Sofia
The next few days with Luca don’t feel real. They feel like some kind of fantasy, a fever dream because they’re so vastly different than the ones we spent together before the intruder. I wake up one morning with a note on the pillow next to mine, telling me that he’s left early for the office and that he wants me to plan “your kind of date” tonight. It’s as if he watched a handful of rom-coms to figure out what women might like—the rooftop date, the bubble bath, the diamond bracelet, the note in the morning. But I can’t bring myself to care. The bracelet is stupidly over the top, but I don’t want to take it off. I find myself slipping it on every morning, even as out of place as it is with my plain hoops and dainty cross necklace. I catch myself running my fingers over it, thinking about Luca feeding me quail on a rooftop, his hand under my skirt, him carrying me down the stairs afterward.
I know I need to snap out of it, but I don’t want to. Even Caterina catches on a little, asking me as we sit in the living room planning out details for her wedding if Luca and I are getting along better now. I tell her yes, blushing a little, and I know I ought to ask her about her and Franco, but I don’t.
She’s already told me what I know she’s willing to share, anyway. Franco came home from the bachelor party without so much as an apology for taking so long, brushing away her fear and trauma from the intruder by saying that he’d trusted Luca’s bodyguards, and look, she was alive without a scratch on her, wasn’t she? Caterina talks about it as if she should have expected him to treat it as no big deal, but I can see how disillusioned she is with her fiancé. She’d never expected a grand romance, but I know from what she’s told me that she had at least hoped when she’d been matched with someone close to her own age, that it would be a better marriage than she might have had otherwise—one with mutual respect, good sex, and some laughter and fun together. The kind of marriage that a girl who snuck a blowjob to her new fiancé in the back of the limo on the return trip from the proposal and a guy who took her to an afterparty at their favorite bar post-engagement party might have. One where they could make some good memories, before age and responsibility and kids caught up to them.
But it’s clear that Franco has no intention to treat his bride as anything but something owed to him, and not even as the prize that she is. It makes me angry—I don’t know Franco that well, but I’d thought he seemed fun and nice enough when I’d met him briefly before and at my own wedding. Clearly, though, it was all a show for the benefit of everyone else.
Caterina seems to have accepted it, though, putting all of her energy into trying to plan the wedding as best as we can. We sprinkle as many small touches through it that her mother would have loved as we can—violets in the centerpieces since they were Giulia’s favorite flower, the menu that she’d put together. Caterina has her jewelry that she plans to wear with the wedding dress they chose together. She holds herself together better than I could possibly have thought she would.
Meanwhile, Luca and I seem to be existing in some kind of relationship limbo, almost like we’re playing at being together, playing house. When Caterina and I are done planning and she goes home, I start working on my date for the evening with Luca, even as I think how ridiculous it is. I’m married to the man in charge of the entire Italian mafia. I’m trying to guess what pizza toppings he might like because I want to surprise him with what I’m choosing for our dinner together.
We can’t even leave the penthouse. We’re planning dates in this strange bubble we’re locked inside of. Still, every time I start to argue with myself about why I should withdraw, why I should stop sleeping with him, why I should push him away, I can’t help but think—you’re enjoying yourself. So why not keep doing it?
Luca comes home to me in high-waisted jeans and a white muscle pocket tank tied up above my navel, barefoot, with the diamond bracelet he gave me looped around my wrist and my hair in a high ponytail. His hand wraps around that ponytail when I rise up on my tiptoes to kiss him, sending a thrill through me that I never imagined I’d feel with him.
Our date is pizza in the movie room and a comedy that I picked out because it’s light and fun, along with popcorn and movie candy. “This is as close as we can get to a pizza and movie date,” I tell Luca, laughing. “But we’re married now, so I guess having you over is okay.”
He smiles a genuine grin that looks almost out of place on his chiseled face and kisses me again. He keeps kissing me throughout the night, in between bites of pizza with sauce still on my lower lip, after we feed each other popcorn, when he wipes chocolate off of the corner of my mouth with his thumb. He kisses me throughout the movie, until at some point, I wind up in his lap, curled against his chest as we laugh along with the couple on screen.
It feels so weirdly normal that I don’t know what to do about it. He teases me a little in the theater room, his hand on my thigh and over my shoulder, occasionally squeezing my breast. I’m hyper-aware that this is the room where he caught me on the security feed playing with myself. I half wonder if he’ll try to recreate it, but instead, when the movie is over, we cuddle a little longer, and then head to bed. There’s sex, of course—we’ve had sex at least once every night since he flew home to me, but it’s slower and less wild than the rooftop date. Almost as if he’s trying to perform “normal” sex on a “normal” date, Luca kisses me for a long time in bed, fingering me to orgasm while he lets me explore him. Running my hand up and down his thick, hard shaft until he slips down my body and goes down on me, licking me slowly until I come for a second time. Only then does he roll on a condom and thrust into me, fucking me long and slow in missionary until we’re both close to an orgasm. Then he hooks my ankles over his shoulders, folding my legs back so that he can kiss me as he drives himself deep inside of me, making me moan helplessly against his mouth as he comes hard. I come too, my body reacting as he groans, his cock throbbing as he grinds against me, and when we collapse onto the bed afterward, he doesn’t roll over to his side of the bed.
We fall asleep with Luca’s arm thrown over my belly, my head pillowed against his shoulder. It’s so incredibly normal that I can briefly forget who he is and who I am, why we’re married, that I’m on virtual house arrest because a Russian mobster wants me dead.
And then there’s Caterina’s wedding.
There’s no way to avoid having to leave the penthouse. She can’t exactly get married in our living room—I’m pretty sure that would have stretched even Father Donahue’s limits of accommodating Luca. So instead, Luca reluctantly sends me to the Rossi house to help her get ready while he meets up with Franco at the church, enough security tailing me to make the President jealous.
“Be safe,” he says as we go our separate ways, kissing me hard before opening the door for me to climb into the car taking me to the Rossi house. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I’ll be fine.” I give him a little wave as the door closes, leaning back against the cool leather. I feel almost giddy at being out of the penthouse for the first time in weeks. Watching the city speed by as we drive towards the Rossi mansion makes me feel as if I can’t stop smiling. Caterina raises an eyebrow at my expression when I walk through the front door and she greets me.
“You look happier than I do,” she says wryly. “Come on, let's get ready.”
Since I’m the only one standing up with her at the altar, Caterina told me to pick out whatever I wanted for my dress. I chose a strapless, violet-blue, floor-length gown with a band of lace at the waist that matched the flowers, sweeping my hair up into a sleek updo with my diamond studs in my ears and Luca’s bracelet on my wrist—nothing overly flashy. I don’t want to upstage Caterina. Even if her marriage isn’t looking like it’ll be what she’d hoped it would be, I want her wedding day to be as perfect as it can be.
She looks like a queen in her wedding gown, which has been altered and perfectly fitted to her so that the heavy, rich fabric skims over her figure down to the full skirt, her collarbone and shoulders standing out elegantly above the off-shoulder neckline. Her mother’s ruby jewelry looks stunning on her, oval earrings surrounded by a halo of diamonds and a long drop necklace with an egg-sized ruby on a strand of diamonds. Still, looking at the gleaming red stones against her skin, I can’t help but think they look like blood. It makes me shiver a little.
The last time the Bratva launched a full-scale attack, it was the morning after my wedding. Neither Caterina nor I have wanted to so much as mention the possibility, but as we walk to the car, I can see that she’s paler than usual. Whether it’s nerves over the wedding itself or the possibility of another attack, I don’t know, and I don’t want to ask. But when I hand her the bouquet outside of the church, I can see her hands shaking.
St. Patrick’s is packed full, all of the guests who could possibly be invited in attendance despite the possibility of a Bratva attack. Bruno Rossi, Caterina’s uncle, is walking her down the aisle in place of her father, who still hasn’t been released from the hospital.
Or so we thought. But as I start my walk down the aisle on Luca’s arm—the extent of the wedding party—I see Rossi at the back of the church, in a wheelchair and looking very much the worse for wear…but here.
Of course, he wouldn’t miss his daughter’s wedding if there was the slightest way he could be here,I tell myself. But still, seeing him again in the flesh makes me feel anxious, my fingers suddenly trembling with nerves. Luca glances over at me as if he feels me shaking.
“It’s fine,” he says quietly, underneath the music. “He insisted on being temporarily released from the hospital. But he’s going back after the ceremony. He’s not strong enough to be at the reception yet.”
I realize that Luca thinks I’m worried for Rossi’s well-being, when in fact, I’m worried about him being here at all—whether that will make the Bratva more likely to attack if there’s something else going on. I don’t trust Rossi. But deep down, I don’t think the former will be the case. If there’s anyone Viktor would want to attack now, it’s Luca. Without him, the seat would pass to Franco—and privately, I don’t have very much faith in Franco’s ability to run the organization. It surprises me that Luca does.
There’s none of the tension during the ceremony that there was for Luca and me. This isn’t a forced marriage—for all that itwasarranged, both Caterina and Franco are entering into it willingly. They say their vows clearly and firmly, and even though I know Caterina isn’t pleased with how Franco’s behaved lately, it hasn’t made her falter. This is who was chosen for her, and she seems to have accepted it.
But as they say the vows to each other, I catch Luca looking at me, his face unreadable.What is he thinking?I wonder, the words echoing in my ears and reminding me of the day, barely over a month ago, when I’d stood where Caterina is now, shaking in my Louboutin heels as I repeated those vows knowing that I was lying, that I had no intention to keep a single one of them. And I’m sure Luca’s were just as hollow.
And now? I can’t help but wonder if anything has changed. Good sex doesn’t make a marriage, especially between someone like me and someone as fucked up as Luca. He hasn’t budged on his conviction that he can’t love me, that our marriage can never be anything except, at best, a lustful companionship where we both get along.
His eyes on mine, though, watching me as Caterina and Franco repeatto love and honor and cherish, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, ‘til death do us part,make it hard to believe that. When Caterina saysobey, I see the smoky look in his eyes, the one that reminds me of the ways I’ve obeyed him, the things I’ve done when his voice licks over my skin, telling me to give in to his lustful demands.