Chapter 7
Seven
Luca
The ring fits perfectly.
Of course it does. I had it custom made in two days, the jeweler working around the clock because I paid him enough to make sleep irrelevant.
The diamond catches the October light streaming through my office windows, fracturing it into a thousand tiny prisms. The rubies catch the light like embers, the exact shade I specified to the jeweler.
The same crimson as the viper's eyes that wind up my arm.
I wanted her to wear my mark before she ever took my name.
I watch her slide it onto her finger. Perfect fit. Every measurement pulled from the surveillance photos still sitting in my files. I know the circumference of her ring finger the same way I know the rhythm of her breathing when she sleeps.
Obsession doesn't begin to cover what I feel for this woman.
"Deal." Her voice is steady. In fact, it’s too steady. The word should shake or carry a little bit of a waver. I’ve just forced her into a corner and she’s not showing any signs of the weight I’ve placed onto her shoulders.
That single syllable lands between us like a chess piece moved with precision.
She meets my eyes and lets me see the steel beneath the surrender, and I realize with a jolt of admiration that she thinks she's the one playing me.
And then she hits me with a right hook. "But I have conditions of my own."
I rise from my knee, smoothing down the front of my shirt, and allow myself one moment to simply look at her.
Ilona Marchetti. Pregnant with my child.
Wearing my ring. Standing in my office with fury blazing in those stunning eyes, her chin lifted like she's preparing for battle rather than negotiation.
The morning light catches the blue tips of her hair, the ones she tried so hard to hide in that severe French twist. A few strands have escaped during our confrontation, framing her face in streaks of midnight and sapphire.
Her borrowed blouse has come slightly untucked on one side, and there's a faint tremor in her hands that she's trying desperately to hide.
She's exhausted. Terrified. Furious.
I don't need to be a mind reader to see it.
The evidence is written across her body in a language I've learned to read fluently.
The shadows bruising the delicate skin beneath her eyes, purple smudged against olive.
The way her chest rises and falls just a fraction too fast, each breath a controlled effort.
The white-knuckle grip she keeps on her composure, visible in the tension lining her jaw, the tendons standing out in her neck.
The slight tremor in her fingers she thinks I haven't noticed.
Her entire body broadcasts her truth when her words don't.
And still she’s the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
"I'm listening." I settle against the edge of my desk, arms crossed over my chest, and wait. Patient. I can afford to be patient now. The ring is on her finger. The trap has closed. Everything else is just details.
Her hands curl into fists at her sides, but her voice comes out steady.
Practiced. She's been thinking about this, formulating her demands in the minutes since she slid that band onto her finger.
I can almost see the calculations running behind her eyes, the careful weighing of what she can ask for and what she might actually receive.
Smart woman. I would expect nothing less from the woman who captured my attention and refused to let go.
"First." She holds up one finger, and I track the movement with a predator's focus.
Her nails are painted a soft pink, slightly chipped at the edges.
She's been biting them, a nervous habit she probably doesn't even realize she has.
"I keep working. I came here for a job, and I intend to have one.
I'm not going to be a trophy wife locked in a mansion while you run your empire. "
"Done." The word comes easily. I want her close.
Working at Redthorne puts her exactly where I can see her, protect her, watch over her.
Every day. Every hour. Within arm's reach whenever I need to assure myself she's safe.
"You'll work directly under me. Executive assistant.
You'll have access to everything except the classified Syndicate files. "
Her eyes narrow, suspicious of the easy victory.
Those eyes. Dark and deep and sharp enough to cut.
They see too much, this woman. It's one of the things that drew me to her at the masquerade, the way she looked at me like she could see past the mask to the man beneath.
Now that same perceptiveness makes my skin prickle with unease.
"Just like that?"
"Just like that." I roll one shoulder in an easy shrug, watching her eyes narrow further at the casual gesture. "Next condition."
She hesitates, thrown off balance by my agreement. Good. I want her off balance. It's easier to catch someone when they're not expecting the fall.
But even off balance, she's magnificent.
The flush of anger still rides high on her cheekbones, and her chest rises and falls with controlled breaths that speak to the effort she's expending to keep herself together.
The silk of her blouse shifts with each inhale, drawing my eye to curves I remember tracing with my tongue.
Focus, Valentina. Business first. Pleasure later.
"Second." Another finger rises. "Luna stays in my life.
You don't isolate me from my friends. I've seen what men like you do.
" Her voice hardens, taking on an edge that speaks to personal observation rather than abstract knowledge.
"They cut women off from everyone who cares about them until there's no one left to run to. "
The accusation lands like a blade between my ribs, but I don't let it show.
She's not wrong to be wary. I've watched men do exactly that.
Hell, I've helped men do exactly that when it served the Syndicate's purposes.
I've seen the slow suffocation of women married to powerful men, watched their worlds shrink until they existed only in the shadow of their husbands.
But I won't do it to her. I won't become the monster she fears, even if I'm already the monster she doesn't know about.
"Luna Moone is welcome in our home anytime." I keep my voice even, controlled. "I would never separate you from the people you love. That's not the kind of marriage I want."
"What kind of marriage do you want?" The question is sharp, probing. She steps closer without seeming to realize it, her body drawn forward by the intensity of her own interrogation. Her scent drifts toward me, jasmine and green grass after rain, and my hands itch with the need to touch her.
"One where you trust me." The irony lands like a blade I turned on myself, but I don't let it cut deep. Not now. "Eventually."
Her laugh is bitter and hollow. It bounces off the high ceilings and I deserve every echo. "Trust. Right. We're off to a fantastic start on that front."
She's quick with the blade. I file that away alongside everything else I love about her.
I deserve that. I deserve worse. But I don't say anything, just wait for her next condition while cataloging every micro-expression that flickers across her face.
The tightening around her eyes. The slight downturn of her lips.
The way her jaw clenches and releases as she wrestles with words she hasn't yet spoken.
"Third." She holds up a third finger. Her voice hardens, and her eyes lock onto mine with an intensity that makes my chest tighten.
She plants her feet, squares her shoulders, and delivers her words like a judge handing down a sentence.
"You never lie to me again. Whatever this is between us, whatever this marriage becomes, I need to know that the words coming out of your mouth are true.
I've spent my whole life being manipulated by powerful men.
I won't tolerate it from the man I'm marrying. "
The words hit with surgical precision, finding the exact seam in my armor she doesn't even know exists.
My fingers tighten against my biceps. The contradiction registers like a cold equation: she's demanding the one thing I can't give her without losing everything I've just secured.
I'm already lying. I know it. The question isn't whether I feel the weight of that.
The question is whether the truth serves her better than the protection my silence provides. Right now, it doesn't.
Every decision I made had sound reasoning behind it. Every single one. The problem is that sound reasoning and honesty aren't the same thing, and she just drew a line between the two that I can't uncross.
Drake's voice echoes through my skull, sharp with warning from Saturday night at Ember House: "Tell her the truth before someone else does. Secrets like this have a way of detonating at the worst possible moment."
I dismissed him then. I told myself there’s no way she could find out. And I believe that.
There's only now, with her standing before me demanding honesty while I choke on lies she’ll never know about.
The strategist in me files this away as a manageable risk. The man who remembers the way she looked at me in that glass room tells me I'm a bastard for thinking in terms of risk management. Both voices are mine. Neither one is wrong.
Part of me says tell her. Right now. All of it. Let her decide with full information whether that ring stays on her finger. But full disclosure means she walks. And if she walks, Enzo finds her. The math isn't complicated. It's just ugly.
So I do the only thing the math allows.
“I won't lie to you.” The promise settles between us with the weight of a loaded weapon. I know exactly what I'm doing. I know exactly what it costs. “You have my word.”