Chapter Four
JUST LIKE THAT, SHE was getting married again.
Kendra wasn't sure what was more surreal. The fact that she was standing in a private courthouse in a beautiful cream dress that her equally beautiful future husband had handpicked...or how said husband was still looking at her like she was his most prized possession.
How crazy was that, really?
A man like him could have any woman she wanted, and Kendra had never been the type that made other people feel possessive. Her own mother had chosen Thelma over her, and Porter, well...
He obviously married the wrong twin, too.
But that was fine, she quickly reminded herself as she started walking down the aisle.
All of those things were of the past, today was the beginning of something new, and oh!
Her heart skipped a beat at the way Dario’s gaze glittered with possessive heat when she came to stand by his side. It was just so, so crazy, she couldn’t help thinking helplessly, how much this man wanted her, and how he didn’t care at all to hide it!
The wedding only took minutes to conclude, but she cherished every second of it.
This was the one condition she had asked for.
That they have the most private wedding possible, and as shameful as this was to admit, it was mostly because she was scared of how Porter or Thelma would choose to cause trouble if her wedding to Dario was ever publicized.
"You may kiss the bride.”
Her eyes closed as his lips touched hers, and it was the simplest but also the sweetest of kisses. She would remember it forever, just like how she would remember everything about her wedding.
Everything.
The drive from the courthouse to his home, for instance—she would remember every moment of it, too. Everything about it was precious because that was the first time they were riding a car as husband and wife, and Dario, well...
He spent the entire drive just kissing her like her lips were the only thing that could quench his thirst, and she didn’t think she could ever get over that. It was just so crazy, how much he wanted her.
When the car cruised out of the city, she had looked at him in surprise, but her husband had only smiled.
His home, as it turned out, was in one of those gated communities that prized privacy above all else.
It didn’t ever advertise about vacant lots, and there was no nearby train station or bus route.
His home was an even bigger surprise. She had wrongly assumed he would build something that was more like a fortress, and she had been totally fine with that. Anything to keep her husband safe. But instead, his home looked like something straight out of a fairytale.
“Is that really your home?” she whispered.
“Our home, Mrs. La Rocca.”
She could only smile tearily at his words, but when he pulled her close to kiss her forehead, well...
That was when the tears flowed endlessly, and her husband chuckled.
“What am I going to do with you, cara? You cry over the smallest things.”
“It’s all your fault,” she said with a sniff. “You’ve turned me into a crybaby by being too perfect.”
“That’s not good.”
Kendra blinked. “Why?”
“Because if you already think I’m perfect now...”
The graveness of his voice made her look at him worriedly.
“Wait until I take you to bed, wife.”
Aaargh!
She could only sputter and laugh, and she didn’t know whether to feel relieved or nervous as his limousine rolled to a stop.
He introduced her his staff, which included Bonnie, who would be her own personal security and was 100% non-negotiable because it was a “precaution” that came with being Mrs. Dario La Rocca.
It was only eleven in the morning, but after dismissing the staff and giving her the complete tour of his home, Dario was already leading her back to the master’s suite.
“Um, Dario...”
It was broad daylight still. Was he actually thinking—
Oh!
As soon as they were inside his room—or rather, their room—she had her answer, with her husband hauling her into his arms, and oh, oh, oh!
Her clothes seemed to melt away under the efficient work of his fingers, and so did his. One moment they were still on their feet, the next moment they were in his huge bed, skin to skin, and he was kissing and touching her everywhere, and he was making her gasp and whimper almost every moment.
She had thought she would be nervous about the two of them coming together for the first time, but instead all she could do was feel. Being nervous required worrying, but that was impossible when her brain had long ceased to function.
And when he finally positioned himself to take her...
"Dario—" Her fingers dug into his shoulders. "Dario, I'm—"
"Lo so, cara," he said roughly just before entering her, and...and...oh, she didn’t even have the words to describe it!
The way his every move made her feel, the way he was watching her as he possessed her again and again—
“D-Dario, p-please.”
She could barely string two words together. Could only cry out as she felt something familiar inside her started to build. And when she heard her growl something in Sicilian, something she couldn’t translate but her body completely understood—
Kendra fell apart with his name on her lips, and her husband was right behind her, her name on his lips, her body shuddering underneath his.
He was right, she thought dazedly several hours later.
Dario was already perfect in her eyes before this.
But now?
Her husband loomed over her, and when he saw the dazed expression on her face...
His lips curved in a smirk. He totally knew why she still couldn’t think straight, and as much as she wanted to make a face...
It was impossible, with how Kendra was still trying to catch her breath, and how her heart was still racing like someone was after it.
Dario pulled her close, and her eyes started smarting.
This feeling of being in her husband’s arms...
It felt like coming home.
THE FIRST WEEK WAS a language she was learning.
There were rules in this life that nobody explained to her because everyone else already knew them.
Dario left early and came home late and never told her where he'd been, and she never asked, because not-asking was a skill she'd perfected in her first marriage and she wasn't ready to unlearn it yet.
But the nights—
The nights were hers.
He came home and found her wherever she was—the library, the kitchen, the garden she'd been poking around in because gardens needed attention whether they belonged to her or not—and he'd kiss her temple and ask what she'd read and listen to the answer like it mattered, and then at some point the listening would become looking, and the looking would become touching, and they'd end up in the bedroom or against the kitchen counter or, once, on the library floor between two shelves of first editions, and Kendra would lose herself so completely that for those minutes or hours she forgot to wonder about the rest of it.
But the days. The days were where the cracks lived.
She learned about the La Roccas the way you learn about a country you've moved to without studying the language—in pieces, from people who assumed she already knew.
She knew Dario would answer her question if she ever cared to ask, but she never did because she knew that was a time of his life her husband didn’t like to revisit. Thankfully, Mona, their Sicilian housekeeper, was there to fill in the gaps in her knowledge.
While Mona did her best to teach Kendra to make arancini, the older woman told her about how the La Roccas used to be one of the most powerful families in Palermo.
“And you know what I mean when I say family, yes?” Mona asked while rolling the rice between her palms.
“They’re mafia?”
Mona winced. “Just say yes next time, signora. There’s no need to say the word.”
Riiiight.
“Has signore told you about his grandfather?"
Kendra shook her head.
"Cosimo La Rocca built the hospital. The school. The roads. Everything in that town, the La Roccas built." Mona set down the arancini and made a sound that required no translation. "The government forgot us. The La Roccas didn't."
“And yet they still have enemies?”
“Doing something good doesn’t always make other people feel good. For some, it is the opposite, and they hate you for this.”
That night, Kendra lay next to Dario in the dark, and she couldn’t help but remember all the things that Mona told her about his family.
A part of her couldn’t believe she was married to a man like him, whose life made hers seem so small and inconsequential. The only thing that uniquely happened to her was catching Porter in bed with her twin, but that wasn’t exactly something to be proud of.
“I can feel you thinking, cara.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I really wasn’t—”
A soft sigh from her husband.
Oh no.
Because the moment she heard it, she remembered belatedly what he had warned her that fateful day in his hotel in Chicago.
When it comes to what we have between us, there must only be truth.
She didn’t have a chance to take her words back and say sorry.
Her husband had already rolled her to her back, and well...
It was the sweetest punishment ever, but it was also the kind that had her begging for respite—
But alas, this husband of hers who loved to spoil Kendra to death...
He was the opposite in the bedroom, ‘Nuff said.
Afterward, Kendra wasn’t sure if she had fallen asleep out of exhaustion or had passed out. When she woke up, her husband had already left for the office, and waiting for her were several unread messages.
Delete.
Delete.
Delete.
While she hadn’t blocked Porter or Thelma from contacting her, she couldn’t quite manage to talk to them just yet.
It wasn’t that she was angry with them or anything. She truly wasn’t. But that didn’t mean she was already okay.
Because every time she thought about her ex-husband or twin...
It was actually enough to make her heart shrivel, and that was why she couldn’t read any of their messages.
Not just yet.
“GOOD MORNING, MRS. La Rocca.”
“Good morning, Bonnie.” The brunette was in her late forties and had a smile that was as bright as the sun and rosy plump cheeks that made her look so much younger.
“You have a lot on your plate today,” Bonnie commented.
“I know.” Kendra smiled ruefully. “And sadly, that means the same for you, too.”
It still took getting used to, having her own bodyguard follow her around, and so Kendra had settled for a compromise by insisting that Bonnie walk beside her for as long as it was safe.
This way, the older woman—who had been working for the La Roccas since her late teens—was more like her friend than security.
Unfortunately, however...
“You remember what we practiced, Mrs. La Rocca?”
Today wouldn’t be one of those days. The museum where she was having her next meeting was a lot more crowded than Bonnie expected.
The older woman had stopped smiling, and it was like someone flipping a switch.
One moment, Bonnie was beaming like she was the light of the world.
The next moment, she was the Grim Reaper herself, and Kendra knew better than to make light of the situation.
“I remember.” They had safe words and code words for everything. It was just one of the many “precautions” that had become a part of her life, and while others might think of it as bothersome, for Kendra it was the opposite.
Because these precautions meant she was cherished.
Bonnie stood behind Kendra’s seat throughout the day and another precaution was for them to take toilet breaks at the same time. Thankfully, the other women making up the board were used to the presence of personal security since they, too, had their own bodyguards.
“Don’t you live outside the city?” Shayla Kontides asked in a whisper while their board went on a ten-minute recess. “It’s fine if you’d like to leave early. It’s already getting late.”
“I’m good,” Kendra assured her friend. “Dario says we’ll be staying at the penthouse tonight.”
Shayla relaxed. “That’s good to know.”
It was close to midnight when the meeting finally ended, and Shayla tried her best not to laugh at how the younger woman could no longer keep herself from yawning.
“Go home,” she urged Kendra with a smile. “You look like you’re about to drop dead at any moment.”
Kendra usually chatted with Bonnie while in the car, but as soon as she was in the backseat, she only had to close her eyes, and she was fast asleep in a second.
She had mistakenly thought that the wives of billionaires spent their time leisurely, but that wasn’t true at all.
Every woman was different, and she was so grateful that because of Dario’s partnership with Adriano Kontides, Kendra had ended up being friends with someone like Shayla, who not only practiced law but also headed her own foundation.
When they got to the penthouse, Kendra put her foot down for the first time when Bonnie was about to join her in the elevator.
“Go home, Bonnie,” she said with a smile. “It’s been a long day for us both.”
The penthouse was dark when she arrived, and while that in itself was unusual...
There was something else that made the hairs at the back of her neck rise.
Something else that made her feel like she had something stuck in her throat.
No. No. No.
Why did all of this feel so terribly and painfully familiar?
She couldn’t even make herself blink. She didn’t want to risk closing her eyes because the moment she did, she was scared she would end up remembering that night.
No.
Please, God.
Please don’t let it be happening again.