Page 63 of Desire and Revenge

The current administration favors him in every way, so what the hell am I supposed to offer a man who seemingly has it all?

“This is embarrassing to admit,” Sebastian smiles, “but I’m a bit obsessed with my wife. I can’t be without her for so manyhours. Look at her, Amato, would you want to leave such a woman for even a second?”

She raises her head from her plate, green eyes opened wide on her husband.

“Don’t you agree that she’s exquisite, Castello?” His gaze is still on her when he asks, and a tingle of suspicion rushes through me.

What does he know?

This entire dinner has felt like one big jest, a perfect way to taunt everyone before he makes his move. I shouldn’t have left my gun at the door.

Before I can answer, he cups her jaw in his hand and covers her mouth with his. As he pulls her further to him, my gaze falls down to where his hand is sliding down her hip. I see red.

The creaking of my chair as I jump out of it has everyone turning to me, but I ignore them all.

“Where’s your bathroom?” I grit out to one of the servers.

He looks startled for a second. “Uh, down the hall, third door on your left.”

I’m already reaching for a cigarette before I’m fully out of the room. When I remember that I tossed them into the trash can in my bedroom on an impulse, I almost pull my hair out of their roots. I’m furious at both Sebastian and Sofia, burning with jealousy, unarmed, and without even nicotine as a clutch.

This entire shitshow has gone on too long. It’s high time I put it to an end. I no longer believe that I have the element of surprise, at least not completely. If he knows something, though, he will need some days to plan, and also, with the arrival of the shipment, he will be too busy to do anything.

Which is why I intend to take him out on that day.

Four days from now, I’m finally going to get the revenge that has been over a decade in the making.

I’m ending this once and for all.

CHAPTER 20

Sofia

I’m exhausted.

I don’t recall a time in my life I’ve ever felt this drained before, like a tennis ball being slammed back and forth across a court, with no chance to catch my breath. All I want is to soak in a long bath, crawl under my sheets, bury my face in a pillow, and pretend this isn’t my reality.

This has to be some kind of never-ending nightmare, because I never agreed to star in this soap opera, caught between my husband—the man I once vowed my life to—and a dark-eyed shadow from his past.

I do a bit of hopping as I drag my Manolo Blahnik stilettos off one leg and then the other, wiggling my toes to ease the constrictive abuse they had been in all night.

I thought that dinner would never end. The entire time, my stomach kept tumbling around like clothes in the washer and more than once, I had wanted to escape to the bathroom and stay there.

Especially when my husband had kissed me.

Pushing open the bedroom door, I step inside, only to be yanked into a hard, unyielding body and shoved against the wall. The room is cloaked in darkness, but despite my heart galloping in my chest, I know exactly who my nighttime intruder is.

“Nero,” I breathe.

I hear the door lock turn, and then he buries his face into my neck and growls, my body shuddering with pleasure and something more terrifying:contentment. All my earlier tension fizzles away till I’m left feeling boneless.

“He kissed you.” His voice is guttural and furious.

“I didn’t want him to.”

“You belong to him.”

I belong to you!, everything inside of me is screaming, but the words refuse to come out. Despite the fact that Nero and I know every inch of each other’s bodies, how to touch each other with just the right amount of pressure and hunger to make the other fall apart, every erogenous zone, we’ve still never defined what this is.

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