Chapter 6 #3
Marco had collected a cluster of elderly aunts around him, making them laugh with some story that involved expansive hand gestures and what looked like an impression of someone I didn't recognize.
He caught my eye across the room and winked, and despite everything, I felt my mouth twitch toward a smile.
These people were my family now. These loud, complicated, dangerous people.
I caught Dante watching me.
He was standing near the family table, speaking with one of his father's old associates, but his eyes had drifted across the room to where I stood by the cake.
Something in his expression made my breath catch—not possession, not the calculating assessment I'd expected from a man who had just acquired a strategic asset.
Wonder. That was the closest word I could find.
Like he was looking at something unexpected. Something that surprised him. Something he didn't quite know what to do with.
Our eyes held for a moment across the crowded room. Heat crept up my cheeks. I looked away first.
The rest of the reception passed in a haze of small moments.
Donatella pressing another champagne glass into my hand.
A soldier whose name I didn't catch telling me I was lucky to have married the best man he'd ever known.
An elderly woman with the Caruso nose pressing my hands between hers and saying she was glad Dante had found someone with kind eyes.
Through it all, I felt the walls I'd spent a decade building crack a little more.
But the more they cracked, the more I knew I had to rebuild them.
I had to remember what powerful men were capable of, what they really wanted, what lay beneath the charm and the gentleness and the soft expressions.
But when Dante appeared at my elbow to lead me to the car that would take us to our new home, and his hand settled on the small of my back with that same warm steadiness, I leaned into it anyway.
The Caruso residence was quiet after the chaos of the reception. Our footsteps echoed on marble floors as Dante led me through hallways I didn't recognize, past paintings and doorways and the accumulated evidence of generations of family history.
My heart pounded harder with every step.
I knew what was expected. I'd prepared myself for it during the long hours of the reception, steeling my nerves while I smiled and laughed and performed the role of the happy bride.
The wedding night was a transaction, like everything else in this marriage.
I would give him my body because that's what mafia wives did.
I would lie back and think of alliances and bloodlines and the duty I'd been raised to fulfill.
I would survive it.
Dante opened a door at the end of the hallway—the master suite, I assumed—and stepped aside to let me enter. The room was beautiful. Warm wood tones and rich fabrics, a massive bed dominating the space, windows that looked out over the Chicago skyline glittering in the darkness.
Our suite now. Our bed.
I walked to the center of the room and stood there, my hands clasped in front of me, my chin lifted. Waiting. Bracing.
But Dante didn't reach for me.
He crossed to the window instead, his broad shoulders silhouetted against the city lights.
His hands came up and loosened his tie, pulling it free with a gesture that was more exhausted than seductive.
He draped it over a chair and stood there for a moment, his back to me, his breathing carefully controlled.
When he turned around, his expression was unreadable.
"I'm not going to touch you tonight."
The words hit me like cold water.
I stared at him. Something twisted in my chest—confusion, yes, but underneath it, something that felt horribly, shamefully like rejection. I'd spent hours preparing myself to endure his touch, and now he was telling me he didn't want it?
"You don't—" I started, and hated how small my voice sounded. "You don't want—"
"I want."
His voice was rough. Almost harsh. Like the words were being dragged out of him against his will.
"Believe me, Gemma, I want." He took a step closer, then stopped himself, his hands curling into fists at his sides.
"The way you looked in that dress. The way you felt when I kissed you.
The sounds you made—" He broke off. Breathed.
When he spoke again, his voice was more controlled, but barely. "I want. That's not the issue."
I didn't understand. My head was spinning, all my carefully constructed expectations crumbling into dust.
"Then why—"
"Because you don't know me." He crossed his arms over his chest, and I realized it was a protective gesture. He was guarding himself. "We've barely spoken. You've known me for less than a week, and half of that time you thought I was a cold bastard who couldn't string a sentence together."
Heat flooded my cheeks. That was exactly what I'd thought.
"And I won't—" He stopped again. That muscle in his jaw was ticking, the same tension I'd seen at the altar. "I will never take something from you that you haven't freely chosen to give."
The words settled into the space between us. Heavy. Significant.
"When we share a bed," he continued, and his dark eyes held mine with an intensity that made my breath catch, "it will be because you want me.
Not because you think you owe me. Not because you're afraid of what happens if you refuse.
Not because duty or obligation or family honor says you should.
" His voice dropped, softened, became something almost tender.
"When I touch you, it will be because you've asked me to.
Because you want my hands on you. Because you've chosen me, freely, knowing exactly who and what I am. "
I couldn't speak. My throat had closed around emotions I couldn't name.
"Until then—" He moved toward a door I hadn't noticed, on the far side of the room. "Come with me."
I followed him on legs that felt unsteady. He opened the door to reveal another room—smaller than the master suite, but beautiful. Soft blue walls. White linens. Fresh flowers on the nightstand, and a window that looked out over the garden below. Someone had decorated it with obvious care.
"This is yours," Dante said quietly. "For as long as you need it. No expectations. No demands. No pressure."
I stepped inside. Turned slowly, taking in the details. A reading lamp beside the bed. A soft throw blanket folded at the foot. Books on the nightstand—novels, I noticed, not the business texts or biographies I'd expected.
Someone had paid attention. Someone had thought about what I might want.
"The door has a lock," Dante added. "Use it if you want. I won't be offended."
I turned to face him. He stood in the doorway, watching me with that same unreadable expression, his hands shoved into his pockets like he didn't trust them.
"Why?" The word came out barely above a whisper. "Why are you doing this?"
Something flickered across his face. Pain, maybe. Or recognition.
"Because it’s right."
He didn't elaborate. He just stepped back, his hand on the doorknob.
"Goodnight, Gemma. Sleep well."
The door closed behind him. I stood in the middle of my beautiful room, my wedding dress still pooling around my feet, and tried to make sense of what had just happened.
I should be relieved. I was relieved—wasn't I? He'd given me exactly what I'd wanted without knowing I wanted it. Space. Safety. Time to breathe.
I changed out of the dress with mechanical movements, hanging it carefully in the closet that had been stocked with my clothes at some point during the reception. Someone had unpacked my things. Arranged them neatly. Made this space mine.
I found a silk nightgown in the drawer where I would have kept one, slipped it on, and climbed into the bed with its crisp white sheets and its soft pillows and its absolute, utter safety.
I should sleep. I was exhausted—hours of performing, of fear, of the emotional whiplash of this entire impossible day.
Instead, I lay awake.
My fingers drifted to my lips without my permission. Touching where he'd kissed me. Where he'd been warm and gentle and everything I hadn't expected.
I will never take something from you that you haven't freely chosen to give.
The words echoed in the darkness.
I should be relieved.
Instead, lying alone in my beautiful safe room with my husband's restraint ringing in my ears, I found myself wondering something dangerous.
What would it feel like to choose him?
To ask him to touch me—not because I owed him, not because I was afraid, but because I wanted him? What would his hands feel like on my skin if I'd invited them there? What would his mouth feel like if I'd pulled him down to me?
His restraint was supposed to make me feel safe.
Instead, it felt more dangerous than his desire ever could have been.
Because a man who demanded things from me, I knew how to resist. A man who took what he wanted, I knew how to survive.
But a man who waited? A man who gave me space and choices and the terrifying freedom to want him on my own terms?
That was a man who could break down every wall I'd ever built.
I touched my lips again.
And didn't sleep for hours.