Chapter 4: Cold sheets

The balcony doors were locked. The curtains were drawn. The storm was still raging outside.

None of it mattered.

The room was still cold.

“Get in,” Dante said.

He stood by the bed. Shoes off. Cuffs undone. White shirt wrinkled and sleeves rolled up, showing forearms corded with muscle and old scars. He looked like he owned the air in here. Like he’d been waiting for me my whole life just to tell me where to sleep.

I stood by the edge of the room with my arms wrapped around my ruined dress, holding the torn silk to my chest like it was armor.

“I’m not sleeping with you,” I said. My voice was quiet, but I made sure it didn’t shake. “Not in that bed.”

Dante turned his head slowly. Those silver eyes caught the low light and went flat.

“You aren’t sleeping _with_ me, Elena,” he said. “You’re sleeping under my roof. Under my surveillance. Under my rules. There’s a difference.”

He took one step toward me.

“Get on the bed. Before I carry you there.”

My jaw locked. Heat and fury crawled up my throat. The memory of his hand on my jaw, his mouth on mine an hour ago, hit me like a slap. My body remembered it even though my brain was screaming to forget.

I had no cards left. Not tonight. Not with Julian somewhere out there and Dante’s men hunting.

So I walked. Bare feet on cold marble. Every step felt like walking to a gallows.

I climbed onto the far edge of the king bed. As far from him as I could get. The charcoal silk was ice against my legs.

A second later the mattress dipped.

The whole room changed.

Heat. Cedarwood. Tobacco. Rain.

His presence was massive, crowding me even with three feet of space between us. The bed suddenly felt like a coffin.

The lamp clicked off.

Darkness. Except for lightning flashing through the cracks in the curtains.

My other senses went sharp. The rain. The wind. And his breathing. Slow. Steady. Right behind me.

Minutes dragged. My shoulders were so tense they hurt. I counted lightning flashes and tried to think of anything but the man three feet away.

“Your heart is loud,” Dante said into the dark. His voice was low, rough, too close. “I can hear it.”

I stared at the wall. “Then stop listening.”

He chuckled. The sound vibrated through the mattress and straight into my spine.

“If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t wait for dark,” he said. “You’re safe tonight. Sleep. You’ll need it tomorrow.”

“I’m not safe anywhere near you,” I whispered, and turned my head just enough to see his silhouette. “You bought me to punish my father. Don’t pretend this is anything else.”

“A monster?” His voice had a dark kind of amusement. “Maybe. But I’m your father’s monster, Elena. Don’t forget that.”

Silence.

Then the sheets moved.

Fast.

Before I could breathe, a hard arm wrapped around my waist and yanked me back.

I hit his chest.

Heat. Solid. Burning through the thin silk of my dress.

“Let me go,” I hissed, elbowing back, kicking. Useless. He was stone and muscle and didn’t budge an inch. His arm was a band of iron around me.

“Stop,” Dante growled in my ear. “I said I wouldn’t touch you tonight. But keep moving like that and I won’t be responsible for what happens.”

I froze.

Because I felt it. Hard. Hot. Pressed against the small of my back.

Shame and fire shot through me at the same time. My face burned. My stomach clenched.

“You’re a liar,” I breathed. “You said this was about punishment. Not this.”

“I never lied,” he murmured. His lips brushed the spot behind my ear and I had to bite my tongue not to react. “I said I wanted to break you. This is part of it.”

His hand splayed over my stomach, heavy and claiming.

“For the next five years,” he said quietly, “your body is mine. Your time is mine. Your safety is mine. That’s what you signed. That’s the contract.”

My throat closed. “And Julian?”

The air went arctic.

His hand tightened until I gasped.

“If my men find him tonight, he’s dead,” Dante said. No emotion. Just fact. “If he shows up again, I’ll put a bullet in him while you watch. Do you understand?”

Tears stung my eyes. I blinked them away. I would not cry for him.

“Perfectly,” I whispered.

“Good wife,” Dante said. And then his grip softened, just barely. He pulled me closer, tucking me against his chest like I was something precious. His face buried in my neck. His breath was hot on my skin.

“Close your eyes,” he ordered. “Tomorrow the cameras are on. You smile. You play the part. You’re Mrs. Alighieri.”

I lay there, trapped in his arms, shaking.

His body was furnace-hot. Mine was ice. And somehow the ice was melting.

Hate warred with something worse. Something traitorous that liked the way he said _wife_. That liked the weight of his arm like it meant protection.

Outside, the storm kept hitting the windows.

Inside, Dante’s breathing evened out.

But I didn’t sleep.

Because a new thought kept circling, ugly and sharp:

What if the most dangerous part of this contract... was that I started to want him back?

---

The first gray light was bleeding through the curtains when my phone buzzed.

Once.

On the nightstand.

Dante didn’t move. His arm was still locked around me, heavy and possessive even in sleep.

I reached for it slowly, carefully, so I wouldn’t wake him.

Unknown number.

> *Julian:* _Elena. I’m alive. I got out. Don’t do anything. I’m coming for you._

My blood turned to ice.

I deleted it. Deleted the whole thread. Threw the phone back on the nightstand.

Dante’s arm tightened.

“You’re awake early,” he murmured, voice still rough with sleep.

“Storm kept me up,” I lied.

He made a sound in his throat and pressed a kiss to the side of my neck. Not sexual. Possessive.

“Get up,” he said. “We have a breakfast with my father at nine. And Elena?”

“Hmm?”

“Smile,” he said. “If anyone sees you looking like that, they’ll think I’m not taking care of what’s mine.”

He rolled away and stood, shirtless, scars and tattoos on full display. A king in his own house.

And I sat on the edge of the bed, in his silk sheets, with Julian’s text burning in my head.

The contract said five years.

But if Julian came back, none of us would make it to five days.