“You hurt Cara and I’ll make you pay.”
“Threats are cheap, Nico. I’ll make it real simple. Call off the wedding or Cara’s dead.”
There’s a click and he’s gone. I get a sudden urge to hurl my phone out the window. I swallow it down.
Idle threat, that’s all it is. He doesn’t know where Cara is. He won’t be able to find her. She’s perfectly safe. I booked six different flights. The chances he has the right one is small.
I head back through to the living room with one thought in my head.
I will never, ever give her up.
Twenty-Nine
Aurora
* * *
It’s not how I imagined the night before my wedding would go. When I used to dream of being married, I always pictured a peaceful night alone, the last time of sleeping by myself before married life began.
I never had a particular husband in mind back then. All I knew was that I wanted to pick for myself. From the earliest time of my life, I knew that. I couldn’t have been more than five or six when my parents told me the truth. They would be picking for me.
If I’d been kept at home I might have assumed that was normal. For a while, I just accepted that was how you got married. Your parents chose for you. Then I happened to mention it at school and that’s when I found out the truth.
Seems a long time since I found out the enormous gulf between what my parents wanted and what I wanted.
The big question is, what do I want now? Do I want to marry Nico?
I look down at what he’s doing to me and I know the answer.
He’s buried between my legs, kissing the most intimate parts of me. He’s so gentle, it’s like he’s a different person when we’re alone together. I get the feeling no one else sees him like this, only me.
He knows me so well already. His tongue is tracing a line around my clit, teasing the hell out of me as I lie back and close my eyes.
Do I want to give this up?
It’s hard to think straight while he’s sliding a finger into me but I do my best.
If I stay with him, what happens?
My life is in danger. I know that much already.
Since Nico came back in here from the bedroom, I’ve not been more than two feet from him. Makes me feel safe.
Felt good to undress for him. I saw the look on his face. A hunger that I didn’t expect to see. It’s clear he loves my body, even if he doesn’t want to stay with me for good. At least I’ve got that going for my self esteem.
Luca used to tell me I should change to attract potential husbands. My parents kept saying I might have to have surgery to appeal to a better class of man. All they ever seemed to talk about were the parts of me they wanted to change. Mental and physical.
Nico hasn’t asked me to change a thing about me. Not one thing. For a Casella to be more in tune with me as a person than my own family means the universe is officially upside down.
I want to stay married to him. That’s the truth. I don’t want it to end when he becomes Don. But he’s not going to want to keep me around. I have nothing to offer him but my body and he’ll get bored of that sooner or later.
That’s what Cara says men do. They get bored and move on. All her partners have done it. She’s never had a longterm relationship. Says she doesn’t think they exist. Not loving ones anyway. Most of them are like my parents, shooting daggers at each other over the breakfast table.
I shake away my thoughts. It’s not difficult when his tongue is working wonders on my clit, bringing me toward yet another powerful orgasm.
I want him inside me again. He might have explained clinically and coldly that it can’t happen until tomorrow night but that doesn’t stop me wanting him. Even in my mouth would be better than having to wait. He’s refusing to let me. Told me I would have to be patient. Easier said than done when he’s making my insides ache to be filled.
His tongue moves faster and the finger inside me starts to rock in the way he’s worked out always does it for me. It hits the spot I need over and over again. My breath grows ragged as I look down at him, seeing those eyes of his staring coldly up at me.