Chapter 13
CASSIA
Three days of midnight sessions in the study where we pretend to work. Three days of his shoulder brushing mine over documents. Three days of not talking about the night he carried me to bed and left me there, aching for closeness he wouldn’t give.
Three days. Each one longer than the last.
I’m elbow-deep in vendor contracts when his shadow falls across my desk.
“Get dressed.”
I look up. He’s standing at the threshold, jacket on, keys in hand. No explanation. No context. Just those two words delivered like a command.
“What?”
“We’re going out.” His stare travels over me, taking in the loose blouse, the ink on my fingers, the hair I haven’t bothered to style. “Wear something nice. You have fifteen minutes.”
Then he’s gone. Footsteps retreating down the hall before I can ask where, or why, or what is happening.
I stare at the empty threshold. All that silence, and now this?
Fourteen minutes later, I’m descending the main staircase in a fitted navy dress and heels I haven’t worn since the wedding. My hair is pinned up, makeup applied in a rush, pulse racing with anticipation I refuse to name.
He’s waiting at the bottom.
His focus tracks my descent, lingering on the curve of my waist, the sway of my hips with each step. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t have to. His body goes still.
Outside, an SUV idles in the circular drive. Two guards flank the vehicle. Another waits by the rear door. The Don and his wife, going somewhere.
“Where are we going?” I ask as he opens my door.
“You’ll see.”
His palm finds the small of my back as I climb in. The touch burns through the fabric of my dress.
He sits close in the back seat. Closer than necessary. His thigh presses against mine, solid and warm, and neither of us moves away.
The city slides past the tinted windows. Garden District mansions giving way to the boutiques of Magazine Street. I track the route, trying to guess our destination, trying not to focus on the heat of him beside me.
“Dante.”
“Mm.”
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?”
He turns his head. Meets my stare. A shadow passes through his expression. Brief.
“No.”
The SUV pulls to a stop outside of a storefront I recognize. Marguerite’s. The kind of place Elena used to drag me past, pressing her nose to the glass, dreaming of the day she’d be important enough to shop there.
I never went inside. My grip tightens on my bag. The automatic calculation: how much one dress would cost, and who am I to spend it.
“Out.” Dante’s already opening his door. “We have an appointment.”
The boutique is empty. Not closed. Empty. Cleared out for us.
Crystal chandeliers cast prismatic light across racks of silk and satin, and a woman in impeccable black approaches with a smile that’s equal parts warmth and calculation.
“Don Santoro. Mrs. Santoro.” She inclines her head. “We’re honored. Everything is prepared as you requested.”
As he requested. He arranged this. For me.
“Cassia.” His palm finds my back again, steering me forward. “Pick whatever you want.”
I turn to look at him. Search his face for some explanation. He gives me nothing but that steady, unreadable focus.
“This is too much.”
“It’s not enough.” His voice drops, meant for me alone. “You’ve been wearing the same three dresses since you arrived. My wife deserves better.”
My wife.
A knot loosens behind my sternum.
Marguerite herself appears at my elbow. “Shall we start with evening wear, Mrs. Santoro? I’ve pulled some pieces I think will suit your coloring.”
I let myself be led toward the fitting rooms.
Dante settles into a velvet chair near the mirrors, legs spread, arms resting on the sides. A king on his throne, waiting to pass judgment.
The first dress is emerald silk. Cut low in the front, lower in the back.
Marguerite zips me in with practiced efficiency, and I turn to face the mirror.
The woman looking back is a stranger. Curves I’ve spent years hiding now on display. Olive skin glowing against the deep green. For a moment, I don’t recognize myself.
“Show him,” Marguerite murmurs. “That’s what he’s here for.”
I step out of the fitting room.
Dante goes still.
His focus travels from my face to my chest to my hips to the hem brushing my thighs. Every inch of that attention lands on me like a physical touch.
“Turn around.”
I do. The silk whispers against my skin as I move.
When I face him again, his expression has changed. Darker. Hungrier.
“That one stays.” His voice is rough. “Show me another.”
The second dress is black. Bodycon. It clings to every curve I have and a few I didn’t know existed.
This time when I step out, one of the guards glances up from his post by the door. Just a flicker. Just a second.
One second too long.
Dante’s head turns. Not fast. Not slow. The deliberate pivot of a man who never needs to rush because everyone in the room already knows they’re his.
He doesn’t raise his voice. Doesn’t need to.
“Eyes off my wife.” Barely above a whisper. Said with the calm of a man deciding whether to end something.
The guard’s gaze hits the floor so fast his chin nearly strikes his chest.
Dante holds the silence a beat longer than necessary. Letting it scar.
Then he turns back to me, and the darkness in his expression shifts to something hungrier. His nostrils flare.
“That one too.” The words come clipped. Controlled. “Next.”
The third dress is red. The fourth is midnight blue with a slit up the thigh. The fifth is champagne-colored and backless, held up by two thin straps and faith.
Each time I emerge, he devours me. Each time, the tension in his body ratchets tighter. He hasn’t moved from that chair, but I can see the force of his stillness in the rigid line of his shoulders, the white-knuckle grip on the armrests.
And mine ratchets right along with it.
“One more,” Marguerite says, guiding me back to the fitting room. “I saved the best for last.”
The dress is burgundy. Deep, rich, the color of wine at midnight. It’s cut like sin itself. Sweetheart neckline that frames my breasts like an offering, fitted waist that makes my hips look obscene, skirt that falls in a cascade of fabric that manages to reveal and conceal at once.
I stare at myself in the mirror.
My shoulders pull back. My chin lifts. The woman in the mirror stands like she belongs here, and my body believes it before my mind catches up.
I walk out.
Dante rises from the chair.
“Cazzo.”
The word escapes him. Involuntary. Wrecked.
He crosses the distance between us in three strides, and then he’s right there, so close I can smell his cologne, so close I can feel the heat coming off him.
“This one.” His voice fractures on the words. Low. Raw. “Wear this one tonight.”
“Tonight?”
His knuckles brush my jaw, tilting my face toward his. His thumb traces my lower lip, and my pulse stops.
Everything else has vanished. The dresses. My heartbeats. Anything that isn’t him.
“We’re done here.” He’s not looking at the saleswoman when he says it. He’s looking at me. Only at me. “Have everything sent to the compound.”
Then his touch falls away and he’s striding toward the exit, leaving me standing there in burgundy silk with my heart pounding against my ribs.
Marguerite appears at my elbow. “Well,” she says, a knowing curve to her smile. “That was memorable.”
I don’t trust my voice to answer.
The ride home is silent.
He sits beside me in the back of the SUV. My throat is tight. My skin prickling. Neither of us speaks. Neither of us needs to.
His palm lands on my thigh.
High. Higher than propriety allows.
Warm through the thin fabric of my dress, curving around the inside of my leg. I should remember what this is. I should remember the arrangement, the contract, the reasons this is dangerous.
I don’t move.
His grip tightens. A fraction. A silent question.
I let my legs fall open. Just an inch. A silent answer.
He goes still. The sound is faint, but I hear it. A catch in his throat.
The SUV turns onto the private road leading to the compound. Two minutes. Maybe three.
His fingers slide higher. Brush the edge of my underwear.
I’m already wet. Have been since the emerald dress, maybe before.
The gates swing open. The car rolls up the drive. Stops.
Dante is out before the engine dies. He rounds the vehicle, yanks open my door, and pulls me out with a grip wrapped around my wrist.
“Inside.” The word scrapes out of him. “Now.”
We make it through the front door. Just.
His mouth crashes into mine the second the door closes behind us. He tastes like coffee and desperation, and I open for him without thinking. His tongue slides against mine and the sound that escapes me is shameless.
Finally.
He walks me backward. My spine hits the wall. He’s everywhere. My hips, my waist, sliding up my ribs to cup my breasts through the fabric of my dress. He rolls my nipples, already hard and aching, until I gasp.
“Tell me to stop.” He drags his teeth down my throat, scraping my pulse point. “Tell me to stop and I will.”
I curl into his jacket. Pull him closer. “Don’t you dare.”
The last thread in him gives way.
He hoists me up. My legs wrap around his waist on instinct, and then he’s carrying me, still kissing me, up the stairs two at a time. His grip on my ass is hard enough to bruise.
I don’t care. Let there be marks. Evidence that this is real.
Our bedroom door slams open. He crosses the room and drops me onto the bed, following me down, covering my body with his.
“Three days.” He’s pulling at my dress, yanking the zipper down with shaking hands. “Three fucking days of watching you in that study and not touching you.”
“I know.” I help him, shoving the fabric down my hips.
He freezes. Looks at me.
His jaw works. Something flickers through his expression. Recognition, maybe. Understanding.
He unbuttons his shirt. Shrugs it off. The planes of his chest are golden in the fading light, ink and scars telling stories my tongue aches to learn.