There was nothing to prevent me from returning to work, and Lino’s insistence that I stay home with him for all time couldn’t go on. He had a job, work to get back to, and so did I. “You’re not ready,” he said as he spat his toothpaste out and rinsed his mouth.
I gaped at him when he left me in the bathroom, trailing after him. He crawled into bed, snatching the television remote off the nightstand.
I did not think so.
“I’m not ready?” I hissed, snatching the remote out of his hands and tossing it into one of the armchairs at the foot of the bed. “Don’t you dare put that on me. I’ve been ready. I’ve humored you. Now it is time for me to get back to my life!”
“This is your life now!” he roared, and I faltered back a step. Lino never yelled at me, never showed any inclination he was capab
le of it. “Do you think it is easy for me to imagine you going back to work? You’ll be at risk, even with Emilio. You’re my wife. You are not going to just drop back into the way things were before and pretend like nothing has changed. Everything changed the moment you married me.”
My bottom lip quivered, and my nose burned with tears I wouldn’t allow to come. I couldn’t cry, not if he meant what it sounded like. “You promised me. You promised me if I married you that you would let me go to work and have freedom.”
“I will,” he sighed, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I just need more time. Another week with just the two of us before we—”
“No,” I cut him off. “The bruises are gone, and I’m healed. I want to go back to work.”
“Samara,” he sighed.
“This is important to me. I’ve given you leeway in a lot of ways and forgiven things I shouldn’t have. You have to give me this.” He reached forward, wrapping his hands around my waist and tugging me into his lap. He shifted his body to lean further into the headboard, maneuvering me until I straddled his hips and looked down at him.
“Okay,” he agreed. “Emilio will take you from here to work, and he’ll stay nearby but not crowd you while you’re at work. If you leave the office, you call him. I expect to hear from you throughout the day, so I know you’re okay. You will change your name immediately.”
“I think I need to go to the DMV and social security first,” I told him.
“I’ve taken care of it. You are already legally Samara Bellandi. I’ll get you your new documents from my safe before you go to work. Those are my terms. If you leave this house, you are doing it with my name and my rings on your finger, and I expect you to flaunt them proudly.”
I sighed, staring down at him like he’d lost his damn mind. “You changed my name without talking to me?”
“You’re my wife. There was never a chance that you wouldn’t take my name, Little Dove. Do you agree to my terms or not?”
With a groan, I caved. Leaning forward to drop onto his chest, I gave again. “Yes, my Stallion.” He hadn’t asked anything I hadn’t already known, not really. Though, the fact that his connections could get me divorced and change my name without me even knowing it happened was terrifying, it wasn’t surprising.
I’d married a Bellandi, after all.
???
Emilio had been all smiles when he picked me up from the house, an alarming contrast to his colder demeanor at the club. I shrugged it off, knowing it probably felt strange to be introduced to someone you already knew but had changed capacity in your life. I’d gone from being a friend of his boss and someone he rarely saw, to someone he would see daily and his boss’ wife.
“Are you excited to go back to work, Mrs. Bellandi?” he asked from the front seat. My foot shook where I’d crossed it over my ankle, imagining the coming confrontation with Jasper. He wouldn’t take the news of my marriage well, and I just couldn’t wait for the day when my life returned to some semblance of normal. One where I didn’t have to feel like I was just waiting for the next argument. With Jasper and Yavin still looming on the horizon, it was a miracle I didn’t feel like a complete disaster.
“Yes. It will be nice to feel like I’m capable of doing something for myself again,” I returned with a smile. “Lino tends to take very good care of me.”
The grin he gave in return seemed overly bright. “I can imagine a man like Lino can recognize a good thing when he has it.”
“That’s very sweet,” I murmured, and we lapsed into silence as Emilio parked the car directly in front of the building. He didn’t seem concerned about the fact that he’d double parked but thrust open his driver’s side door before coming around to the back to let me out.
As soon as the cold air hit my bare legs, I shuddered. There was one thing to be said about Lino's insistence that if I was going to return to work then I'd have a driver taking me to and from. It certainly prevented me from suffering in the cold of Chicago in January.
It also saved my leg muscles from the unfamiliar strain of walking in heels. It felt like it’d been so long since I’d even walked at all. As such, my calves strained against the foreign feeling of walking through the lobby with pumps on. Emilio insisted on seeing me inside, his breadth intimidating at my back as he searched the lobby for some threat. What he thought he would find in a corporate office building was a little beyond me, but I also knew that sometimes the evilest of men hid behind the most polished veneers.
Lino's father was a prime example of that. All cultured elegance that only hid the menace within until you took a close look.
"This is where you leave me," I told Emilio, turning to stop him from following me into the elevator. "Confidential appointments happen upstairs, and I can't have you compromising Lamb & Rowe's clients."
"I'm under strict orders to see you to your desk, Mrs. Bellandi," he said, staring down at me impassively. I sighed, knowing it would be far quicker to just let the man escort me upstairs. A call to Lino would delve into an argument, and the reality was I'd only barely gotten out of the house that morning. Despite him agreeing to it the night before, he'd seemed positively glum about the thought of me returning to work.
It was adorable, albeit frustrating as Hell.