All Chapters of The Auctioned Bride: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

How dare he? I paced the room, barefoot on the cold floor, clutching the hem of his shirt like it might rip if I pulled harder. I had only tried to be kind. To show the guards… the men who bled for him that they were human. And he dragged me, humiliated me, like I’d done something shameful. His words were stuck in my head. Do you enjoy being stared at? Do you like their eyes on you? I bit down on my lip until it hurt. Did he think I was that kind of woman? That I wanted attention? No. He wanted control. He wanted me caged, silent, invisible unless he chose otherwise. I threw myself onto the bed and hugged my knees. My throat burned. The scent of him hung on the shirt, on my skin, and it made the fury coil tighter. I kept thinking about the way his hand had yanked me. Something ugly flared inside me. Not fear. Rage. At being owned. At being treated like a thing to be corrected in front of his men. I had tried to be kind for five minutes, and he acted like I’d committed a crime. I

I heard the slam of a door down the hall. Valerio, probably talking business with the guard. For a second, everything felt unreal, like what just happened between us had been a dream. But the warmth still lingered in my fingers. Proof I’d seen a side of Valerio Moretti no one else probably ever had. I shook my head, staring at the piano keys. I let my fingers drag across them before pressing into the opening notes of the Dracula Bach Organ. My chest tightened as the sound filled the room. God, I prayed these walls were soundproof. The last thing I wanted was for him to know. I started playing piano when I was ten. My father had made sure of it after I begged him for lessons. And now I felt guilty for lying to Valerio earlier, pretending I didn’t know how. But the air between us had been too soft, too breakable. I wanted to push it. To see how far I could go. To make him warm up to me. To make him feel… free. And I think it worked, right up until that guard ruined everything. I could

It was exactly like I feared. I could not sleep until pale light pulled through the curtains. My body kept tossing and turning. I didn’t know if I was afraid of dreaming about him again or afraid of what those dreams meant.I stumbled to the bathroom and slapped cold water on my face. My eyes were swollen. I ran my fingers down my neck, across my lips, and shut my eyes. For a second I let myself picture Valerio’s mouth on me, just like in the dream. The thought made my thighs hum.I felt a tingling sensation down my thighs as I grew wet. My fingers inched down towards my clit as I thought to pleasure myself. I thought of his lips and his hardness I felt as I started to circle, faster A knock at the door cut through everything. I froze. Hot blood fled my face. I almost slipped when the knocking came again.Please, not him, I thought.“Who is it?” I managed, my voice thin.“Capo asked me to bring you down for breakfast,” one of the guards said. Marco’s voice. Stiff, careful.I leaned b

Shards of glass glittered across the floor. Valerio’s phone lay in pieces, the screen fractured, lines crawling like veins across its surface. His hands were bleeding, streaked with crimson from the glass. I looked at him, taking in the wildness in his eyes, “Valerio!”I placed the meal on the table and instinctively moved closer, I rushed to his side, ignoring the shards underfoot. My fingers trembled as I lifted his hands gently. I blew across the cuts and grabbed a tissue box, dabbing at the blood. “What happened? Why did you… hurt yourself?” He flinched away from me, pulling his hands back as if I were poison. “Leave, Althea,” he growled, low and dangerous. “I’m not leaving until we clean this mess up,” I insisted, my voice firm despite the fear curling in my chest. I reached for his hands again. He yanked them back violently. “I said leave!” His eyes were wild, unbridled, storming with fury I hadn’t seen before. “How dare you act like my mother? You’re just a property I bought

My eyes were inching closed as I started to imagine what he would taste like.Smoke? Whisky?“Capo!” a voice broke in.Bloody guards.I silently cursed, my eyes snapping open. Valerio still looked at me like we hadn’t just been in an almost unbearable moment.“Capo, I…”“Out!” he thundered.“But Capo, it’s…”“I said out.” His voice cracked through the room like a whip.He moved away from me, the heat of him vanishing, and then knelt at my side, lifting my ankle. I winced. I had almost forgotten about the sprain.“It’s swollen,” he said simply, standing to pull the first aid kit from my drawer.“Don’t you think you should go? It’s probably urgent,” I muttered, desperate to distract myself from the pulse hammering in my throat.“I decide what’s urgent,” he said flatly. He opened the ointment, and a faint metallic scent filled the room as his fingers pressed cool against my skin, slow and deliberate.I couldn’t look away. Martha’s words about his past whispered through my mind, and for o