“What? What more do I need to do than I’ve already done?”
“Aww, so much more, Princesca. I want your obedience.” I spell it out because I haven’t said anything of the sort yet.
“Obedience? What the hell do you think I am?”
“Like fuck. You better understand me and agree, or you’ll stay locked up in here naked until the wedding. Hit me or strike back in any way, and you’ll know what being locked up means. Do you understand me?” I ask, holding her gaze.
“I understand.”
“The only way you leave this property is if I say so. And when I buy you something, you wear it. When I tell you to do something, you do it.”
“Why didn’t you just get a dog?” she throws back. “There’s a reason they’re a man’s best friend.”
I catch her face and pull her close. She gasps. “That smart mouth of yours is something else. So pretty I want to kiss it, and so hot I want to fuck it. You don’t talk back to me. Baby, if I wanted a fucking dog, I’d have one.”
I release her. She catches her breath. Bites back a whimper and looks at me, disappointed. “You’re like two different people.”
I know what she means, but it has to be this way.
“This is what you get. Now, put the dress on, come to dinner with me, and we’ll talk about you getting your things.”
“Dinner?” she says. I smile. “You want me to have dinner with you?”
“I want you to have dinner with me.”
“And you want me to wear the dress I wore to the ball?” she notes and looks me over curiously.
I bite down hard on my back teeth at being caught but smile that she was so observant.
“I do,” I answer. “What can I say? I liked the way you looked in it.”
It represents a time when I couldn’t have her. She was untouchable, just like her father. I was the boy again, poor in a different sort of way, looking on at something I couldn’t have. I’ll admit it.
If circumstances were different and she weren’t who she is, and her fucking father weren’t who he is, I would have bid on her. I would have bid on her and made sure I got her.
But look at me now.
“Why didn’t you talk to me at the ball?” she asks. The question completely throws me.
I chuckle, deep and low. “No…” I shake my head at her.
“No to what.”
“We’re not those people. I’m not a man w
ho will fight for you, Emelia Balesteri. Your father kept you in the dark. But you are just as evil as he is to me, which makes you nothing. Do not make the mistake of thinking we’re anything more than what we are. We are not. You are not.”
Her eyes brim with tears. I feel like shit, but needs must.
“Take off the sheet and put on the dress,” I instruct, and for the first time, she listens and doesn’t argue.
She allows the sheet to fall from her, revealing her nakedness to me. I look her up and down. My cock hardens. I’ve never seen a more perfect woman. Everything about her is perfect. Everything. Including her soul. I don’t know how Riccardo created a such a being. She must take after her mother.
I smile when she looks at me. Her cheeks flush. Her nipples turn hard, and the heft of her breasts bounces as she bends down to put her panties on.
She puts on the bra and then her dress. Then the shoes. Her hair is in a ponytail though. I want it down, just like it was at the ball.
“Take your hair down,” I say. Again, she does as she’s told.