Julia
I smooth down my hair, fussing with my skirt as I prepare to knock on the office door.
I know it likely doesn’t matter all that much what I look like, but I want to make sure I give myself the best chance possible of convincing Antonio to hear me out, when by the sounds of it, he has bigger things to concern himself with.
It’s been nearly a week since the wedding, and I haven’t set foot outside of this mansion since I arrived. I’m starting to feel the walls close in on me, the reminder of everything that I’m trying to escape crushing down so heavily it feels like I might never make it out.
I know I shouldn’t let it get to me, but I can’t help it.
I remember all too well what it felt like to have to lock myself away in my room just to stay safe, to feel like stepping foot outside would bring the weight of the world down on my shoulders, and I swore, after I left home, that I would never let it happen again.
And now here I am, whether I like it or not, staring down the barrel of it with a painful clarity of just what it means to be back here.
I can’t blame Antonio, of course, for taking the matter of my protection so seriously.
I’ve heard whispers from the guards and the other household staff who have been tending to me, about Andreo, how he’s defected to some other business.
It sounds like something that bastard would do, turn his back on what he had committed to in favor of a better offer.
I mean, that’s more or less what he did to me at the wedding, right? It’s not hard for me to believe he would do the same thing to his father, as much as I don’t want to admit that I got pulled into his bullshit for so long.
But the truth is—I’m not part of this world.
Yes, I was with Andreo for a few years, and yes, I technically have Antonio’s ring on my finger right now, but I’m going to make a case for my freedom. If he just gives me a divorce, then this can be done with, and I can go back to my old life.
I mean, I’m not even sure what that life is going to look like, given that I had been living with Andreo before the wedding and thought I would be building a life with him, but I’m sure as hell willing to find out.
Ugh. I can’t help but feel, as I stand outside the office ready to plead my case, that I’m going to be walking back into the same mess as when I first left home all those years ago.
Running away from my parents at seventeen, with no job experience, with the tail end of a high school diploma that I had to fight tooth and nail to get my hands on, and virtually no money to my name.
I scrambled and scrabbled and slept on couches just to get by, and while it was better than living in that hellhole, it still wasn’t exactly easy.
How could I let something like this happen again?
I should never have trusted Andreo when he told me that he would do whatever he could to look after me.
A guy like that only holds it over your head as a means of control, not a genuine promise about the future.
He knew how little I had, and he made the most of it.
But that doesn’t mean I have to let his father do the same. I roll my shoulders back, lift my knuckles to the door—and before I can even tap on it, it opens before me and I spring back in surprise.
“Oh, Antonio,” I blurt out, eyes darting back and forth. “I—I needed to speak with you about something…”
I trail off as I look up at him. He looks exhausted, as if he’s entirely spent—dark circles under his eyes, shirt unbuttoned slightly, sleeves rolled up, hair a mess.
He crosses his arms over his chest, observing me for a moment. “About what?”
I take a deep breath. “About whether or not I need to be here.”
Something in his face slams shut. “We already talked about this,” he tells me hollowly, turning to head back into the office.
I rush in behind him, not wanting to give up this chance to speak with him now that I’m here.
I had to sweet-talk one of the guards, Joe, into letting me out for long enough to meet with Antonio.
The rest have been quick to brush me off, telling me that Antonio’s got better things to do than deal with me.
“I understand that,” I tell him, keeping my voice as even as I can, running through everything I’ve practiced in my head. “But I—I’ve been thinking about it, and I just can’t see why I need to stay here.”
“Because you’re in danger if you leave this place.”
“But am I?” I ask, tipping my head to the side and planting my hands on my hips. “I mean, if we break up, get a divorce, whatever, then I’m going to have no connection to this…” I gesture around. “This world of yours. There’s nothing else tying me to it, and—”
“You think you can just walk away from this?” He turns to me, voice taking on a sharper edge, and I jolt slightly in surprise.
“Uh, I didn’t mean it like that—”
“Yes, you did,” he says bluntly. “You really don’t understand, do you?
You can’t just cut yourself off from this and be done with it.
There’s always someone who’s going to be behind the curve, someone who’s going to see you as someone who has access to me.
Shit, even seeing the inside of this mansion is enough for some people to hunt you down, and let me tell you, they’re not going to be gentle when it comes to getting the information they want from you. ”
I shiver. I hadn’t even thought of that.
That even as far as I’ve come is enough to put a target on my back for life.
Every inch of information about Antonio can be used as currency, and that goes for everything I know about him, as little as that is.
He might be close to a mystery to me, the small flashes of what looks to be his true self hidden behind so many layers I’m not sure I can parse them so easily, but his cold stare leaves no room for argument even as I try to search some way out of this.
“So you’re staying here. With me,” he tells me, as he sinks back down into his seat.
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“As long as what takes?”
His lip curls up slightly, clearly irritated by the third degree. I don’t move a muscle. I know that I might not get a chance to speak to him about all of this again, and I will be damned if I just let it all slip through my fingers now that I have the opportunity.
“As long as it takes to secure my business.”
My shoulders slump. That’s not even close to a real answer, and I’m sure he knows it. That could be months—years, even.
All at once, I can feel the walls closing in around me, those memories flooding back into my head whether I like it or not—hiding out in my room, knowing that if I set foot outside, I would pay for it.
I bite back a lump in my throat, willing myself not to show him any kind of emotion.
For a man like this, emotion is weakness, and I can’t allow myself to show him the barest inch of it.
Not now. Not when there’s so much on the line.
“And what does that mean for…for us?” I ask, turning the matter around on him.
He flicks his gaze up at me, and I swear I see something flicker in his eyes, as if he remembers when I came to this office before, still in my wedding dress, calling on his help. The way he undressed me like I was a gift to unwrap.
“What about us?”
“We’re married, Antonio, in case you forgot,” I remind him, planting my hands on my hips and cocking my head to the side. “And if I’m going to be stuck under this roof with you, then I expect to be treated…well, like your wife, not your prisoner.”
His face is unreadable. I shift slightly on my feet, not wanting to give away how easily his gaze pierces through me, how exposed I feel just standing before him.
“What do you mean by that?”
I press my lips together. If he’s going to make me say it out loud, then I will.
“What happened…the other night, on the night of the wedding,” I explain, my voice dropping slightly, even as I try to keep my tone steady.
I can feel a heat in my lower belly, and I will it to go away.
I can’t have this conversation with him if I let it get the better of me.
Even now, I find my gaze drawn to his hands, resting on the desk before him, recalling all too easily how they felt grasping for me, how easily my body yielded to them…
“That was a mistake,” he says firmly, snapping me back to reality.
I stare at him. “You think…?”
“We had to consummate the marriage to make it legal,” he adds, his tone even. “Now that’s done, it doesn’t need to happen again.”
I stare him down. A million questions tingle on the tip of my tongue.
Like, what if I want it to happen again?
What if that wasn’t enough? What if that night together has lit something in me I don’t know I can douse, and I can’t be under this roof with you without it going around and around my head till it feels like I might lose my mind entirely?
But I think better of it. If he doesn’t want me like that, then I’m sure as hell not going to go begging for his attention.
I still have my pride. I might have been left at the altar and accepted a marriage to the first man willing to step in, but that doesn’t mean that I’m just going to toss my hands in the air and give up on every last inch of my sureness in myself.
“Fine,” I reply, drawing myself up to my full height and tossing my hair over my shoulder. “Well, I guess we don’t have anything more to talk about, right?”
And with that, before he can say another word, I turn to stalk out of the office, refusing to be in there alone with him for a second longer.
I don’t know what the hell happens now, what my life is going to look like now that I’m under this roof with him, but the very least I can do is try to cling to some sense of control.
Even as it’s being wrested from me.
I know it’s crazy to feel let down that he doesn’t want me like that again.
I mean, this is still the man who was due to be my father-in-law.
I can’t justify it, can’t make sense of it, but there is still a part of me that wants to turn back to him and tell him that I’m not willing to stay here unless we live as a real husband and wife.
Or at least, unless there’s a part of our marriage that stays alive, even if the rest of it seems dead in the water.
Our marriage. It’s strange to think of it in those terms.
I mean, this isn’t how I pictured marital bliss. Far from it. Locked up in a room half the time, tended to by staff, while my husband spends his days trying to get a handle on whatever is going on with his business.
Is this what it would have been like with Andreo too? To some extent, maybe. But with his father, I have even less control of what’s going on here, and I know all I can do is try to cling to some remnant of hope that this will change…
Even if it feels like all I’ve managed to do is get him to dig his heels in even further than he already has.
I sigh as I make my way back to my room. I don’t know what happens now—but I know I have to fight to keep my head above water, to keep from being entirely overwhelmed by the weight of everything I’m now involved with.
Even if I could never have known that this is where it would lead me.