She flinches when I reach for her, but I don’t stop.
I grip her chin and turn her face away so I can get a better look at the mark. My eyes narrow, and a spark of anger lights in my breast. It’s out of place. I know that, but that fact doesn’t dampen its existence. She is my plaything. Mine.
“Who did this?”
She turns to look at me though I don’t drop my hand. I hold her right where I want her, where she can’t look away and hide from me.
“Why does it matter?” Her voice is soft. Like her.
“It matters to me.”
“Why?” She looks genuinely confused.
“Because I own you. No one gets to hurt you except me.”
She flinches at the emphasis in my tone.
“Tell me who did this.”
She blinks and tries to pull out of my hold.
I grip the front of her costume, my fingers pressing between her breasts as I yank her closer.
She gasps.
“I told you not to disobey me, princess. When I ask you a question, I want an answer.” I glance at her full lips, now parted. “And I know I don’t have to tell you not to lie to me. I don’t have to say that, do I?”
“N-no.” She shudders as I run my fingers down her chin to her throat, wrapping them around it without squeezing … yet.
“Tell me who hit you.” I lean closer, my lips grazing her ear. “Tell me or I’ll make you hurt, princess.” I ease my other hand down the front of her outfit and down to her skirt. When I cup her pussy, she whimpers. “I’ll push you to the edge and then throw you off.”
“My mother.”
“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I flatten my palm against her cunt and rub up and down slowly while keeping my hand at her throat.
She shakes her head slightly and licks her lips.
I stare at her mouth, at the way her skin glistens, the same way her cunt glistened last night after I marked her with my come. My cock thickens at the memory. Her pulse flutters at her throat, and when I meet her eyes again, she swallows hard. I keep moving my palm, rubbing her pussy as her breath quickens.
A noise in the hall jolts me from whatever stupor this Fontana viper put me in, and I step away from her.
She takes a deep, shaking breath.
“Whoa, where’s breakfast?” Sonny strides in, his demeanor practically jaunty. He glances from Lucretia to me and back again. Then his gaze slides down her body. The anger that was already simmering in me ticks up a notch. It shouldn’t. I intentionally dressed her this way. I wanted her to feel humiliated. Hell, I wanted her to serve me like a goddamn slave. That’s what I told Sonny would be happening when he came to breakfast.
But when he stares at the hem of her short skirt, something inside me seems to hit a boiling point.
“Sit down,” I bark.
He cocks his head at me, confusion in his eyes. “Okay? But I thought …”
“That’s your first mistake.” I take Lucretia’s elbow and pull her to my seat. Once I sit down, I yank her into my lap so she’s sitting sideways, her tits in my face and her legs draped over the side of my chair but hidden from view by the top of the table.
Sonny takes his usual seat, a questioning look on his face, but he doesn’t say anything else.
“Carter!” I call for the cook.
She jumps when I yell.
Good.
She should be afraid of me.
I made a promise to destroy her family, and I’m not the kind of man to break my word. Especially when I swore it to my father as he lay dying in my arms from Leonard Fontana’s bullet.
7
LUCRETIA
I’m barely breathing, too scared to move, much less say anything. Mateo is beneath me, his large frame supporting me with ease, and his hard cock digging into my backside.
I can’t read him. One minute he’s mocking me, and the next he wants to know who put the bruise on my jaw, and the next he’s … touching me.
It’s all a game to him, some way to inflict a whiplash-like torture on me, though I don’t know why. I don’t even know why he wanted to marry me if he thinks my family is garbage. None of this makes sense. Him, least of all. But there’s one point I’m clear on—I hate him.
A man in a white chef uniform enters the room with a few other chefs behind him, and they all place trays of food and plates on the table. It smells wonderful even though I don’t think I could eat a single bite. My stomach is in knots, and I think my mind is, too. Whatever games Mateo is playing, they’re definitely working.