5. Gianna
GIANNA
T he desk is cold beneath my cheek, and my thighs still tremble faintly from where he left me undone.
Soreness blooms low in my belly, a deep, tender ache threaded with something almost smug.
The kind of ache that reminds you of who you are.
Of what you survived.
Dante doesn’t speak at first.
He’s still behind me, adjusting his shirt slowly.
I can feel the heat of his gaze as it moves across my back, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of turning around until I am good and ready.
When I finally do, my hair clings damply to my shoulders, my lips are swollen, and my legs still feel loose at the knees.
I smooth my outfit back into place, my spine straightening as I slide off the table and reach for the documents I printed before the meeting even began.
He chuckles under his breath, the sound low and amused, but I ignore him.
I pour myself another espresso and take a sip.
It is lukewarm now, but it grounds me.
The sugar coats my tongue, balancing the lingering taste of him in my mouth.
"I see you’re still focused," he says, voice slower now, satisfaction curling beneath the words.
I look at him over the rim of my cup.
"Did you think I wouldn’t be?"
"No," he says after a pause, and there’s something different in his voice now.
Less teasing, more assessing.
"But most women take longer to recover when I fuck them half-senseless."
I set the cup down with care and tap the stack of papers with my fingernail.
"Your approval doesn’t concern me. Your signature does."
He gives a small, short laugh, then leans against the edge of the table, watching me as I lay out the quarterly figures in three neat piles.
One for the cleared shipments.
One for the adjustments to the port taxes.
One for the pharmaceutical contract he came here to review.
The room smells of us now—salt and sex and sweat—and part of me is still humming from it.
But the larger part, the part that carried my family through collapse and clawed us back into relevance, is clear and alert.
"You’ll find the ports’ customs adjustments have been processed," I say. "Your cut has been increased by one percent, folded into the updated warehousing fees. Ferro’s men have been instructed to log those crates as medical textiles."
He takes the documents, eyes scanning the headers.
His fingers are steady, clean now, his sleeves rolled up just past his forearms.
There is nothing soft about him in this light. He reads quickly, flipping the pages with a sound like blades being drawn.
"And the south corridor?" he asks without looking up.
I slide the third stack toward him.
"Already cleared. The routes were rerouted through Rosetta Holdings two weeks ago. The shell is clean. Not even Valentina could trace it back to the Rossis."
He looks up then, something unreadable flickering across his face. "And why are you protecting yourself from Valentina?"
I meet his gaze squarely.
"Because Valentina taught me to. If you think she plays by anyone’s rules but her own, you’ve forgotten who holds the real leash in your family."
The silence that stretches between us now is not heavy.
It’s sharp, like barbed wire.
He studies me for a long beat, then reaches into his inner jacket pocket and pulls out a silver pen.
Clicks it once.
Signs the papers without hesitation.
"There," he says, handing them back. "You’ve proven your loyalty. Even after I had you dripping all over my walnut desk."
"I’m always loyal," I say unsmilingly. "But never foolish."
Dante grins then, looking a lot like a man who’s finally found someone worth playing the game with. "So, what comes next?" he asks.
I slide the signed documents into my leather folder and lock the clasp.
"Now, I send these to my lawyer. And we both pretend this was just another meeting between your people and mine."
He lets out a breath, short and amused.
"And what will you tell your brother?"
"That I did what I had to do," I say. "And that he shouldn’t ask questions he doesn’t want answered."
He pushes off the table, circles around until he’s in front of me.
His hand lifts to brush a stray strand of hair away from my cheek. "You surprise me, Rossi."
"Good," I murmur, letting my eyes linger on his mouth, just long enough to make sure he knows it was never just him doing the seducing.
Because this was never just about sex, although it has been on my mind ever since we laid eyes on each other at the bar.
It’s about me knowing that somewhere deep down, the soullessness in me matches that in him.
If like calls to like, Dante is fire to my fuel, even though he may not see it.
My shoes are back on, my dress is smooth, and my expression is as polite as it was when I entered this room.
Rafa will be pleased with the offering.
I’m walking out with the signatures that will ensure another quarter of protection.
Dante opens the door and lets me pass first.
He does not speak again until we are alone in the elevator.
The doors close behind us with a soft whisper.
"You know," he says, voice low, "I’m not done with you."
I tilt my head, keeping my tone even.
"Then you’ll have to come back. Next quarter’s numbers will be even better."
He leans in, his lips grazing the shell of my ear. "Don’t tempt me."
"Who said I was tempting you?" I murmur, letting the elevator chime its arrival before I step out.
He doesn’t follow me immediately.
He stays behind, in that glass and steel tower built on blood and reinvention.
But I know he will come after me again, and again.
And I’m right.
It happens gradually, the way most disasters do.
At first, it’s a simple indulgence.
A kiss that lingers too long in the corridor of a high-rise meant for business dealings.
Fingers slipping beneath silk in the back of a chauffeured car after dusk.
His mouth pressed to the inside of my thigh while I mutter something useless about fiscal reports and trade tariffs, pretending I still have the upper hand.
Dante Salvatore is not a man anyone controls.
But he makes it feel like I do, if only for long enough to make the fall worth it.
Months pass in shadows.
We meet in hotel rooms, in empty conference halls after hours, in private corners of estates no one watches closely anymore.
Every encounter is a new sin, dressed in silk and teeth, and I let it happen because the hunger is easier than the silence.
He unravels me with brutal grace, and every time I think I’ve learned to expect it, he shifts, coils, surprises.
He knows my tells now—how my breath stutters when his fingers tighten, how my nails rake when he takes too long, how my voice softens when I try not to ask for more.
We don't speak of feelings.
That would be too dangerous, too real.
We speak in terms of bodies and business, pleasure and protocol.
He knows when I’ve filed something ahead of deadline, because I wear navy on those days, sharp and efficient.
I know when he’s been in meetings with Luca, because he shows up smelling like cigar smoke and mild irritation, needing to be reminded that not all power comes from brute force.
Rafa starts to notice.
He doesn’t say it aloud, but I catch the shift in his gaze.
He asks more questions.
Wants to know when I’m leaving, who I’m seeing, why I return home at hours not quite late enough to be innocent, but not bold enough to be confrontational.
I deflect.
I talk of Valentina’s new directives.
Of restructuring port oversight.
Of all the ways the Salvatores are breathing heavier down our necks.
And he lets it go, for now, because I’ve never given him reason to doubt me before.
But I feel the tension building, thread by thread.
And then, one morning, the thread snaps.
I’m standing in my bathroom, staring at the neatly ordered row of skincare bottles and perfumes, the gleam of gold caps and glass like little trophies of control.
Everything in its place.
Except me, because my cycle is three weeks late.
I try not to panic.
I’ve been late before.
Stress, travel, irregular sleep.
There are always reasons.
Logical ones.
I remind myself that I’ve had more on my plate than usual.
The quarterly reviews.
The unexpected audit.
The rerouting of cargo through Trieste.
And Dante.
Always, Dante.
But logic can only carry so far.
And today, it limps.
My hand shakes just slightly as I reach for my calendar.
The dates don’t lie.
I count again, slower this time.
The math holds.
I sit on the edge of the tub, the porcelain cool through the thin silk of my robe, and stare at the tile.
A long moment passes.
Then another.
Outside the window, the city moves on.
A truck backs into a delivery bay down the block. Someone yells at a cab driver.
A dog barks twice and then falls silent again.
And amidst all this busy activity, I sit perfectly still, panicking because the problem isn’t a missed period, it’s why I’ve missed it.
And the only answer that makes sense—terrifying, electric, inevitable—is the one that brings the taste of copper to my mouth.
I’m pregnant.
The word doesn’t feel real yet.
It sits like a coin on my tongue, cold and strange.
I don’t say it aloud.
I don’t reach for my phone.
I just sit there, robe loose around my thighs, heartbeat unsteady.
Dante has always been a dangerous game.
But this...this changes everything.
Because if it’s true—if the life growing inside me is his—then there is no going back.
There is no keeping it a secret forever.
Not in our world, not in his.
Children are leverage.
Heirs.
Vulnerabilities.
And the Salvatores don't leave vulnerabilities lying in the dark.
I think about telling him.
The image comes sharp and clear.
His face when I say the words.
His body going still.
That strange stillness he wears like armor when the world shifts too suddenly.
But I don’t know what he’ll do.
And if that isn’t terrifying enough, I know what I want him to do, and it’s very far from the playboy image he’s constructed for himself.
I press my hands to my stomach, flat and still firm beneath the silk, and close my eyes.
This can’t be dealt with like a missed shipment or a botched negotiation.
This is flesh.
Blood.
Consequence.
And if I’m right, I will need to decide what survival looks like—again.
Not just for me, but for the child who didn’t ask to be born into this world of power, secrets, and velvet nooses.
I rise slowly.
Wrap my robe tighter.
The first appointment I schedule is not to tell Dante.
It’s to confirm what I already know.
After that, everything will depend on the choices I make next, and whether or not he gets to make any of them.