Chapter Twelve
Dante
The penthouse door closed behind us. As much as I wanted to make good on my promise, to show her what it meant to be protected like a man like me, I also wondered if it was time to come clean.
If she knew the truth about why I’d accepted her offer, would that change something between us?
Perhaps make her hate her reaction to me a little less?
I headed for the bedroom, my movements deliberate despite the adrenaline pumping through my veins. She followed because of course she did. I turned and locked the door behind us. The click of the mechanism seemed impossibly loud in the quiet room.
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”
“We need to have a conversation.” I shrugged out of my suit jacket, draped it over the chair.
“A conversation that requires locking us in?”
“Yes.” I loosened my tie, pulled it free, began unbuttoning my cuffs with methodical movements. “Because what I’m about to tell you, you’re not going to like. And you’re going to want to run. And I can’t have you running. Not until you understand.”
She crossed her arms, defiance written in every line of her body. “Understand what?”
I studied her for a long moment. My wife. Beautiful and furious and completely unaware of how long I’d been planning this. How many years I’d spent ensuring this exact outcome.
“Did you think this was just business, Caterina?” I moved closer, watching her body language shift from defensive to uncertain. “That I agreed to your terms because of political advantage? Territory? Access to the old families?”
“That’s what the contract --”
“Fuck the contract.” The words came out harsher than I’d intended.
I took a breath, forced my voice back to something resembling control.
“The contract was what I needed to make this legal. To bind you to me in a way Giuseppe couldn’t break.
Unless you went tattling to your papa that I hadn’t fully upheld my end of the deal.
However, if you were going to do that, I think you would have already.
” I stopped three feet away from her, close enough to see her pulse jump at her throat.
“But the reason I wanted you? I’ve had eyes on you since you were eighteen. ”
The color drained from her face. “What?”
“Since you were eighteen,” I repeated, watching comprehension dawn in her eyes.
“That night at Rossi’s party. You wore red.
Some designer dress that clung to every curve.
You laughed at something Luca said, and I watched you from across the room and thought, mine.
You’re mine. I just have to wait for the right moment to claim you. ”
“You’re lying.” But her voice shook.
“I’m not.” I moved to the window, looked out at the city below.
Remembered watching her through similar windows, through cameras, through reports from people who didn’t know why I was asking.
“I had my security team track your movements. Not constantly. Not like a stalker. Just enough to know where you were. Who you were with. Who was getting too close.”
“Jesus Christ.” She pressed a hand to her forehead. “Exactly how is that not stalking?”
“That boy from university. The one who asked you to dinner three times before you finally said yes.” I turned back to face her. “He got a job offer in Singapore he couldn’t refuse. Moved two weeks before your first date.”
Her hand went to her throat. “That was you?”
“That was me making sure no one claimed what was mine.” I rolled up my sleeves, the gesture automatic.
“The gallery owner who kept calling you. The politician’s son at that charity gala.
The bartender at the club you used to frequent with your friends.
Every man who got too close, who looked at you like they had a chance, who thought they could have what belonged to me. ”
“I didn’t belong to you.” Her voice was rising now, anger replacing shock. “You had no right --”
“I had every right.” I closed the distance between us in two strides.
“You were going to be mine. I knew it the moment I saw you. Knew it in my bones, in my blood, in every part of me that matters. So I did what was necessary to give me the advantage. And while it didn’t work entirely the way I’d hoped, you did end up in my bed. ”
“You’re insane.” She backed away, her eyes wide. “You’re actually fucking insane.”
“No. I’m patient. Thorough. A man who understands that some things are worth waiting for.
” I followed her retreat with measured steps.
“I watched you grow into yourself -- saw that sharp tongue and sharper mind take shape. You learned to navigate your father’s world with a grace most people never master. And through it all, I waited.”
“Waited for what?” She hit the wall, trapped by her own backward momentum. “For the perfect moment to manipulate me into marriage?”
“I didn’t manipulate anything.” My hand came up to brace against the wall beside her head.
“Your father arranged the marriage to Marco. You came to me looking for a way out. I simply provided what you asked for. That I’d been preparing for this opportunity for years doesn’t change that you made the choice. ”
“Because you engineered the circumstances!” Her hands pushed against my chest, but I didn’t move. “You probably encouraged Papa to consider Marco. You probably made sure I’d be desperate enough to agree to your terms --”
“I had nothing to do with Marco.” That much was true. “Giuseppe’s political maneuvering is his own. I just made sure that when you needed an alternative, I was a viable option. A more preferable one, for that matter.”
Her breathing had gone rapid, her chest rising and falling with each sharp inhale. “So, your goal was to make yourself the only choice.”
“Yes.”
The single word hung between us. No apology. No justification. Just acknowledgment of what I’d done.
“You’re a monster.” Her voice broke on the last word. “You’re no different than my father. Than Marco. You’re just better at hiding it.”
“I never claimed otherwise.” I leaned in closer, until I could smell her perfume mixed with rage and fear. “But I’m your monster now. The one you chose. The one who’ll protect you from all the others while keeping you exactly where you belong.”
“I don’t belong to anyone --”
“You belong to me.” The words came out low and absolute. “You’ve belonged to me for three years, Caterina. You just didn’t know it. Now you do.”
She stared at me, her green eyes bright with unshed tears and fury. “You violated my privacy, stalked me, manipulated…”
“No unworthy man ever touched what was mine. I made sure of that. You don’t want the specifics.
And I refuse to share them. As you said, you already see me a monster.
” My free hand rose to cup her jaw, forcing her gaze to stay on mine.
“And you did choose me. Whatever your reasons, however desperate you were, you walked into that restaurant and asked for this marriage. So don’t play the innocent now.
You wanted out of Giuseppe’s control badly enough to give yourself to me instead. ”
“I didn’t know you were insane --”
“I’m not insane. I’m in love with you.” The words came out before I could stop them.
Truth I hadn’t planned to reveal, hadn’t meant to acknowledge even to myself.
“I have been since that night at Rossi’s party.
Since I watched you laugh and move and exist in a world that suddenly made sense because you were in it. ”
She went completely still. “What?”
“You heard me.” I released her jaw and stepped back, needing space to regain the control that confession had shattered. “I love you. I’ve loved you for years. That’s why I waited. Why I watched. Why I made sure you’d be mine when the time came.”
“That’s not love.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “That’s obsession. That’s --”
“It’s both.” I met her eyes without flinching. “And I’m done pretending otherwise. Done letting you think this arrangement is just business. It never was. Not for me.”
Her hand came up fast, aimed at my face with all the force her anger could provide. I caught her wrist three inches from my cheek, my reflexes faster than her rage.
“Let me go.” The words came out as a snarl.
“No.” I held her wrist firmly, not hard enough to hurt but unbreakable. “Not until you understand what this means. What we are.”
“We’re not anything --”
“We’re everything.” I pulled her closer, until her body pressed against mine. “And you can fight it all you want. You can rage and throw things and try to hit me. But it won’t change the truth. You’re mine, Caterina. You always were and always will be.”
She yanked her wrist free with a strength born of pure fury. “Fuck you.”
Then she grabbed the crystal lamp from the nightstand and threw it at my head.
I moved left and the crystal lamp sailed past my head by inches, exploding against the full-length mirror behind me.
Glass shattered in a spray that caught the light like diamonds, and I heard Caterina’s sharp intake of breath -- shock at what she’d done, maybe, or disappointment that she’d missed.
The mirror’s destruction spiderwebbed outward from the impact point, turning my reflection into a fractured monster. Appropriate.
“Feel better?” I asked, my voice level despite the adrenaline pumping through my system.
Her answer was to grab the next nearest object. I caught her wrist before she could throw it, my fingers closing around the delicate bones with controlled pressure. It tumbled from her grip and hit the oriental carpet with a muffled thud that didn’t break it.
“Let me go.” She yanked against my hold, her eyes wild with rage. “Let me fucking go --”
“No.” I pulled her closer, caught her other wrist when she swung at my face with her free hand.
Now I had both her arms, both her wrists secured in my grip while she struggled like a trapped animal.
“You want to fight me? Fine. But you’re not throwing my things around like a child having a tantrum. ”