HIS BUTTERFLY (BETWEEN TWO DONS) のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 61 - チャプター 70

"SHE HAD FORGOTTEN WHAT IT FELT LIKE TO BE CHOSEN . UNTIL HE REMINDED HER."SOFIAThe event is all anyone has talked about for the past week.The current Pakhan — old, dying, but still sharp enough to command a room — has summoned every candidate and their families to his estate outside Florence for what everyone is calling a formal dinner but what is really something else entirely. An audition. A measuring. A chance for the old man to look each contender in the eye and decide for himself who among them is worthy of carrying everything he built.Dante is going. Of course he is.Marco is going too, though lately there's something different about the way he carries himself around anything succession-related. A kind of quiet withdrawal. Like a man who has started wanting something else entirely and hasn't figured out how to say it yet.I don't ask. Marco and I have never been the kind of married people who ask each other things like that.I'm sitting at my vanity in my robe, my hair half

“I WANT HIM TO KNOW THAT I AM HERE FOR HIM WITH OPEN HEART, OPEN MOUTH AND OPEN LEGS.”SOFIADante didn’t waste a second.He dragged me across the seat and into his lap, one big hand cupping the back of my neck as his mouth crashed down on mine. The kiss was deep, hungry, seven years of pent-up need exploding between us. His tongue swept in, claiming, tasting, devouring. I moaned into his mouth, fingers twisting in his shirt, and he groaned back like the sound of me unraveling was the sweetest thing he’d ever heard.His hands were everywhere—possessive but controlled. One slid down my back, gripping my ass through the silk. The other cupped my breast, thumb circling my nipple until it pebbled painfully against the thin fabric. He kissed me like he was starving, like he’d waited a lifetime for this exact moment, and still he held back just enough to drive me insane.When he finally pulled back, we were both breathing raggedly. His forehead rested against mine, eyes black with lust and

“ I WILL BE ROUGH WITH YOU IN SO MANY SWEET WAYS”SOFIA.We had to stay at the pakhan’s guest suite tonight, Marco had not yet arrived even till now and I could only wonder what was keeping him from coming, however right now I was headed to the guest suite and not to sleep all alone tonight but with Dante. What we were doing was so wrong and so dangerous but it was what I wanted, what I craved for and I was going to get it tonight.We stopped outside his door. Dante’s nameplate gleamed under the light. My eyes betrayed me and flicked farther down the hall—to the very end, where another door stood closed. Marco’s nameplate. A thin strip of light glowed beneath it. He was in there. Right there. Only a few meters of carpet and silence separating us.I froze in Dante’s doorway, one hand gripping the frame, breath catching sharp in my throat.Dante noticed instantly. He always did. He stepped in close behind me, chest brushing my back, and gently turned me to face him. Two scarred fingers

Seven years ago.“YOU BROKE ME FIRST.”SOFIA.I wake up alone.This part I remember with a clarity that has never faded, not in seven years, not through everything that came after. The particular quality of that morning light. The particular feeling of reaching across the bed and finding nothing.His side is cold. Not just empty — cold. He has been gone for a while.I sit up. Look around the apartment. His shoes are gone. His jacket. I find the note on the pillow and read it once. Family emergency. Be back soon.I'm not worried, not at first. Families have emergencies. He loves me. He will come back.I get up. Make coffee. Sit by the window and watch the street below and wait.He doesn't come.I call his phone. It rings four times and goes to voicemail. His voice, warm and familiar, asking me to leave a message."It's me," I say, because I don't know what else to say. "Just checking you're okay. Call me when you can."He doesn't call.Day one I tell myself he's busy. Family crises are

“IT IS TIMES LIKE THESE I CHERISH THE MOST.”SOFIA.I am still in my clothes — a light cotton dress, no shoes — which in retrospect was my first mistake because I should have known the moment I got within three feet of the water what was going to happen.I crouch at the edge, intending to sit and dangle my feet in. A reasonable compromise.Dante is right there.He looks up at me from the water, the morning light doing things to his face that are genuinely unfair, and his dark eyes are warm and full of everything from last night and he reaches up and takes my hand."Dante—" I start."Don't," he says. Almost gently."I'm still dressed—""Sofia.""I have a dress on—"He pulls me in.The water hits me all at once, cool and clean and completely shocking, and I surface sputtering and absolutely furious for about two seconds before Isabella's laughter hits me and then I cannot maintain the furious face at all."Dante!" I push wet hair out of my eyes.He is grinning. Fully, properly grinning,