He turns me beneath the chandeliers. The tiny hearts ring like a hundred yeses. My father’s mouth is a line. The Moretti uncle’s eyes soften a fraction. The Commission man calculates how to tell this story and stay inside it without lying too much.
Adrian doesn’t pose for cameras now. He’s behind bars only because his lesser sins came to light. Somewhere along the river, someone found the body of Benedict Carraway. Against my wishes, someone let the water have the last word.
We dance one song. Only one.
“Private,” I say.
Luigianswers with his mouth, the kind of kiss that doesn’t ask for permission because it’s built on a thousand permissions already given.
It’s a kiss with teeth in it. It tastes like the last note of the band and the first hit of hunger. He keeps it controlled, keeps it measured, like he’s proving to himself he can hold power without spilling it everywhere. Like he’s reminding me that he can be gentle and still be lethal.
He breaks the kiss only to peer at my face, and his eyes are the same ones he wore at the table when he signed. Not soft.
Certain.
Engaged means I’m no longer a pretty rumor the city can gossip about and forget. It means I’m an announced decision, a line drawn in ink and blood. It means his family will have a new head and every man who ever mistook him for only muscle will start recalculating what it costs to underestimate him.
It means the old order will test him. And it means they will test me, too, because men like to see where a woman will bend when she’s been publicly named.
His hand on my back as we leave the ballroom isn’t a hold. It is a quiet warning to anyone watching the service corridor swallow us. His mouth brushes my ear, one sentence, low enough the river can have it and the city can’t.
“Let them stare,” he murmurs. “They learn with their eyes first.”
We take the service exit like thieves who left money instead of taking it. The river is a black silk road. He puts his jacket over my shoulders because he is that man and because I let him be. The jacket smells like him, clean, salty and the faint bite of the whiskey he didn’t really drink. It covers me the way his name will, now, publicly. Something I’ve not yet considered as I said yes.
“You’re shaking,” he says, not teasing. Claiming the truth.
“I’m not afraid,” I whisper.
“I know,” he says. “That’s what makes it worse.”
The SUV waits like a shadow with an engine. A driver outside who doesn’t acknowledge us. Locks that click.
He gets me in first and the door seals and it’s like the whole city is suddenly outside a wall I can’t see but can feel. He doesn’t climb in after me so much as he takes the space, broad shoulders blocking the tinted glass, one hand braced beside my head like a cage he built and then left the door open on purpose.
The SUV door shuts. The city becomes a rumor. I climb into his lap, skirt bunched, ring flashing once like a signal. He cups my jaw, then sets his hand at my throat the way I like it.
His thumb finds my pulse like he’s taking attendance.
“Word?” he asks out of habit, out of reverence.
“Nemico,” I whisper, already shaking because I still don’t know how my body can want so much and survive it.
His breath catches, and the corner of his mouth curves like danger enjoying itself. Not because the word is permission. Because the word is proof I still have the wheel.
“Good,” he murmurs, voice rough against my mouth. “I want you brave. I want you in control. And I want you mine anyway.”
His hand slides down, under the skirt, finding the heat between my thighs. His fingers press through the thin barrier of my panties, slow at first, testing, tasting my reaction. I jolt into his palm and he makes a sound like satisfaction. The place where my throat gives him the most truth. His hand tightens, not cutting air, just making my breath a little smaller, making the want a little sharper.
I feel him undo himself, the quiet rasp of zipper, the shift of his hips beneath me. He pushes my panties aside and my body goes hot with relief and impatience, slick and ready in a way that feels like a declaration.
“No barriers,” he says, low. Not a question. A fact. “You tell me to stop, I stop. You tell me to pull out, I pull out. But if you tell me yes.”
His teeth graze the place under my ear like a threat he means to keep.
“I’ll fill you. And I’ll find a way to keep you safe as my wife. You’ll wear my name and they’ll learn what it costs.”
The word wife hits me like a dirty promise. I grip his tie and lift my chin into his hand.
