Chapter 20 Luca #2
I wonder if she touches herself in the dark, remembering the way we used to be together.
The thought makes me hard, and I hate myself for it.
Most nights, I lose the battle to that, ending up with my hand around my cock as I stroke myself to thoughts of a woman who both is and isn’t now my wife—a woman who doesn’t exist and does at the same time.
I come hard, every time, groaning and forcing myself not to say Valentina’s name or Giulia’s as I spurt into my fist at the thought of the best sex I’ve ever had that I’ll never have again.
Toward the end of the first week, I come home late and found her in the kitchen.
She's wearing soft cotton pants and a tank top with no bra, the sight of her nipples pressed against the cotton making my cock twitch despite myself.
Her hair is down, falling in dark waves around her shoulders.
She looks young and vulnerable, and so fucking beautiful it makes my chest ache.
She freezes when she sees me, a glass of water halfway to her lips. "I'm sorry," she says quickly. "I didn't think you'd be home yet. I'll just—"
"It's your house too," I speak through clenched teeth. "You don't have to apologize for being in your own kitchen."
She nods but doesn't move. "How was work?" she asks after a beat, the question coming out stilted, and the question is so desperately domestic that I want to laugh.
Or scream.
"Fine,” I say harshly. She flinches, but keeps going. I’d admire her stubbornness, her tenacity, if it weren’t part of something that feels like it’s killing me.
"Did you eat? I ordered pasta. There are leftovers in the fridge if you're hungry."
"I ate."
It's a lie. I haven't eaten since lunch, and my stomach is growling. But accepting food from her feels too intimate, too much like the kind of thing a real husband would do.
"Okay." She sets down her glass and moves toward the doorway, clearly planning to leave and give me space. "I'll just—"
"Giulia."
She stops, turns back to me. There’s a sudden flare of hope in her eyes that makes me feel like the asshole, even though she’s the liar. "Yes?"
I don't know what I was going to say or why I stopped her. I just know that watching her walk away felt wrong somehow.
My jaw clenches. "Nothing. Goodnight."
Disappointment washes over her face, the hope sliding away. "Goodnight, Luca."
She leaves, and I stand alone in the kitchen, surrounded by evidence of her attempts to build a life here. The pasta she ordered that I won't eat, and the flowers she bought that I won't acknowledge. The home she's trying to create that I refuse to participate in.
I grab a beer from the fridge and go to my room.
—
Somehow, the second week is even worse. Dante calls me into his office on Tuesday, and I know immediately that something's wrong—he has that look on his face that means someone has displeased him and consequences are coming.
"Sit," he says, gesturing to the chair across from his desk. I sit.
He doesn't speak right away. Finally, he leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers. "The whispers are getting louder.”
I don't need to ask what whispers. "What are they saying?"
"That the marriage isn't real. I forced it to cover up a scandal. That you and Giulia can barely stand to be in the same room together." He pauses. "They're not wrong, are they?"
"We're married. That's real enough."
"Marriage is a piece of paper, Luca. What matters is what people believe. And right now, they don't believe you're in love with my daughter."
The word 'love' lands like a punch to the gut. "With all due respect, what I feel for Giulia is—"
"Irrelevant." He cuts me off, his voice sharp. "What matters is perception. What matters is that our enemies see a united front, a strong alliance. Not a forced arrangement that can be exploited."
"I'm doing what you asked. I married her. I'm providing for her. I'm—"
He leans forward, his eyes hard. "You're playing the role in the most minimal way possible. And it's not enough. People are starting to talk. Starting to question. And when people question, they start to test. To probe for weaknesses."
I know he's right. But hearing it stated so bluntly makes it impossible to ignore. "What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to be more convincing. I want you to act like a man who's in love with his wife, who's excited about becoming a father. Who's building a life with her," he pauses. "I want you to sell it, Luca. Make them believe it."
My jaw works. "And if I can't?"
"Then you'll stoke a vulnerability that our enemies will exploit, and I won't tolerate that." His voice hardens. "You made your choice when you got my daughter pregnant. Now you need to live with the consequences. All of them. Or deal with the personal consequences of failure.”
I don’t need to ask what those might be. In some ways, I expect that my death might be preferable to Dante. With Giulia a widow, he might be able to marry her off to some old don, someone who needs an heir and a wife to keep his bed warm for as long as he can still get his cock up.
The thought makes me suddenly, irrationally angry. I don’t want her, but the thought of anyone else having her makes my blood boil. The thought of another man touching her makes me feel murderous.
The meeting ends, and I leave his office feeling like I've been given an impossible task.
How am I supposed to act like I'm in love with her when I can barely look at her without feeling like I'm suffocating?
How am I supposed to touch her, to be affectionate with her, when every interaction feels like a betrayal? But I don't have a choice.
That night, there's a family dinner at Dante's house, not just the immediate family, but trusted, close associates and their families as well, a small, intimate gathering. I've been to dozens of them over the years as Romeo’s second and friend, but this is the first one since the wedding.
Giulia is already there when I arrive, standing in the living room talking to Savannah.
She's wearing a dark green dress that hugs her curves, her hair swept up in an elegant twist. She looks beautiful…
and so fucking sad it makes something twist in my chest despite myself.
She looks devastated, and I know I have to do something about it.
This is exactly what Dante is talking about.
Our eyes meet across the room, and I see the flash of anxiety in hers, the uncertainty. She doesn't know what to expect from me tonight.
Neither do I.
I cross the room to her, and I can feel everyone watching, assessing. Judging.
"Hi," she says softly when I reach her.
"Hi." I lean in and kiss her cheek with a brief, chaste touch that's appropriate for public. Her skin is warm and soft, and she smells like jasmine. "You look beautiful."
The compliment clearly surprises her. Her eyes widen slightly, and I see color rise in her cheeks. "Thank you."
I take her hand. Her fingers are cold, trembling slightly. I thread my fingers through hers. The gesture is possessive and intimate—exactly what Dante wants me to project. It feels like a lie, but I hold on anyway.
Throughout dinner, I play the role perfectly. I touch her hand when I'm making a point, put my arm around her waist when we're standing together. I lean in close when she's speaking, like I'm hanging on every word. And she responds. Fuck, she responds, and it makes it all so much fucking worse.
She leans into my touch like she's starving for it, smiles when I say something that could be construed as affectionate.
I can feel her desperation like a physical thing, can see how much she wants this to be real, how much she wants me to mean the touches and the looks and the carefully chosen words.
It makes me feel like a monster. Because I don't mean any of it.
I'm just performing, playing a role to satisfy her father and protect the organization.
And she knows it, deep down. I can see it in her eyes when she thinks I'm not looking, the way the hope fades when I pull away.
Her smile becomes brittle and forced every time.
But she plays along and laughs at my jokes, touches my arm. She looks at me like I'm her whole world. The dinner ends, and we say our goodbyes. Dante pulls me aside before we leave. "Better," he says simply. "Keep it up."
I nod and go find Giulia. She's waiting by the door, her coat already on, her expression carefully neutral.
The drive home is silent. I can feel the tension radiating off her, the way she's holding herself so carefully, like she's afraid to move, afraid to break whatever fragile thing was happening tonight. I can tell some part of her is still hoping it’s real.
We're three blocks from the house when she finally speaks. "Thank you," she says quietly. "For tonight. For... trying."
The word 'trying' lands like an accusation. I wasn't trying, I was performing.
"It's what your father wanted.” I hear how cold my voice sounds. She flinches like I've struck her.
"Right. Of course." Her voice is barely audible. "I just thought—"
"Don't." I cut her off. "Don't think. Don't hope. Don't read anything into tonight except what it was—a performance for your father and his associates."
"I just—"
I open the door the moment the car is in park. "I have some work to do. Don't wait up." I get out of the car before she can respond, before I can feel guilty about the way I'm treating her.
I can't afford to feel guilty or let her in. But partway through the third week of our marriage, I started noticing things I wished I hadn't.
She's sick in the mornings. I hear her once or twice, passing down the hall or passing a bathroom on the first floor.
I can hear her vomiting, and then the sound of running water.
Once, I see her come out of the bathroom pale and shaky, and I pretend I don't notice. But I do notice. I notice everything.
She's tired all the time. She looks exhausted if I see her in the mornings, and more than once I catch her having fallen asleep on the couch when I come home late at night. I should wake her up, but that feels too much like taking care of her, so I leave her there every time, feeling horribly guilty that I’m leaving the mother of my child to sleep on the couch.
But if I were to wake her, urge her upstairs, it would feel like tenderness.
Her face is drawn, and there are dark circles under her eyes that makeup can't quite hide.
She's emotional, more so than in the past. I hear her crying sometimes, late at night when she thinks I'm asleep—soft, muffled sobs that make something twist in my chest. And she's showing.
Just barely, but it's there—a slight swell to her stomach that wasn't there before.
Evidence of the baby growing inside her.
My baby.
The thought should fill me with joy or anticipation. Instead, it just makes me feel trapped, tied to her in a way I can never escape. But it makes me feel something else, too, as I start to see the clear evidence of what caused all of this in the first place.
A strange protectiveness… a desire to care for her even though none of my hate or resentment has gone away. It only complicates the constant tangle of emotions in me, making me more restless and irritable than ever, but I find myself doing small things all the same.
She’s an obligation, I remind myself. She and the baby have to be cared for, for me to keep up my end of the deal. I tell myself that’s all it is when I pick up crackers and Sprite on the way home, or when I leave her ginger tea on the counter in the morning.
She never mentions anything about it. Not the tea or the snacks, or when I leave protein shakes in the fridge that are easy to drink, or prenatal vitamins in the bathroom.
I stock the pantry with other things I’ve seen her eat over the years—gummy bears, Parmesan crackers, and a jar of pickles in the fridge, just in case.
And I don’t admit to myself why I’m doing any of this. It would mean admitting that I still care. That despite everything, despite the lies and the manipulation and the betrayal, I can't stand the thought of her suffering.
But deep down, I know there’s something more than pure obligation. I just ignore it, like I have everything else that I’ve felt since the night Giulia told me the truth.