8. Elena
ELENA
The door closes behind him, and I'm left standing in the dining room with my carefully organized spreadsheets and my perfectly planned household staff. I sink back into my chair, my hands shaking slightly as I reach for my coffee. It's gone cold.
I should feel victorious. I stood my ground and didn't give him what he wanted. I maintained my composure and my dignity, and he’s the one who retreated, not me. I kept what little control I have over the situation.
Control.
The word echoes in my head in his voice. That rough, Irish-accented voice that shouldn't affect me the way it does. It slides under my skin and makes me feel things I don't want to feel. Things I've spent my entire life learning not to feel.
He's wrong. This isn't about control. This is about ensuring our household runs the way a proper mafia household should run. It’s about preserving some semblance of the life I expected, the life I was promised before my father handed me over to a man who doesn't understand the first thing about our world.
You're lying to yourself.
I set the coffee cup down, and I have to take a breath to steady myself. My chest feels tight. My throat aches. I'm not lying to myself. I'm being practical. I'm doing what needs to be done to survive this marriage with some shred of dignity intact.
Fine. Maybe I am trying to control something.
Maybe I am building walls. But what else am I supposed to do?
I'm trapped in a marriage I didn't choose with a man who thinks he can just…
just walk into my life and demand honesty and vulnerability and truth when he doesn't understand that truth is a luxury I've never been able to afford.
The memory of his hands on me flashes through my mind unbidden.
The way he touched me last night. The way his fingers felt, stroking and teasing until I was desperate and aching, so close to begging I could taste the words on my tongue.
He made me feel things I didn't want to feel, and then he walked away and left me there, wet and wanting and furious with myself for responding to him at all.
My face heats. My body heats. A flush spreads across my skin, and I hate myself for it.
I hate that just the memory of his touch makes my nipples tighten beneath my silk blouse.
I hate that I’m curious about what he looks like under those absurdly casual clothes, what his muscles look like beneath the fabric.
I gather up my papers with sharp, angry movements.
I have work to do, staff to hire, and a household to manage.
I don't have time to sit here thinking about my husband and his arrogant declarations, or the way his eyes looked when he leaned close to me this morning.
Hungry. Like he wanted to devour me right there in the dining room, spread me across the table and make me scream his name until I forgot my own.
No.
I push away from the table and head upstairs to my office—the small room adjacent to the master bedroom that I've claimed as my own space. I doubt Declan will object. If I’m lucky, he won’t notice what I do as long as I stay out of his way. Which is exactly what I want.
Isn't it?
—
The days following blur together, but the resentment builds in my chest with every one that passes.
I hire the staff I need—a housekeeper named Bonnie who comes daily now instead of weekly, additional housekeeping staff to supplement her when needed, a cook who trained in Milan and knows how to prepare the kind of meals I grew up eating, and a house manager who coordinates everything.
Declan signs off on the expenses without comment or even looking at me.
He just scrawls his signature across the bottom of the invoices and goes back to whatever he was doing before I interrupted him.
He's busy with his organization and his territory. His men. His world that I'm not part of, that took Lachlan's empire and handed it to an outsider who doesn't know the first thing about tradition or honor or the way things are supposed to be done.
Good. I don't want to be part of it anyway.
But I can't help noticing small things that make my blood simmer with irritation.
Like the way he conducts business meetings in the living room instead of his office more often than not, spreading papers across the coffee table like he's still running a motorcycle club out of a garage.
His men don't seem to mind—they sprawl across the furniture in their leather jackets and boots, drinking beer from bottles instead of glasses, laughing too loud and tracking dirt across the Persian rug.
But I mind. It's unprofessional and crude.
A reminder that he doesn't belong in this house or this life or this world. He certainly doesn’t deserve me.
I mention it one evening when his men have left, and he's pouring himself a whiskey at the bar cart. The good whiskey, the Macallan 25 that my father gave us as a wedding gift. He doesn't even appreciate it, so far as I can tell, just pours it like it's cheap bourbon.
"You have an office," I say from the doorway, keeping my voice as calm as I can manage. "With a desk. And proper seating. You might consider using it for business meetings instead of treating our living room like a clubhouse."
He doesn't even look up as he keeps pouring, the amber liquid catching the light. "The living room works fine."
"It's inappropriate."
"For who?" Now he does look at me, and there's something sharp in his green eyes. "For you? Because it offends your delicate sensibilities?"
"For anyone with standards." I keep my voice cool even though my heart is pounding. "But I suppose that's the difference between us. You're used to conducting business in dive bars and back alleys. I'm used to actual professionalism."
His jaw tightens. The muscle there jumps, and I watch it with a strange fascination. Watch the way his hand grips the glass a little tighter. "Careful, Elena."
"Careful of what? The truth?" I turn to leave, then pause. "Oh, and your men left rings from their beer bottles on the table. You might want to use coasters next time. If you know what those are."
I don't wait for his response. I walk away with my head high and my heart pounding, feeling both triumphant and slightly sick. Like I've won something, but I'm not sure what.
He hasn’t slept in the master bedroom since he brought me to the penthouse the morning after we wed.
I think he was trying to make some gesture by giving me the main suite and sleeping separately, and a small part of me wants to appreciate it.
That maybe there is some gentlemanly nature behind the beast.
But more likely, he just doesn’t want to be near me any more than I want to be near him.
I go to bed, and try not to think about him lying in a guest bed down the hall, what he might be wearing—or not—or what he might do in that bed thinking of his wife. He’s home every night, so I don’t think there’s another woman. But he hasn’t tried to touch me again.
When I fall asleep, it’s restless. And when I wake up in the morning and come downstairs after showering and dressing for the day, I find him in the kitchen making breakfast. God knows where he sent the cook off to.
He's shirtless, wearing only jeans that hang low on his hips, and there's something so casually domestic about the scene that it makes my chest tight.
And that’s not the only thing. I can see all those muscles that I tried not to theorize about the other morning.
Broad, cut shoulders, a defined chest, abs that aren’t the perfect cobblestones of someone who curates their body in a gym, but the sharply defined abdomen of a man who works hard.
Tattoos are inked all over his arms and chest and sides, and two deep cuts of muscle frame his navel and the dusted copper hair beneath, leaving a tantalizing path into those low-slung jeans.
My mouth feels dry. I try to look at what he’s cooking—eggs, I think. Scrambled, from the look of it. The smell fills the kitchen, along with butter and pepper. It smells homey, even though this has never been my home and never will be.
"Giuseppe can make breakfast," I say, pouring myself coffee with hands that aren't quite steady. "That's what we pay him for. And for God’s sake, put on a shirt. It’s inappropriate.”
Declan snorts. “In my own house? And I like cooking." He doesn't turn around, just keeps stirring the eggs with a wooden spoon. "Always have."
"How quaint." I lean against the counter, watching him.
His back is broad and muscled, covered in tattoos that I've only glimpsed before.
Celtic knots and symbols I don't recognize, and a phrase in what looks like Irish Gaelic along his spine.
"I suppose that's a skill you picked up in your motorcycle club days.
Cooking for yourself because you couldn't afford staff. "
Now he does turn, spatula in hand. His expression is carefully blank, like he's working very hard to keep his face neutral. "Something like that."
"It must be difficult," I continue, knowing I should stop, but unable to. The words keep coming like I can’t do anything but keep digging at this man, making this as painful for him as it is for me to be here.
"Adjusting to this lifestyle. Having people to do things for you.
Not having to scramble for every meal or worry about whether you can afford to keep the lights on. "
"Elena." His voice is quiet, suddenly. My senses spark with the awareness of sudden danger. "What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?"
I raise my chin. "I'm simply making an observation."