Chapter 11 – Alessandro
S omething possessed me. I didn’t have the first idea why I told Penelope any of that. There was no way to end the engagement, and yet a compulsion I wasn’t able to resist consumed me to speak.
My fiancée shifted beside me.
“Are you cold?” I asked, forcing my voice as gentle as I knew how to make it—which wasn’t much.
“No, I’m fine.” She smiled up at me.
I studied her. This was the perfect mob wife, raised to shine in the position. And yet her cousin’s words rang in my ears. I was the villain. The unbreakable bargain that bound us was something I agreed to in good faith.
Signorina Caravello might be a mafia princess, but she wasn’t ready to be a queen.
Despite her age and disposition, Poppy would submit to the rules of my house. She would have access to unlimited wealth. With the proper precautions, she would even be allowed out of the house to mingle with civilians. And there were the endless functions that required my presence as a businessman. Otherwise, Poppy would stay at home. She knew it; I knew it.
That was the challenge her cousin presented. Already, Penelope had been in more dangerous situations in the short time we’d known one another than most mob wives were in their entire lives.
She can’t be caged.
I sighed and threw back my whiskey. Even if I could break the engagement, if I could take the woman who fascinated me, it would end in disaster.
And I would not have my wife put in that situation—not again.
Moving away from my fiancée, I wandered to the bar. “Could I show her how important the safety measures are?”
Penelope was a reasonable woman. Perhaps she wouldn’t see life married to a don as a cage.
The tiny metal object dangling against my chest pulsed.
No…not that one.
Penelope was used to a life of freedom. She existed in a world wild and free, and captivity would break her. I drummed my fingers furiously against the bar top. That indomitable will was part of the attraction. No woman had mesmerized me in decades, and the one instance in the past was nothing compared to this inferno.
I wanted Penelope.
But there was no logical way to take her, no sane way to keep her.
“Another drink, sir?” The bartender appeared in front of me, white catering uniform spotless.
I nodded. “Flat water.”
Only after I ordered, did my gaze shift across the room. It was what the object of my obsession was drinking. I found myself suddenly parched.
What would my father say if he saw me? I beat that thought back. I wasn’t losing control, I wasn’t giving into my emotions. If there was a logical way to take what I wanted, he would be damn proud of me.
My tongue ran viciously over my teeth. My fingers curled tight into a fist. And the air barely seemed to be able to fill my lungs.
There just wasn’t a way.
And yet as I watched Penelope throw back her head in laughter, a swirling darkness slid through my veins like a black poison. What did that laughter taste like? As good as her soft screams? Damn, it was torture.
I won’t touch her. The vow reverberated through my mind. But it was absolutely necessary. To sample the forbidden would be disastrous. I was a don, the leader of my organization. My actions affected more than just me. Bringing the consequences of dissolving the contract down on my people would be irresponsible.
If it was only my life at stake, I might just try.
But it wasn’t.
Yes, it might kill me to spend my life resisting her. I would exist with the knowledge that Penelope would end up with another, that she would be forever out of my reach.
I need to forget about her.
It was absolutely necessary.
Taking my water, I wandered back to my station on the other side of the room. As I passed close, I heard Penelope’s rich laughter, the teasing lilt in her voice as she gossiped with the Caravello princeling. It shook my resolve.
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I muttered. There was no conceivable way to wipe her from my memory. There had to be a way, even if it took divine intervention, to make her mine.
This was why men started wars over women. It was a story old as time. The only question left to ask myself was: Am I the kind of man who could do that?
Penelope’s gaze drifted to mine. She raised her glass of water in a small salute, before turning back to the cousin.
I am.