Page 27 of Cruel Heir

“Don’t worry, take your time. What’s your name?” I ask curiously, and she shakes her head.

“Don Leone said we shouldn’t talk to you unless we need to.” Her voice is a mouse’s squeak, high and nervous. “Only Celeste and the main staff speak to you.”

“Did he say why?” I ask, but she only shakes her head again, retreating quickly with the laundry and not another word.

I grit my teeth, anger warring with fear. Andre clearly suspects me, even if my performance last night was enough to keep him from being certain that I got word out. I find myself hoping that he won’t have come home yet, that I won’t have to endure him for a little while longer. I don’t know how I’m going to pretend as if nothing is wrong, the way Celeste seems to think that I should.

But unsurprisingly, I find him sitting at the head of the table as he always is, as if nothing at all were out of the ordinary.

“I heard you had quite the day,” Andre says with a small smile as Isit down. There’s already a bowl of what looks like pumpkin bisque in front of each of us, a swirl of heavy cream on top, but I don’t have much of an appetite. I sink into my chair and look at him blankly, waiting for him to fill me in on what, exactly, it is that he’s referring to.

“Getting to know the staff, are we?” He keeps that same bland smile on his face, and I feel a twist in my gut. “I’m glad you’re trying to make friends, dear wife, but I’d prefer if you looked outside of the help for that. In fact, some of my own colleagues’ wives will be coming to visit shortly, I think. That ought to give you something to do with your time. You can occupy yourself doing what a good mafia wife ought to do—entertaining and helping her husband bolster his alliances. I made a few of those today, you know.” He reaches for his wine. “I’m growing stronger, and your father has lost one of his best assets. It’s been a good day.”

“How nice for you.” I drag my spoon through my soup, trying to summon the will to eat before Andre decides to make me. “I’m sure you want to tell me all about it.” I manage to say the last neutrally, but I glance at him, hoping that he might let something useful slip. Something that, if I were able to get another message to my father, might be helpful to him. Something I could share with Celeste.

Andre just smiles. “I wouldn’t want to bore you with business. How wasyourday?” His voice has that casual boredom to it that I know hides the possibility of him being angry with me if I say the wrong thing. I have no idea if he wants me to admit to the conversations I had, but I’m not about to slip up that easily.

“As boring as usual.” I force myself to take a bite of the soup. “Having guests will make things more interesting, I’m sure.” I look down at my bowl, hoping he’ll go silent. I hate having to make small talk with him, hate having to pretend as if I don’t want to scream every moment that I’m sitting here.

Andre says nothing else, and my thoughts race. If he’s made alliances, then that means there’s more to his plan of revenge than merely marrying me and getting me pregnant. My family might be in more danger than I realized.

After dinner, when Andre disappears into his study, I wander the house a little more. I saw a staircase that went down to a lower level that I didn’t explore, thinking that it might be a basement, but when I flick on the light and find the nerve to go down and investigate, I find that it leads me down to a concrete landing and a heavy, locked door. There are only two thin windows on either side of the door, but when I look through, I realize that there’s a garage on the other side of it, full of cars.

Of course. Where did I think that driver took that car, anyway? How did I not think of this before?

My heart leaps in my chest, my pulse suddenly racing at the thought of escape. I don’t know how to drive, but I imagine that of all the things I could figure out in this sort of dire circumstance, that’s absolutely one of them. There’s a locked box on the right wall, and I have a feeling that the sets of keys are inside. It has a small slit in the front of it for a card, just as the door does, and I wonder if Andre has the keycard that opens them. If he does, how would I get it?

A flicker of an idea comes to me as I hurry upstairs, before he can catch me. I know he’ll want me to come to bed with him tonight—aside from my punishment last night in the office, there’s not a night that’s gone past so far that he hasn’t made good use of to try to achieve his goal of getting me pregnant. And if I could manage to stay long enough for him to fall asleep—

The idea of behaving as if I’m warming up to him makes me feel faintly sick. But worse than that is the idea of being trapped here.

I’m a better actress than I thought,I remind myself as I slip back up to my room, my thoughts churning. I’d pretended last night that I’d had no idea why my father’s men might have come for me or how he might have found out, and while I don’t think Andre entirely believed me, he didn’t catch on to Celeste’s involvement, or know for sure that I’d sent a message. It could have been so much worse.I can pull this off.

When I hear him come upstairs, I walk out of my bedroom without him having to come and fetch me. He looks at me curiously, and I shrug, pulling the silk robe that I slipped on closer aroundmyself. “I thought we might as well get it over with,” I tell him archly, and Andre smirks.

“Just for that,” he purrs, leaning in to kiss me soft and slow, as if hewantsto seduce me, “I’m going to make this last as long as I possibly can.”

And he does. He makes me come twice, once with his tongue and then again with his fingers, as he fucks me in long, slow strokes, making me cry out with unwanted pleasure as he fills me again and again. I can see the satisfaction on his face, how much better it makes it for him to know that I can’t fight my desires, that my body wants the pleasure he gives me even if I swear over and over that I don’t.

When he comes, he stays there for a long moment, as if he’s trying to push his cum as deeply inside of me as he can. He bends down, kissing me again, his tongue tangling with mine as he rocks against me, my oversensitive clit throbbing with every press of his skin against mine. “You’re going to grow to love this,” he murmurs against my mouth. “You’ll be the one coming to me for pleasure, before too long. You’ll learn all the ways I can make you come, and you’ll be insatiable.” His cock twitches inside of me, and I have a moment’s fear that he’s going to get hard all over again, that he won’t be satisfied with just once. I think of the garage downstairs, of the possibility of escape, and it’s all I can do to not push him off of me.

Andre rolls off of me onto his back, his cock clinging to his thigh. When I don’t immediately start to get up, he looks at me curiously. “Want more,principessa?” he asks mockingly, and I resist the ever-present urge to slap him across his handsome, arrogant face.

“You said things didn’t have to be so bad.” I wrap my arms across my breasts to shield myself as I say it, looking slightly away. It’s not hard to pretend to be nervous and uncertain about this—I’mterrified. If this plan goes wrong, Andre will be furious with me. I have no idea what the line is, where his anger and frustration with me might spill over into violence.

If he hurts me, is it really so much worse than what’s already happening?

“I did.” He looks at me cautiously, as if he’s not sure where I’mgoing with this. “What about this would you like to be better? Didn’t I make you come twice?” The mocking is still in his voice, but it’s lessened slightly. It’s almost as if he’s curious what I might want.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight.” I glance away from him again, as if even mentioning it embarrasses me. “The attack last night—it frightened me. I couldn’t sleep afterward.”

Andre narrows his eyes at me, as if he’s looking for an ulterior motive. I have one, of course, and it takes everything in me to meet his eyes and look as innocent as I can, as if the only reason I’m asking really is that I’m afraid of the house being attacked again.

“Your father’s men came to try to rescue you, and it scared you?” He frowns. “You’re really trying to convince me that you didn’t know.”

And there it is.A small slip, not something that I wasn’t already fairly sure of, but a slip nonetheless. I know for sure, now, that my father really did send some of his men here to try to get to me. And if he tried it once, he’ll certainly try it again.

Or I can try to get a car, and get away tonight. And no one else will have to risk attacking the estate.

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