Page 33 of Princess of the Mafia

His response was instant. Like he hadn’t even thought of words before it left his mouth. “No.”

It was the not-open-to-discussion voice that Papà used when that was all the explanation I was going to get.

But he wasn’t Papà. “Why not?”

“Because that’s not how marriages work.”

“Well, you already cheated on me.”

I felt the wrath of his anger coagulating on my back. It scraped my spine like a hot needle on silk.

“I slept with that fucking woman before I met you.”

“Let’s see how long it takes for you to fuck the next one then.”

The moment my words fell on the room, I knew they were too much. Too soon. It was all wrong. These were the types of words that got a woman slapped. Shoved into a corner. Kicked. My malicious words hung tight, like a foul smell without a ventilator. No amount of opening windows was going to get this out.

“Jesus,” he hissed, and the word almost whizzed out of his lips in a growl.

I waited for more, but only silence followed. He didn’t contradict me. He didn’t whip me around and slap me. He didn’t yell or shove me off the bed. He did none of that. His actions were abrupt and bizarre. He wrapped his palm around my crotch, pulled me towards him, and tucked himself around me. Shock froze me. I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to. Awkward. His hand burned where it was. His heart beat against my spine. Not mad, but like the calm sound of a one-beat drum. My breath, his. My breath, his. There was no way I could sleep like this. The stillness of the room drove me crazy. I’d do anything to hear the blast of a siren somewhere, but all I heard was my breath, his. My breath, his.

I must have fallen asleep. When my eyes opened, light streamed in through the windows, and there was no heat around me. I flopped on my back to an empty room. A glance at the clock told me it was six o’clock. That meant it was noon at home.

I did a slow bed angel as I imagined Mamma going about the house, Vitale going in and out of meetings, Lia having lunch, Orietta well… she didn’t live with us anymore, so I had no idea what she was up to. Was she happy with her husband? She had looked like it, even though she said she barely tolerated him. But when she thought no one was looking, she got this glazed look in her eyes and it looked suspiciously like how Divya looked when she talked of Antonio. I didn’t really know how Orietta went from hating every man to that. Maybe it was an idea to call her up and ask. Maybe I should try? To do what? To have him smash my heart like it was glass when he fucked the very next woman? I wasn’t going to be Mamma.

I froze mid-angel when awareness burned me. He was framed in the doorway. My family was always neatly dressed up in suits and ties. This man, if he wore one, it looked more like he was on the way to removing it than donning it. Today, he hadn’t bothered at all. No suit or tie were in the picture. A black T-shirt and black jeans. Heat rushed to my face when my eyes followed to where they wrapped around him, bulging and marking everything out. I forced my eyes to climb up to his face and found something soft painted across it.

His eyes trailed my open legs to my crotch and touched me with memories of his hand there before gliding up slowly, inch by inch, to my face. Is this what they mean by the seduction of the eye? No fucking way was he seducing me.

I sat up and wrapped my hands around my legs. I didn’t like it, and there was no way he was getting inside me.

“I’m going to be away the whole day,” he muttered darkly as he strode over to the nightstand, took his wristwatch, and slapped it around his thick wrist.

Disappointment grazed my chest. It wasn’t that I wanted him around, but the thought of being alone the whole day in this metal chest was disheartening.

His face softened at my sigh. “What?”

“I want to call my family,” I muttered.

I must have imagined that softness, because it vanished off his face like the gray smoke he puffed out. “So?”

I rocked on my heels. Cosa Nostra put women down constantly. They made us rely on our men, so we were trapped. We didn’t have jobs, we didn’t have independence. Everything we wanted we had to get from the men to whom we were tied, with a silk tie on our wrist or cold clasp of metal on our throat.

“I don’t have an international connection to call, do I?” Mamma must have been going mad with worry and driving Vitale up the wall.

“Fuck! I’m so sorry, Principessa. You can use Ciro’s one. I’ll get you a number today.”

“Thanks.” I guess. The asshole should have realized that I might want to talk to my family, or was he going to keep me locked up here the whole time?

My eyes followed him suspiciously as he walked around his side of the bed to mine. I jerked back when he stopped beside me. Too close. The thick fabric of his jeans brushed my shoulder. A rough thumb on my cheek, like velvet stroked the wrong way, sent ripples through my skin. “I’ve arranged for Stefano to take you out today. Do some sightseeing, sì?”

And he said this wasn’t marriage. It sounded like marriage to me when he handed over his burden to another man so he could go and do whatever he wanted to do. I let my eyes slide tightly shut. I wasn’t going to take that path.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DARIA

“Ididn’t have a connection, Mamma.”

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