Page 31 of Owning Nicci

With the last shreds of self-preservation that I have, I force it down. I force it all down, until my rib cage hurts, like all of that emotion is trying to crack through the bones and be free. If I make a scene, Savio will be angrier than he already is. I can’t make this any worse than I already have, or all of it will be for nothing. The one thing that I thought I could get out of this will be lost.

Somehow, I manage to breathe. In through my nose, out through my mouth, until my heart no longer feels like it’s trying to escape my chest and my pulse is no longer hammering in my ears. I stand up, walking a bit unsteadily over to one of the mirrors, and look at my reflection.

I look pale. I can see hints of dark shadows under my eyes, even through my concealer. I look tired, and I am. I’m tired of all of it—of being owned, used, forced to bend to the whims of men who don’t care about me. I want to fight back.

Andunfortunately, I need Savio for that.

Swallowing hard, I run my fingers through the loose pieces of my hair, fixing the twist that I put my hair in earlier. I left my purse at the table, so there’s nothing I can do about my makeup, but it isn’t that bad. I dab a tissue along the edges of my lips, making sure that my lipstick isn’t smeared.

There’s nothing else I can do except go back out to the table and hope that Estella isn’t seated right next to us. And, of course,hope that Savio isn’t so furious that he’s done with our bargain altogether.

Taking a deep breath, I walk out of the bathroom and back to our table.

The moment I see Savio’s face, I know he’s beyond furious with me. His mouth is set in a hard line, his eyes dark with anger, and I can see his jaw is clenched. The food is gone, and for some reason, that, more than anything else, makes me want to burst into tears.

Instead, I force the feeling back and glance for Estella. She’s on the far side of the restaurant, too far away to easily spot me, and I sink back into my chair, feeling my heartbeat pick up its pace as Savio glares at me.

“No need to sit,” he says icily. “The driver will be around soon. We’re leaving.”

He stands up, and I know there’s no point in arguing that I’m still hungry or that I don’t want to leave yet. I nod, not trusting myself to speak, and follow him back out to the car.

The moment the doors close behind us, Savio turns towards me, his voice laced with fury as he speaks. “Do I need to put a leash on you, pet? I don’t recall giving you permission to leave the table.”

“I didn’t think I needed permission to?—”

He cuts me off before I can finish. “I’ll ignore the foolishness of that statement to stop you from lying to me, pet. I know why you ran off. I saw Estella Gallo walking by our table just after you ran. You’re ashamed to be seen with me? Is that it?”

The question stops me in my tracks. I’d been on the verge of demanding how he knew I had bad blood with Estella, but it’s clear that he doesn’t. He’s assuming something else—that I ran away from the table because I didn’t want one of my former peers to see me at dinner with Savio Valenti.

As if I had a choice. But of course, she wouldn’t know that.

I look at him sharply. “Why do you care if I’m embarrassed to be seen with you?”

His hand shoots out, grasping my wrist and pinning it to the leather of the seat between us. “I’m the one asking the questions here,principessa. Do I need to remind you that I own you? That everything you have and are is at my whim?”

I resist the urge to yank my wrist out of his grasp. It won’t help anything, and it will only raise the odds that after this fight, my deal with Savio will have fizzled into nothing. But I can’t stop the words that spill out of my lips, even as I feel the tension between us pull tight enough to snap.

“You bought me,” I hiss, venom dripping from my tongue. “You don’townme.”

“You should be grateful I bought you,principessa.” He laughs coldly. “I saw the life you were living. You’re in the lap of luxury now, compared to?—”

“You knownothingabout the kind of life I’ve lived!” My voice rises, but I can’t stop it. “You don’t know anything about me, Savio Valenti, except a handful of facts that anyone with an internet connection and half a brain could figure out. You don’t know what I’ve gone through, what I’ve endured. What’s been done to me.” I let out a long, shuddering breath, fighting back the tears that are threatening at the corners of my eyes. “Haven’t you wondered what would make someone like me murderous? What would make me hate someone enough to want to kill them?”

His face is impassive. If he’s reacting at all to what I’m saying, I can’t tell. I can’t even begin to read what he might be thinking. “You still haven’t said why you ran off.” His voice is deceptively calm, and I feel a bubble of panic—of hopelessness—start to well up in my chest.

I look at him and give the only answer I can think of, without going into a history of all that’s happened that I know he doesn’t care about. “I didn’t want to be humiliated again,” I whisper.

It’s the wrong answer. I see immediately that he thinks that the humiliation was that I would have been seen with him, and I also see that I won’t be given a chance to explain otherwise. His expression hardens, and his gaze holds mine, dark and relentless.

“If you behave that way again,” he says, his voice low, “you’ll find out what real humiliation is,principessa.”

Something about the way he says it feels like a shock to my system. Hurt ripples through me like a wave, and an ache settles in my chest, caught behind my ribs, strong enough that I almost put my hand to my chest as if it’s a physical pain. As if his threat really, truly hurt me.

I don’t understand it. I know the situation I’m in. I know who he is and why he wants me—at least, part of it. And I know the bargain that we have. It’s all out there in the open, with no pretense that it’s anything but what it is—captor and captive, a devil and the deal we’ve made. There’s no reason for me to be hurt that Savio would threaten me, that he would look at me like that, as if he’s furious with me.

He doesn’t say another word as the car takes us back to the penthouse. When we’re in the parking garage, he steps out, waiting as the driver opens my door for me and I exit the car, my knees feeling shaky. He leads me up to the penthouse, his hand on my lower back, never leaving—as if he thinks that I might try to run, to escape.

As if I have any place that I could go.

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