5

Lucian never lasted long when he fucked me. Sex took five minutes at the longest. Since this was the only sex I would ever get for the rest of my life, I tried to enjoy it as much as possible, but because I wasn’t attracted to his appearance or his spirit, that was nearly impossible.

So I pictured the man from the bar instead.

The mysterious stranger with the skull on his card.

I closed my eyes as Lucian rocked into me, and I pretended that gorgeous man was the one thrusting inside me. I pictured his stunning blue eyes, his hard jawline, the masculine rasp of his voice.

I felt myself grow wet.

“You like this, sweetheart?” Lucian pressed his face into my neck and kept thrusting, the hair on his chest scratching the soft skin of my breasts.

My hands clung to his back, and I imagined that muscular man on top of me. I visualized my nails slicing his skin. I pictured how big his dick must be, how tight his body was. That made me wetter. My imagination was so powerful, it also made me come.

Lucian came at the same time. “Fuck…” He filled me with his come and stayed on top of me, so lazy that he left all of his weight on me until I could barely breathe.

I never orgasmed during sex, and that climax was particularly weak, probably because I knew this man wasn’t the one from the bar. My imagination wasn’t strong enough to truly convince my body that it was experiencing that fantasy.

Lucian finally rolled off me and onto his side of the bed. He lay still, closed his eyes, and was asleep just minutes later.

I lay there, filled with such emptiness that the sorrow nearly swallowed me whole. I’d sold my soul to this man to save someone I loved, but that ended up being a mistake. My life had no meaning, and every day felt worse than the last. There was no point to any of this. I spent my time trying to find something to do because I wasn’t allowed to work or go to school. I just lay by the pool all day in the summer, and in the winter, I took long baths and drank as much liquor as I could.

That wasn’t really living.

I’d contemplated suicide before. There was no way out of this unless he died...or I did. But I had two brothers who loved me deeply, and they would never get over my suicide. It would haunt them every single day, even when they reached their seventies. I had to stay for them, no matter how hard things got.

No matter how much sorrow I felt.

  

3

Cassini

Lucian bought me a car and granted me a generous amount of freedom—after I fought for those things. I told him our marriage would be much happier if I had the ability to go shopping, to meet friends for drinks, or just to get a cup of coffee while reading a book in a café. There was nowhere for me to hide, so I wasn’t a flight risk.

As the time passed, he stopped being concerned about me.

I think he actually trusted me.

I drove into Florence and entered the large pasta factory my brothers owned. Our grandparents opened it in the early 1900s, and it’d been passed down through the generations until my brothers inherited it. I was part of that inheritance too, but then I married Lucian, and my involvement in the business was eliminated.

I stepped inside the pasta room and saw the different types of pasta dangling from the drying rack in the center of the table. There were also various cheeses on the wooden table, like they’d been pairing them with the sauces. My brothers oversaw the manufacturing, but they also invented new recipes to accompany the pastas my family had been producing for generations.

Case pushed through the double doors wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt. He had drops of alfredo on his clothing and skin because he must have forgotten to put on his apron. A slight look of surprise entered his gaze when he saw me. “Didn’t know you were stopping by.”

“Do I need to ask my older brother if I can visit him?”

“No. Because if you did, I would always say no.”

I swatted his arm playfully. “How’s it going over here?”

“Same as usual. Business is good. But do you really care? Or do you just want free food?”

I rolled my eyes. “No, I don’t just want free food. But…if you just made some pasta, I’ll eat it.”

Case rolled his eyes. “And the truth comes out. Let’s go.” He led me out of the pasta room and into the back area where they had a dining table near the fireplace. The rest of the factory was exactly as someone would imagine it, lots of machines with people working to prepare, package, and label the pasta.

Case prepared a plate of fettuccini alfredo for me and placed it on the dining table. “Red or white?”

It was only noon, but it was never too early to drink for our family. “Red.”

He poured me a glass and left the bottle behind, knowing I would want more.

I took a seat and started to eat. “Lucian said I’m gaining weight, but I really don’t care.” I stabbed the pasta, twirled it around in my spoon, and then placed it into my mouth.

Case sat beside me with his papers gathered around. He handled all the bookkeeping for the business, doing the overhead expenses and the payroll. My younger brother, Dirk, was responsible for shipments and factory maintenance. Case had never had a typical office like most people did. He liked to work at the table out in the open—just the way my father had. He didn’t respond to my comment about Lucian. He never talked about my husband, asked about him, or even said his name. He had been strongly against my decision to marry Lucian, and to this day, he was still pissed about it—although I couldn’t blame him.

“How are you guys?” I asked, talking in between bites.

“Nothing new.” He kept working, the strong and silent type. He was just like Father, saying very little, even when asked a direct question. He looked a lot like my father did when he was young. He had that dark, thick hair, green eyes similar to mine, and classically handsome Italian looks. Growing up, all my friends liked him. They liked Dirk too, but since Case was the older one, the girls went crazy for him.

“Are you seeing anyone?”

He didn’t bother answering the question at all.

“Case, you’re always such pleasant company,” I said sarcastically.

“I don’t want to talk about my personal life. I’ve already told you that.”

“Alright, then what do you want to talk about?”

“Nothing, honestly.” He continued with his paperwork.

I didn’t take his standoffish attitude personally because I knew he loved me, but ever since I’d gotten married a year ago, our relationship had changed. He was disappointed in me for the decision I’d made, and he’d never gotten over it. He couldn’t swallow his anger and leave it in the past. He continually wanted me to know he was angry. “You really need to let it go, Case. It’s done. We need to move on.”

He stopped filling out his paperwork and stared at the table before he turned to meet my gaze. He dropped the pencil, sat back, and gave me a glare so terrifying, it reminded me of my father—haunting me from the grave. “It’s done? We need to move on? You’re married to a psychopath—”

“He’s not that bad.”

“You’re defending him now?”

“Not at all. But he’s not a psychopath. He treats me well.”

“He forced you to marry him. How does that not make him a psychopath? He was obsessed with you and wanted to collect you like a trophy or a piece of jewelry.”

“Aren’t all men like that?” I countered. “Wanting a trophy wife to show off?”

“Not the same thing, and you know it.”

“Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now. You need to accept it—and let it go.”

He looked down at the table and clenched his jaw, like he didn’t know how to channel his rage anymore. “You did it to save that asshole—”

“Let’s not go there, alright?” I raised my hand and ignored my pasta because my appetite was gone. “I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t want to talk about what happened ever again. I suffer enough for my mistake every single day. There’s nothing you can do or say to make me feel worse. Seeing your disappointment every time I look at you just…breaks my heart all over again. It makes me suffer over and over. So just stop punishing me, alright?” I couldn’t shed a single tear because I’d shed enough already. Now I was numb to the pain, to the heartbreak. It was the same thing as when you saw loved ones at a funeral. The family of the deceased didn’t cry because they’d been crying every single day since they’d lost that special person. Their eyes ran dry, and there was nothing left to give. That was exactly how I felt.

My brother stared down at his paperwork, signed it in irritation, and then lifted his gaze to look at me again. “I just wish there were something we could do. I refuse to let you live your life like this. You deserve a husband you love, someone who makes you happy, someone I actually respect. Lucian is my brother-in-law, but he’s no family to me. It doesn’t matter how nice and polite he is to Dirk and me. I can’t stand the guy, and I never will.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at my plate. “There’s nothing we can do, Case…”

“We could kill him,” he whispered. “Make it look like an accident.”

“We would never be able to pull that off. Even if we could, I promised I would be cooperative. I promised I wouldn’t fight. I promised I would submit. I’m a woman of my word. And Cardellos always keep their word.”

Case tilted his head down and ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s my job to take care of you. I feel like I’m not doing my job.”

“But it’s not your job, Case. It’s my job.”

“That’s not how Father would see it.”

“Well, he’s not here. And this was my decision. I have to live with it.”

He raised his head again then grabbed his pencil. “You want me to forgive you, but I don’t think I can. You want me to pretend everything is okay, but it’s not. What are we going to do when he decides he wants a family? My nieces and nephews will be the product of that asshole—”

“And you will love them the same, Case.”