Page 40 of Keeping My Bride

Chapter 27

Verona

MY STOMACH GROWLS with such intensity that it almost makes me dizzy. I’m so hungry. I skipped breakfast, lunch and dinner today just so I wouldn’t have to face Luca, and now I’m paying the price.

For some reason, I thought maybe he would come up after dinner to apologize and offer me some food. But now I know I was way too naïve to think that would happen. It’s nearly ten o’clock at night, and I haven’t eaten a single thing since yesterday evening.

Fuming, I wrap a sheer flowered kimono around my midnight blue nightdress and venture out of my room. I tiptoe down the quiet hallway and make my way downstairs towards the kitchen. I’m crossing the dining room when I see movement coming from the table and stop dead in my tracks.

My eyes meet his from across the room. I can tell just by looking at him that he’s drunk, but the almost empty bottle of scotch is a dead giveaway.

“What are you doing?” he asks, his words slurring.

At first, my mind draws a blank. I’m so taken aback by his relaxed state. His suit jacket is slung over the back of his chair, and his button-up shirt is hanging open, revealing a muscular chest that could easily be on the cover of a fitness magazine.

“Let me guess,” he says, drawing out every word. “You’re hungry.”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Should have come down for dinner,” he says with a shrug.

“You can’t starve me,” I say forcibly.

“I could if I wanted to. I could do anything I wanted to do to you actually,” he confesses. “It’s not like you don’t deserve it.”

His words have me taking a step back. “I don’t deserve any of this!” I tell him vehemently. I’m tired of his constant animosity towards me. “I never did anything to you, Luca.”

He closes his eyes when I say his name. “You are one of them.”

“One of them?” I ask, not understanding.

“A Moretti,” he sneers as if the name leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

I don’t know what happens next, but I think I honestly have just reached my breaking point with him. “Fuck you, Luca,” I hiss.

His eyes open and narrow as he stares at me. “What did you just say to me?”

“Fuck you!” I yell.

Before I can even blink, he is up and out of his chair and coming straight for me. Squealing in terror, I turn to run, but he’s too fast. He hauls me up in his arms and over to the table, bending me over the edge and pushing my face into the wood. He grasps my arms behind my back and holds them in place with one of his large hands while his other hand grabs the nape of my neck.

“Say it again,” he hisses at me through clenched teeth. “I dare you.”

And so I do. “Fuck you!”

The next thing I hear is a ripping sound as my kimono is torn from my body, the lacy, delicate material falling into shreds around me.

His hand reaches for the hem of my nightdress, and I cry out, “Don’t you dare!”

He hesitates and then says, “What will you do, Verona, if I touch you? Will you cry out my name and beg for release just like last night?”

My face flames with embarrassment.

“Maybe you want me to spank you and make you wet again,” he whispers into my ear, the scent of expensive scotch sweeping over my face.

“Please. Stop,” I beg.

He squeezes my arms before releasing me, scoffing in disgust. He starts walking away from me out of the room when I call after him, “I don’t know what you think my family did to you, but we didn’t do anything!”

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