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SERENA'S POV

I knew him the instant the pale moonlight from the window fell on his face. My throat hurt and my breath dried up. It was Dante Moretti.

Everybody in town knew who he was. My ex-fiance, Nico Moretti, the golden boy of the entertainment world, is a big, handsome star on television. But Nico was only a flashy puppet. The real power in the Moretti family was Dante. He was the head of the family, the most feared man in the whole city. If you crossed Dante Moretti, there was no trace left.

I knew his biggest secret from my previous life as a med student. Three years ago, Dante was in a terrible, mysterious accident. 

From that day he had debilitating neurological pain. No doctor could cure him. No medicine was of any help. His tough body had built up a tolerance to everything on the market. I knew he was dry-swallowing heavy oxycodone pills like candy just to get through the day and they did nothing to stop the agony in his brain now.

Dante pulled his head from my shoulder and shoved me hard against the cold wall. 

“Get out,” he said, hoarse and trembling. "Get out of my room now or I will throw you off this balcony."

“You don’t mean that,” I said, my voice weak. I slid down the wall until I was on the floor. The aphrodisiac Giada gave me was still burning hot through my system, making my skin sweat, my heart race.

“Go!"Dante yelled, and pointed a trembling finger at the solid mahogany door.

But his act of cruel tough cracked in seconds. I saw it with my own eyes. The second my fingers left his skin, the excrutiating pain blasted into his nervous system. The silence I'd just handed him was blown to hell. I could tell the loud screeching noise in his ears had come back with full, violent force.

Dante lurched forward. He rested his head in both hands, the heaving of his chest up and down. He looked like a wounded wolf, driven into a corner. Dangerous, wild, desperate.

He turned slowly, his eyes wide with an almost unbearable pain. 

"You," he commanded, his voice cracked. "Come back here. Do touch my neck again. Do it right now."

Fighting the drug that was still burning in my veins, I was half-collapsed on the ground. My palm throbbed from where I’d cut it earlier with the shard of glass, but the sharp pain kept my mind busy. I looked up at the most feared man in the city and gave him a weary smile.

“There are no free trials, Mr. Moretti,” I said softly.

Dante stopped moving. He dropped his hands and stared at me like I’d gone mad. He was completely flabbergasted. No one had ever refused him. Nobody ever negotiated with him. He was the undisputed king of this city. People bowed only when he gave an order.

“What did you say?” he growled, taking a slow step towards me. "Do you have any idea who I am?"

"I know who you are Dante." I said, looking him in the glowing golden eyes. And I said, no free trials. "To make a deal, if you want me to stop the pain in your head."

'A deal?' he scoffed, his face contorting in agony as another wave washed over his brain. "I don't deal with little girls. I can just make you touch my neck."

"Try it." I challenged him. My voice was calm and steady. "If you make me, my hands will tremble with fear. If my hands tremble, I will miss the pressure point. If I am off the mark even one millimeter your headache will be ten times as bad. And you want my willing help, Dante. You can't make this."

I could hear Dante grinding his teeth. A low groan slipped from his lips. 

"What do you want? Name your price now. A million? Ten million? Fix my head and take my money!”

'I don't want your money,' I said bluntly. 'Money can't save my life tonight.' "Then what do you want?" he asked, his breathing worsening with every second. "

"I want a contract marriage," I said flatly.

"A what? Dante stared at me in total disbelief. "Are you nuts? A marriage?"

"I'm very sane,' I said, resting my head back against the wall to cool my hot skin. 

My stepsister and my ex fiance have hired three men and a dozen photographers to ruin my life and destroy my reputation forever. "Right outside that door. I need your strength and your protection to get through them. You have chronic neurological pain, it's driving you crazy, and you need my hands to turn the noise in your head off. It's a straightforward business transaction. Take it or leave it."

”Who is trying to destroy you? " he said through clenched teeth, his vision obviously beginning to blur from the pain."My ex-fiance, Nico Moretti," I told him, watching his face. And my stepsister, Giada.”

Dante's eyes widened a little. "Nico? My nephew?“

"Yeah,” I said, huffing and wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead. "Your sweet, golden-boy nephew is out trying to ruin me, tonight. “That’s just more reasons why you marrying me is the perfect deal for you."

"You are playing a very dangerous game" Dante spat out. He was doing his best to fight his weakness. “Get out!I don't want you!"

"Fine," I said quietly. I pretended to get up from the floor. "I'll go out into the hall and let them kill me. But remember this Dante, when I walk out that door, the silence walks out with me. You will spend the rest of tonight, and every single night after this, screaming alone in the dark."

Dante struggled against it. He closed his eyes tightly and turned his back to me, gripping the edge of a heavy wooden table to keep himself upright. But the pain flared up again, worse than before. His great body shook convulsively. His vision blurred so badly that his hand slipped off the table and a heavy glass lamp fell to the carpet. It came down with a great smash.

"Damn it!" he bellowed, falling to his knees. He pressed his hands to his head, unable to stand the pain for another second. "Stop! Stop talking!Deal, Mr. Moretti?"I asked, my voice trembling as the aphrodisiac drug spiked again in my own blood. ""Yes or no?"

Dante was breathing hard, chest rising and falling against the floor. At last he yielded. 

"Fine!" he grunted, teeth clenched, eyeing me like a dethroned king. "I agree! I will protect you this night!Tomorrow morning, after you're not completely drugged out of your head, we'll discuss the rest of this damned marriage contract!"

"Good," I whispered and a great wave of relief swept over my tired mind.

I tried to get up and walk over to him, but my legs just gave away. The drug had burned me out of all my energy. My knees gave way and I went down onto the broken glass on the floor. 

"Oh!” I cried out softly, eyes closed.

Dante moved with incredible speed before I could hit the floor. He reached out, caught me in the air. His big, hard arm wrapped around my waist, pulling my body close to his chest.

The instant our skin touched something happened we didn't expect.

Usually a man with extreme neurological sensory overload cringes violently at human touch. He would feel burning fire from a light touch of his skin. His body should have turned me away instantly. But it didn’t. He didn't shove me away, didn't flinch.

Instead I felt his tight, hard muscles loosened beneath my hands. I heard him take a long shivering breath of air. He held me against his chest, the loud screeching noise in his head dropping from an agonising scream to a dull quiet roar.

 "You... Dante's deep voice was full of wonder and confusion. He murmured. "Why does the pain stop when I hold you?" "

I murmured, laying my hot cheek on his cool cotton shirt. "I told you. "We are a good match."

His nose was full of my natural smell, something sweet and floral and very cool. I could tell from the slackness of his features that my simple presence calmed his raging nervous system in a way no medicine or painkiller had in three long years.

Without a word more, Dante picked me right off the floor into his strong arms. He easily carried me across the dark room to the big king sized bed. He set me down softly on the soft mattress and then he climbed up and lay down right next to me.

“Please,” he whispered, pride stripped away. “Do it again. Cut the chitchat."

“Turn your head,” I said softly.

He turned his face away, to the pillow. My hands were trembling as I found the back of his neck. With my fingers I located the blocked meridian points at the base of his skull. I dug my thumbs into the tight nerves in the same rhythm my blind healer friend taught me in the asylum. 

Ahhhhh..." 

A groan, deep and heavy with relief, came from deep in the chest of Dante. The sound was raw, loud and intense, so much so it sounded almost indecent echoing in the quiet, dark bedroom. He sank back among the pillows, and at last his breathing became slow and peaceful. I kept on working his pressure points, fighting the heat in my own body, knowing that at least for the night I was safe.

Dante’s personal assistant Matteo raises his hand to knock on the door of the penthouse, hears the sounds inside, and slowly lowers his hand. He looks at the bodyguards with a pale face and whispers to clear the whole floor. If anybody shows tonight they are all dead.