13. Adriana #2
His face. I’ll remember his face. The disbelief that I’d say it out loud, in this room, where it counts.
“Then you’re no daughter of mine,” he says.
“Okay,” I say.
That’s all. Okay. I’ve been bracing myself for those words, and when they come, all I have is okay, because it turns out they don’t take anything from me that I hadn’t already given up myself.
I think that’s the moment it’s supposed to fall apart. The scorned wife, the disowned daughter, kicked out into the night.
Instead a man in a dark suit appears at my father’s shoulder. Not a guest. The discreet earpiece, the still hands. He leans in and says something low to my father, then to Dante, that I can’t hear.
Whatever it is, my father’s face goes from red to white.
“Gentlemen,” the man says, just loud enough now for our little circle. “I’m going to have to ask your party to step outside. We don’t want to disturb the other guests.”
“Do you know who I am?” Dante says.
“I do, sir. This way, please.”
I look at Enzo.
He’s not even watching them. He’s watching me, and there’s the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth, the one I’m learning means he’s pleased with himself.
It was him. Of course it was him. They came here to humiliate me and they’re the ones being walked to the door, and he arranged it before we ever left the apartment.
My father and Dante protest. Of course they do.
The Costas and the Vitales have been somebody in this city for a hundred years, and being asked to leave a function does not happen to people like them.
Their voices climb. The man in the dark suit does not climb with them.
He simply waits, and gestures, and waits, until the sheer immovable politeness of it leaves them no version of this where they look good.
Rafael goes without a word. Viviana goes with her chin in the air and her face still red, and she doesn’t look at me, which is its own kind of victory.
My father is last. At the edge of the room he stops and turns and finds me across the crowd, and I make myself hold his eyes until he’s the one who looks away.
Then they’re gone, and I’m still here.
I let out a breath I think I’ve been holding for three days.
“That was you,” I say to Enzo.
“I made a phone call.” He lifts a fresh glass of champagne off a passing tray and presses it into my hand. “I told you. Need makes people desperate, want makes them careful. The manager here wants very badly to keep me happy.”
“Because you own part of the hotel.”
“I own a lot of things.” He clinks his glass against mine. “Drink. You earned it.”
So I drink.
And the strangest thing happens. The room turns warm.
People come over. People who would never have crossed a room for me before, who used to look right through me at parties, now they want to be introduced.
They want to stand near Enzo, near whatever just happened, near the woman who said all that and stayed when the Costas got walked out.
I talk to them. I’m good at it, it turns out.
All those years of standing at the edges watching people, I learned how they work without ever getting to use it.
I use it now. I make a banker’s wife laugh.
I let an old man tell me about his vineyard and I ask the right questions and Enzo watches me do it from a few feet away with that look on his face.
Two glasses of champagne in, I feel something I don’t have a good name for. Light. Loud, on the inside. Like I’ve spent my whole life being quiet and just found out I have a voice.
By the time we leave it’s late and I’m buzzed, not on the champagne, on the whole night. Enzo’s hand finds mine on the way out and I lace my fingers through his without thinking about it.
The car’s waiting. He holds the door. I slide in and he gets in after me, and the second the door shuts and the city lights start sliding past the windows, the night catches up with me all at once.
“Did you see his face?” I’m laughing. I can’t stop. “My father’s face. When the man came over. Did you see it?”
“I saw it.”
“And Viviana, she went so red, I thought she was going to combust.” I’m turned in my seat toward him, my hand on his arm. “That was. Enzo, that was the best I’ve felt in. I don’t even know. Maybe ever.”
He’s looking at me. Not laughing with me. Looking at me, with the heat that always shuts me up, and my laughter dies in my throat.
“What?” I say.
“You were incredible in there.” His voice has dropped. “You know that? You walked in terrified and you took the whole room.”
“You helped.”
“I made a phone call. You did the rest.” His hand comes up, brushes a strand of hair off my face, lingers at my jaw. “Watching you do that. I’ve never wanted you more than I did standing in that room watching you not need me.”
My breath goes shallow.
“Enzo…”
“You said you wanted to feel something other than small,” he says. “How do you feel right now?”
“Not small,” I whisper.
“No.” His thumb drags along my bottom lip. “Not small.”
I don’t know which of us moves first. It doesn’t matter.
One second there’s space between us and the next there’s none, his mouth on mine, hard, the champagne and the adrenaline and three days of wanting all crashing together at once.
I get a fist in the front of his shirt. His hand slides up my thigh where the slit falls open, warm against bare skin, and I make a sound into his mouth that I’d be embarrassed about if I had room left to be embarrassed.
“The driver,” I manage.
“He can’t see. Doesn’t matter.” His mouth drags up my throat, his voice gone low and wrecked. “Not here, though. Not like this. Not in the back of a car. Get me through that door first.”
The car stops. I barely register that we’ve arrived before he’s pulling me out by the hand, and then we’re moving fast through the lobby, past the doorman who very carefully looks at nothing, into the elevator.
The doors close and he’s on me the whole way up, both hands, my dress already riding high on my thighs, his jacket shrugged half off, my fingers working his shirt buttons loose one by one.
The doors open onto his floor. He gets the door open without ever really letting go of me.
“Inside,” he says against my mouth. “Now.”
We stumble into the living room still half-dressed from the event.
My dress is already hitched up around my waist and Enzo’s jacket lies somewhere on the floor behind us.
He backs me against the wall first for a deep kiss that leaves me breathless.
His tongue slides against mine while his hands grip my hips and pull me close.
I feel his cock hardening through his pants as he grinds against me.
He breaks the kiss only to trail his mouth down my neck, sucking lightly at the skin there.
I tilt my head back and sigh as his fingers work at the zipper of my dress, easing it lower.
The fabric slips off my shoulders and pools at my feet.
He steps back just enough to look me over, eyes dark.
Then he drops to his knees right there on the rug.
His hands slide up my thighs, thumbs hooking into my panties and dragging them down slow.
I step out of them and he tosses them aside.
Before I can say anything his mouth is on me, tongue licking a broad stripe up my pussy.
I gasp and grab his hair. He licks again, firmer this time, circling my clit with the tip of his tongue before sucking it gently between his lips.
I rock my hips forward, chasing the feeling.
He hums against me and the vibration shoots straight through my core.
Two fingers press at my entrance, sliding in easy because I’m already wet.
He curls them just right while his tongue keeps working my clit in steady strokes. My legs shake a little and I moan loud.
“Enzo,” I breathe out. He looks up at me from between my legs, eyes locked on mine as he adds a third finger and pumps them deeper. His free hand reaches up to tug my bra down, freeing one breast so he can pinch the nipple and roll it between his fingers.
I push his head back down and he laughs softly against my skin before diving back in. He licks and sucks harder now, fingers thrusting in a rhythm that has me panting. I feel myself getting closer already but he eases off, slowing his tongue to lazy circles that keep me right on the edge.
“Please,” I whine, tugging at his hair. “Don’t tease like that.”
He pulls back with a grin, fingers still buried inside me but barely moving. “You want more? Tell me.”
“Yes, fuck, lick me properly,” I say, voice tight. He obeys but only for a minute before slowing again. I groan in frustration. “Please, Enzo, I need it.”
He stands up then, kissing me hard so I taste myself on his tongue.
His hands roam everywhere, squeezing my ass, cupping my breasts, pinching both nipples now until they’re stiff and aching.
I reach down and free his cock from his pants, stroking him a few times while he kicks them the rest of the way off. He rolls on a condom quick.
We sink down onto the thick rug together. He settles between my spread thighs and rubs the head of his cock against my clit in slow circles. I buck up, trying to get him inside but he holds back.
“Please,” I repeat, annoyed now. “Stop playing and fuck me already.”
He finally pushes in with one smooth thrust and I moan loud against his mouth. We move fast at first, urgent and hungry after the long night of tension. My legs wrap around his hips as he drives into me again and again.
“Don’t stop,” I tell him, voice breaking on a moan as his fingers find my clit and start working it in tight circles. My hips rock back to meet every thrust. “Keep rubbing my clit just like that. I’m close. So fucking close.”
He grunts and leans over me, chest pressed to mine while he drives in deeper. His lips find my ear. “Yeah? You gonna come on my cock like a good girl? Squeeze me tight when you do. I want to feel this pussy milk every inch.”
I nod against the rug, panting hard. My walls flutter around him already but he does not let up.
Instead he slows his hips just a fraction, rolling them so the head of his cock drags against that spot inside me with every stroke.
His thumb presses firmer on my clit, flicking side to side now.
“Not yet,” he murmurs, biting my shoulder.
“Hold it for me. Feel how deep I am? Tell me how bad you want to come.”
“Please,” I gasp out. My fingers claw at the rug. “I need it. Rub harder. Fuck, Enzo, I’m right there.”
He chuckles low and filthy then picks up the pace again only to ease off seconds later, keeping me right on the edge.
One hand stays busy between my legs while the other reaches up to pinch my nipple, twisting just enough to send sparks shooting down my spine.
“That’s it, baby. Let it build. Your cunt’s gripping me so good.
Beg for it. Tell me exactly what you need. ”
I whimper, pushing back against him harder. “Please! I can’t take it. Let me come. Rub my clit faster, fuck me harder, anything. I’m begging you.”
He keeps that torturously slow rhythm, shallow thrusts that never quite give me enough while his fingers circle my swollen clit without speeding up. “More,” he demands, voice rough against my neck. “Tell me how desperate this pussy is. How bad you want to cream all over my cock.”
“So bad,” I moan, voice cracking. “Please let me come already. I’ll do anything. Just don’t stop touching me like that. I’m shaking, Enzo, please.”
He rewards me with a few deeper strokes before pulling back to that teasing pace again, drawing it out until my thighs tremble and I’m babbling. “Fuck, please, I need to come right now. Your fingers feel so good, your cock feels so good, I’m losing it.”
Finally he gives in, pounding into me with sharp snaps of his hips. “Come for me. Come all over my cock right now.”
The pressure snaps. I come hard, clenching around him and crying out into the rug as waves crash through me.
My whole body shakes, thighs trembling while his fingers keep circling my swollen clit to drag it out.
He follows right after, hips jerking deep as he spills inside the condom with a low groan.
He keeps thrusting shallow through it, fingers still circling my clit until I’m shaking and oversensitive, little aftershocks making me twitch around him.
We stay locked together on the rug, breathing heavy. His weight presses me down warm and solid. He brushes damp hair off my face and kisses my forehead once, slow.
***
Later, when we’ve made it to the bed and his breathing has gone slow and even behind me, I lie awake in the dark.
Tonight was supposed to be the plan. The whole point. Walk in, be seen, make them choke on it. And we did. I should be lying here cataloguing the wins, my father’s face, Viviana’s red cheeks, the divorce papers I shoved into the open. That’s what tonight was for.
But that’s not what I’m thinking about.
I’m thinking about the weight of his arm over my waist. About the way he stood in front of me in that ballroom like there was nothing in the world he’d rather do.
About how, somewhere between the lobby three nights ago and right now, I stopped being able to tell which parts of this are the plan and which parts are just true.
Amelia’s voice slides into my head, the warning she gave me on the phone. Don’t go too deep.
I press back into the warmth of him without meaning to. His arm tightens, even in his sleep, pulling me closer like some part of him is paying attention even when the rest has gone under.
Too late, I think. The honesty of it scares me more than my father ever did.
I’m already in too deep.