Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
LUCY
Iwake up to Alessio’s hand cupping my breast, his thumb tracing lazy circles over my nipple, his body heavy and still behind me.
His arm is tucked under my pillow, my cheek resting on his bicep, both of us already warm from sharing heat.
When I wake up like this, caught between his arm and the knowledge that everything will change if I move, I pretend I’m someone else.
Someone more sensible, who gets up quietly, straightens the sheets, and leaves before morning.
I let the seconds pass, trying to organize a list of reasons why none of this is a good idea. I get as far as “my mother will kill me,” and Alessio, as if sensing the betrayal, tightens his arm around my waist like a python. I feel the tickle of his beard against my neck.
“Already plotting your escape?” he asks, voice still gluey with sleep. He angles his head so his lips graze the top of my shoulder. I know he can see the goosebumps flare down my arm. My whole body is a traitor.
“Maybe,” I say, though my voice is thinner than even I expect. “Or maybe I’m just running through all the ways this ends badly for both of us.”
He presses his face into my hair and laughs.
There’s something feral about the sound, but not unkind.
“You have a grim little mind, Lucia.” His hand drifts lower, seeking out the familiar territory of my hip bone.
“But for the record, my version is always us growing old and terrifying the neighbors with how loudly we make love.”
I turn to face him, which takes some effort.
Alessio is huge, all muscle and stubbornness, and he likes to hold onto things once he has them.
He’s barely awake but already smirking at me, his hair messy in a way that makes him look almost boyish.
The only sign of last night is a faint purple bruise on his collarbone, a mark I left in a selfish moment.
“What is it?” he asks, and I realize I’ve been staring. I run my fingers along his jaw, tracing the line where stubble gives way to skin.
“You have to know this isn’t sustainable,” I say. I find myself talking to his throat instead of his eyes. I hate confrontation, but I hate dishonesty even more. “Whatever this is… It can’t last.”
His face doesn’t shift, but I see the calculation flicker there, the way he sorts through possibilities like columns in a ledger. “Why not?”
“Because,” I start, then shake my head. “Because as soon as anyone finds out, my parents will never speak to me. I’ll lose my career. Who would want to buy their wedding dress from someone connected to the mob? I can’t…” I trail off, suddenly ashamed of how small my reasons sound.
He studies me, the way someone might study a dog that’s just bitten them for the first time. Not angry, just surprised and a little sad. “Your parents already hate me,” he says. “That’s not new.”
“They don’t hate you. They don’t even know you,” I say, pushing back at his chest, just to put something between us. “All they know is that you run the kind of business the rest of Manhattan pretends doesn’t exist. No one wants to invite a mafia don to Christmas dinner.”
He grins, but the humor doesn’t stick. “I don’t need their permission, Lucia.”
I try to laugh. “You say that like it’s only about permission. It’s not. It’s about reality. I can’t pretend we live in a world where men like you and women like me can just…” I wave my hand at the glass, the sheets, everything around us. “Be together. Like it’s normal.”
He takes my hand, flattening my palm against the slope of his chest so I feel the steady, unhurried thud of his heart. “What if I told you nothing needs to change?”
“That isn’t true,” I say, and for a second I almost believe him, almost believe that power really does shield you from consequence.
He edges closer, our legs tangling under the duvet. “You keep waiting for the world to explode, Lucia. But it won’t. Not if I say it doesn’t.”
“That’s not how the world works,” I say, suddenly tired. “The rest of us can’t just decide what’s real and what isn’t, and expect the world to follow.”
He tucks a stray strand of hair behind my ear, and for a moment, I’m ten again, sitting on my father’s knee as he explains why the world is the way it is; only this time, it’s Alessio, and the world is just a thing he made for me to live in.
“Let them talk,” he says, fierce and low. “Let them judge. They never had a woman like you—hell, they never had a woman period, not one that mattered. You think your parents are so clean, Lucia? Everyone’s got blood on their hands. Yours just smells like old money and country clubs.”
I want to be angry, but he’s not wrong, not really. My father’s portfolio is half tax havens and leveraged buyouts; my mother’s sense of justice ends at the border of our zip code. I had known this—hated it, even—but it still stings to hear it said out loud.
“What if I want my own life?” I say, voice thin as tissue. “What if I want to do something that isn’t just being your… what, your moll? Your pet project?”
He flinches then, and I’m a little proud of how much it hurts him.
“You’d be my wife. I’d accept nothing less.
And do you think I’d keep you from what you want?
” he asks, voice quieter now. “Whatever you dream of, you get. I’ll make it happen.
You want to make dresses for every spoiled brat in Manhattan?
Do you think the other fashion houses don’t have connections to men like me?
Don’t be so naive. Lucia.” He laughs, softer this time.
“I’ll bankroll whatever you want, Lucia.
I’ll make everyone so jealous they’ll eat glass. ”
I’m crying before I realize it, silent tears slipping down my cheeks and into his hand as he holds my jaw. “That’s not the point,” I say, but he hushes me, his thumb wiping away the tears as they fall.
“You have a brain like a bear trap,” he says, “but your heart is all fucking marshmallow. I’m not saying you have to decide right now. But I know you’ll return to me.”
We lie in silence for a while. The sky outside grows pale, and the first car horns sound below. I think about how easy it would be to let this moment last forever, to believe we could live here in this glass box above the city, untouched by the world. But that isn’t real, and I can’t pretend it is.
“I need to get up,” I say, rolling away. Alessio doesn’t argue, but he catches my wrist before I can escape the bed.
“Stay, just a minute,” he says. “You’re always running off. It’s exhausting, you know.”
I want to snap back, tell him that he’s not the only one with things to do, people to protect, a life to lead. Instead, I sit up and pull the duvet around my shoulders, suddenly cold.
“I’m not running away,” I say. “I just—if I stay here too long, I won’t be able to leave at all. And then what? I turn into one of those bored trophy wives who spends her twenties shopping and getting Botox, growing more brittle by the year?”
He props himself up on one elbow, grinning at me like a wolf admiring a well-earned wound. “You’d be the world’s worst trophy wife,” he says, “and I mean that as a compliment.”
“Good,” I say, smiling despite myself. “Because I would be fucking terrible at it.”
He watches as I slip off the bed, his eyes following the hem of his T-shirt while I gather my things. For a moment, I think he’ll let me go. But I know Alessio isn’t the type to give up something he’s claimed.
“Lucia,” he says—I pause, the way he makes my name sound like a prayer always stops me—and then, “It’s too late, anyway.”
I turn, still clutching the sheet to my chest. “What’s too late?”
He sits up, the sheet pooling in his lap, and for a moment I remember the first night I saw him across a room: the way he bends space, the way he never seems to move and yet is always exactly where he needs to be.
“For you and me,” he says. “There’s no going back.”
I feel the truth of it settle into my bones, cold and inevitable. “That sounds like a threat,” I say weakly.
He shakes his head, genuine this time. “It isn’t,” he says.
“It’s just… fact. I told you: you’re mine.
You always have been. Even if you run, even if you change your name and move to the other side of the world, even if you marry someone else and never so much as look at the news again.
One day, you’ll wake up and wonder why your heart still sounds like mine. ”
We stare at each other, equal parts stubborn and terrified, and I want to argue, to deny, to fight. But I can’t. Because I already know he’s right.
“I’m not staying for you,” I say, shoving my legs back into yesterday’s tights and pretending not to care how undignified it looks.
He laughs. “You’re staying for you.”
I roll my eyes, snatch my bag, and flee to the bathroom before he can see me cry again.
I shower until the water turns cold, scrubbing myself raw, trying to wash him off my skin.
It’s impossible. Alessio leaves invisible fingerprints everywhere: on my throat, my thighs, that spot behind my knee where everything narrows to a single, undeniable hunger.
I dry off, put on my makeup, and stare at myself in the mirror until my reflection looks bored with me.
I’m about to sneak out when I catch the smell of espresso from the kitchen.
He’s waiting, of course—shirtless and barefoot, like some parody of domesticity, the tattoos and gunmetal scars clashing with the cheerful yellow of the apron. I blink, and almost laugh at how ordinary this could seem if you squinted.
Alessio hands me a mug. “Eat first,” he says. “Then you can make all the disaster plans you want.”
I accept, because refusing means admitting I have no self-control. The coffee is strong, bitter, and perfect, just like the man serving it.
“Why do you do this?” I ask, as he fries eggs in the pan. “Why do you have to be—” I search for the word. “So devoted?”
He shrugs. “When you want something, you don’t fuck around. Not if you’re serious. Not if you’re me.”
“So what am I?” I say, suddenly angry. “Am I your girlfriend? Your captive? You make it sound like I don’t get to choose.”
He tilts his chin, studying me. “You get to choose every day. You think I could keep you here if you didn’t want to be?”
I set the coffee down, hard. “So what if I said I never wanted to see you again?”
He smiles, small and surprisingly sad. “Then I’d make sure you were safe, and happy, and never alone. But that won’t happen. I know you’ll come home to me.”