Chapter 4

AURELIA

I had a million questions to ask, but I could easily tell Rafael wasn’t ready to tell me anything else though I pestered him throughout the entire ride to the Moretti mansion.  

Everyone knew Rafael had once been married to a woman named Lucille,  but the details of their ‘separation’ had been kept confidential and I had never been bothered enough to find out what happened.

Could he have been telling the truth? Had Leone Moretti killed his own brother’s wife?

However there was no time to dwell on those questions as I stood in the middle of Rafael’s room later, feeling completely out of place.

As if he had read my mind, Rafael stood. He walked to the door, turned the key, and every hope I had vanished into thin air as I realized there was no way out. 

He turned to face me and started walking closer to me, his fingers moving to the buttons of his shirt, working them open one by one.

“What are you doing?” I stammered, realizing what he was about to do.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he dropped the shirt to the side and said in a calm voice, “Strip, princess.”

 My arms folded around myself on instinct. “No.”

He smiled as if he had been expecting my defiance, “My father would be waiting for proof that we consummated this wedding by morning. What are you going to do then?”

I gulped. I knew the Italian families took the bloody sheets tradition seriously, but I had hoped there would be a way around it. 

Trying to hide the heat in my cheeks, I forced myself to sound confident. “Do you often have to threaten women to get them in your bed?”

“Not really,” he said, amused, “Women usually come to me willingly. You will too.”

I slapped his hand away. “Asshole.” I tried to move out of his way but his arm caught mine easily, and before I could pull free, his mouth was on mine. 

For a second. I melted in his arms before I found the strength to push him away. My body was betraying me for some reason, and it didn’t help that he was so devilishly handsome as he stood shirtless with an annoying smirk that I wanted to smack… or… or kiss off his fucking face.

“You know how this is going to end Princess… I’m not even sure my brother would be this kind.” He muttered, in a low voice that sent all my blood rushing south.

He moved closer and this time my resistance slowly broke down in pieces, first my shoulders relaxing, then my mouth betraying me as it moved against his. I didn’t even know when I started kissing him back, only that my hands stopped pushing him away and clung to his shirt instead.

He tilted his head slightly, deepening the kiss, his lips parting mine with ease. Heat rushed through me, and for a second I forgot to breathe. 

I wasn’t totally naive. I had been kissed before. I had kissed men before. But none of it compared to the way Rafael kissed me. He broke the kiss and pressed his mouth lower, trailing warm, slow kisses down my neck, over my collarbone, and across the top of my chest. I stayed frozen, caught between fear and want, until his lips reached my stomach.

Then his hand slid lower, his fingers brushing over me, teasing. I gasped as he slid two fingers inside me. The stretch made me still, a sharp pinching pain stealing the air from my lungs. I gripped the blanket tight, staring at the ceiling, trying to move past the pain.

Rafael’s free hand pressed lightly on my hip, keeping me in place as his fingers began to move in a slow rhythm. The pain dulled, replaced by something else I couldn’t explain. 

Just as the pressure began to build inside me, he pulled away.  Without a word he walked toward the bathroom.

I lay there still catching my breath, the sound of running water filling the silence.

Rafael came back after a while, drying his hand with a towel. Any trace of warmth in his eyes was gone. He tossed the towel aside, picked up my dress from the chair, and held it out to me.

“You can get dressed now and go to bed,” he said flatly.

I stayed where I was, my hands gripping the blanket against my chest. I didn’t understand. My mouth felt dry but I forced myself to speak. “Why?”

“The family just needs to see the blood, and they have it already.  I just took it a bit further to make it more believable in case my father had his spies around. So now that this whole thing is done, you can get dressed.”

I stared at him, my body stiff, my face burning with humiliation. “So that was it?” My voice cracked before I could stop it. “You just…”

“I didn’t want to fuck you,” he said matter of factly “Be grateful I spared you the trouble.”

I pulled the dress from his hand with shaking fingers and turned away from him, my eyes welling up with tears. I realized then that I had just lost my innocence in one of the most degrading way possible. Not to a husband, not even to a man, but to a monster who couldn’t bring himself to touch me like a person.

“So all of this was just a performance. It meant nothing to you?”

Rafael leaned back against the headboard like he had no care in the world. He gave a small shrug,  “Maybe Leone will be willing to fuck you when it’s his turn.”

The way he said it, casual and cruel, as if I were a ball to be passed around made my chest burn. Before I could think, my hand flew across his face with a sharp crack. Tears stung my eyes, blurring my vision, but I lifted my hand again, ready to hit him once more.

He caught my wrist in midair,  “Do not ever raise your hand at me again,” 

I yanked my hand back as soon as he let go, averting my eyes from the bloody stain on the sheets.  I couldn’t bear to stay in the same room with him. My fingers shook as I bent to pick up the key from where it had fallen on the floor and rushed for the door, not wanting him to see me cry.

Once I was out of his hearing, the tears started to fall faster. I was so fucking stupid. What had I expected? That he would be miraculously kind to me?

Maybe I should have been relieved that he hadn’t taken me like one of the whores they usually had lined up for their pleasure, but it didn’t matter. I had still been humiliated. Everything I had imagined for my first time was gone. I had always thought it would be something special. Instead I had lost it to a man who hated me so much he couldn’t even give me a shred of dignity.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand as I moved down the hallway. The house felt like a maze, and I wandered until I found a  bar tucked in a corner. I reached up and took the first bottle I could grab, wanting something to burn the memory out of me.

I twisted off the cap, poured a shot into a small glass and swallowed it down. It scorched my throat, but the pain felt almost good. This was my reality now. Today it had been Rafael. Tomorrow it could be Leone. In less than a day of being married to the two devils, I had lost something I could never get back. My innocence. My dreams. Everything I had built my life on.

I was going to take my life back, no matter what it cost. And when I did, I was going to ruin them. 

I reached for the glass again but my hand missed and knocked it sideways. It rolled to the edge of the counter and fell, shattering against the marble floor. My head spun, and I knew I was drunker than I had ever been in my life.

I wanted to lay in a bed, any bed, but the thought of going back upstairs to Rafael made me cringe. I would rather sleep on the floor than feel one of them breathing next to me.

The house was big enough. There had to be a hundred rooms in it. I could sleep in any of them and no one would notice.

I pushed myself away from the bar, hiccuping as I shuffled across the hall. I opened the first door I could manage, and stumbled inside. The room was dark, smelling faintly of cologne and fresh linen. I kicked off my shoes, and collapsed onto the bed. The sheets were cool against my skin, and before I could even pull them over me, I blacked out.

The sun woke me the next morning, spilling across the bed and forcing me to squint against the brightness. My head pounded, my mouth dry as cotton. I shifted, groaning, and that was when I realized I wasn’t alone.

There was an arm slung heavy across my waist. I froze, turning my head slowly. Beside me, still asleep, was the twin’s younger brother, Enzo, and…. I was stark naked.