of air when he brazenly adjusts his engorged shaft.
Then he hands me a tablet.
There’s a guest list made up of thirty-five names, each with a little note of food preference attached to their names.
My eyes frantically skim, widening when I catch names I’ve seen on TV and in news headlines.