The Kiss Thief by L.J. Shen

I WATCHED FROM THE BACK of my Cadillac as the private investigator I’d hired slammed his car door shut and walked over to knock on the Rossi’s door. Francesca’s mother answered, and he handed her the brown manila file and turned around without a word, just as I had instructed him to.

Arthur Rossi tried to destroy the evidence against him.

I was going to destroy him.

I’d filled Chicago’s streets with more cops and moles. For the past three decades, he’d been ruling those streets with an iron fist. And now, in only a short few weeks, I’d managed to eliminate a lot of his power.

The investigator I’d hired reported back that Arthur had been drinking more, sleeping less, and raised his hand to two of his most trustworthy soldiers. For the first time in three decades, he was spotted leaving his own strip clubs, smelling not only like cigars and alcohol but also other women’s pussies. Two of the women, out-of-towners, were stupid enough to allow the investigator to take pictures of them with Arthur.

I’d created more of a mess for him, and it seemed as though his Keaton problem wasn’t going to go away.

I watched Francesca’s mother’s face crumpling as she slid the pictures out of the envelope. I simultaneously clutched a letter in my own hand. It was addressed to me from her husband. Containing anthrax, I was sure, if it weren’t too incriminating against him.

Francesca’s mother started after the investigator’s white Hyundai, but he already took off before she could question him further about the things he showed her.

I tore open the letter and skimmed over it.

It was an invitation to throw his daughter and me an engagement party.

It was suspicious, but a part of me gave him the benefit of the doubt. I figured he wanted to put on a show and make people think our marriage had his blessing in order to try and assert more power over the situation. Furthermore, staging the fire at Murphy’s didn’t serve him well. My briefcase (which didn’t contain the evidence against him, as he’d been tipped) was gone, but now he reopened a front with the Irish, who saw the fire as a direct attack on them.

Saying Francesca and her parents ended their last encounter on a bad note with me would be the understatement of the goddamn century, and this could give them a chance to patch things up. Not that I had any plans to play The Brady Bunch with a mobster, but the last thing I wanted was a scandal-filled wedding with a tearful bride. And the future Mrs. Keaton, much to my disdain, excelled at turning on that Buckingham Fountain and crying her eyes out every time things didn’t work according to her Instagram-perfect ideas.

Francesca was at church again. She’d been spending a lot of time at church, because on top of being a prude and a crier, she was also—you guessed it—a closeted nun. On the bright side, it couldn’t hurt my chances of gaining more supporters. Everyone loved a good Christian family. They didn’t have to know the groom’s bride was more interested in banging the family’s friend.

Today, Francesca had previewed the decorations for our upcoming nuptials. Since we’d agreed there was no need for a rehearsal dinner, we decided on a speedy event in the house of God, followed by a modest party at her parents’.

Arthur also asked in the letter if we’d do the Rossi couple the honor of staying the night at their house and attend a celebratory breakfast afterward.

It was a good opportunity to finally sit him down and lay it all out for him, play by play. How I was going to take away everything he’d ever worked for. Then break the news that none of the money, property, and reputation he’d gained over the years mattered and make him realize that none of it would help him one bit in his dire situation.

Francesca and I weren’t going to give him any grandchildren.

It wouldn’t hurt that my bride would get the chance to spend time with her mother. A reward for her sensible behavior.

“Back to the house,” I told Smithy.

“You have the pep rally at six o’clock,” one of my Executive Protection Agents (fancy name for a bodyguard, just as well—as there was zero chance of my remembering his real name) pointed out from the passenger’s seat. Usually, it was my PA’s job to remind me about social obligations. However, he was down with his fifth stomach bug for the summer and texted Smithy and my bodyguards relentlessly to keep me on schedule.

I waved my hand. “Make it quick.”

As we zipped by the Sears Tower, deep dish pizza parlors with cheap neon signs, and buskers performing their own version of Billboard’s current hits, I thought about my fiancée. Francesca had been growing on me like fingernails. Slowly, determinedly, and completely without my attention or encouragement.

She waited for me every evening in her vegetable garden, an oddly attractive scent of mud, cigarettes, clean soap clinging on her body, and not wearing much more than a barely there long camisole that cleaved to her body with sweat and mist. She was always surprised and delighted when I lowered her on the wet soil, still fully clad in my suit, pressed my knee between her legs and devoured her sweet mouth until our lips were cracked and our mouths were dry. She always gasped when I rubbed her hand over my cock through my dress pants, and she even chanced a squeeze in the pavilion, somewhere exposed enough for her to feel safe but hidden enough for us not to have an audience. Her eyes flared in awe and joy when I flicked her clit through her panties not-so-accidentally. Every time I gave her a chance to pull away, she stapled her body to mine, making us one entity.

I kept my word and didn’t initiate sex with her. Figured the day we’d sleep together was drawing close with our pending nuptials. She was receptive, syrupy and…fascinated. Long gone were the days of the jaded, experienced Kristens. Francesca, despite the fact she’d slept with men before, was raw. I was going to teach her all the dirty tricks the Bandini kid couldn’t and have fun doing so.

I’d visited her room a few times when I knew she wasn’t there, always watching out for two things. The third note—she hadn’t opened the box yet. I knew because the tiny golden key was positioned precisely in the same place, not moving an inch between the cracks of her expensive, ancient wooden floors. The floor was due to be replaced before her arrival, but now that I knew where she kept her secrets, I decided to keep the cracks intact. The other was to check her phone for traces of Angelo. There were none. His messages were left unanswered, though she did not delete him from her contacts.

“We’re here,” Smithy said as he parked by Lincoln Brooks High School. The place had produced more gang members than literate citizens, and it was my job to smile, wave, and pretend that things would be okay for the students. They were going to be—once I’d clean their streets of Francesca’s father’s employees.

Protocol demanded one executive protection agent should open my door while the other positioned himself behind me at all time, so that was what we did.

I walked across the yellow, uneven lawn toward the low, gray, depressingly square building, passing metal barricades with excited students and their parents who came to see an alumni rapper who was going to perform there later that evening. The kid had more ink on his face than a Harry Potter book and some questionable scars. I waltzed toward the principal of the school, a shapely woman with a cheap suit and an ’80’s haircut. She ran toward me, her heels stubbing the dry ground beneath us.

“Senator Keaton! We’re beyond excited…” she started, just as gunfire cracked through the air. One of my bodyguards jumped over my body instinctively, throwing me to the floor. My stomach plastered to the ground, I twisted my head to the side, watching the barricaded crowd.

People started running in every direction, parents tugging their children, babies crying, and teachers yelling hysterically at the students to calm down. The principal slid down to the grass and began to scream in my face, covering her head with her hands.

Thanks for the help, lady.

Another bullet sliced through the air. Then another. Then another, each of them getting closer to me.

“Get off me,” I growled to the EPA on top of me.

“But protocol says…”

“Protocol can go fuck itself in the ass,” I snapped, the remainder of my previous, less-than-delightful life creeping into my language. “Call 911 and let me deal with this.”

He disconnected his heavy body from mine reluctantly, and I sprang up to my feet and started running for the kid with the gun. I doubted he had more bullets in that thing. Even if he had, he proved to be a shit aim. He couldn’t put a bullet in me if I literally hugged him. I raced right toward him, knowing that I wasn’t brave as much as I was vindictive and stupid but not giving much damn.

You took it too far, Arthur,I thought. Further than I gave you credit for.

He played nice and sent me an invitation to an engagement party and suggested we stay at his place. He was building an alibi. I bet he was sitting somewhere in public right now. Maybe even pouring bowls of soup in a fucking charity basement.

By the time I put a good dent on the distance between me and my pimply assassin, the crowd had evaporated, and he was exposed. He turned around and started running. I was faster. I caught the hem of his white tee from behind, yanking him back to me.

“Who sent you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he shouted, kicking the air as I dragged him back, but not before prying the gun from his hand and kicking it to the side. Not ten seconds later, ten police vehicles were surrounding us from every direction, and armed and shielded, special unit officers came out, officially arresting him. I cursed under my breath. I needed a few more minutes with him. I knew, without a shadow of the doubt, that he wasn’t going to throw Arthur under the bus. But my EPAs and driver already escorted me to the other side of the building with two detectives and four officers tailing behind us.

“What you did today is a very admirable thing, Senator Keaton. School shootings are a real issue these days, and I…” the principal started.

God, woman, just shut up.

“Any injuries?” I cut her words.

“Not so far,” one of the officers said as we made our way to my vehicle. “But you will be the talk of the town for the next couple of days. That was heroic.”

“Thank you.” I hated compliments. They made you lax and unguarded.

“Zion says you’ll need to make some media appearances today,” my EPA—the one who shielded me from the bullets—stared at his phone.

“Fine.”

I took out my phone and texted Arthur’s number in an instant. The first text message I had ever sent my future father-in-law.

Thank you for the invitation. My fiancée and I gladly accept.

Tucking the phone back into the breast pocket of my jacket, I smirked.

Arthur Rossi tried to kill me.

He was about to find out that he was a pussy, and I was a cat.

With nine lives.

Two down, seven to go.

The next few days were all about talking to the media, raising awareness about school shootings, and milking every second of the incident. Nobody suspected it was an attempt to assassinate me. The kid—an Italian school alumni and a Marine on vacation who got cold feet and forgot how to aim—was in custody now, and insisted that it was video games that made him do it.

The day of the engagement party, Nem and I were to meet downstairs at seven o’clock. I took a shower and got dressed at the office but made it home in a timely manner. Leaving Francesca as prey for Arthur was no longer an option. Arthur was beginning to feel a lot like a loose cannon, and I didn’t want it anywhere near the smoothly operating machine called my life.

When I arrived on time, Francesca was waiting for me in a tight white gown that made my cock jump in a standing ovation. God, she was beautiful. And God, I was going to fuck her tonight. Even if I had to give her the foreplay she loved so much until my tongue fell off. The woman was delicious and ripe. And mine.

And mine.

And mine.

If I repeated these words in my head enough times, I could make it true.

I walked over to my bride-to-be, yanked her by the waist, and kissed her openly in front of Sterling, who was fretting with the hem of Francesca’s gown. The old woman nearly swooned when our lips touched. She’d known me my entire life, and had never seen me kiss a woman, in public or otherwise. Sterling twirled to the kitchen with a spring in her step, giving us privacy.

Francesca and I cocked our eyebrows in unison. Our bodies were mimicking one another, too.

“How are you feeling?”

She’d been asking me this a lot since the rally incident. I wished she wouldn’t. It served as a constant reminder that she was the spawn of the person responsible for it, yet she had no idea of her father’s indiscretions.

“Stop asking. The answer will always be the same—I’m fine.”

“To be honest, it’s not me who is worried at this point. Did you know Ms. Sterling eavesdrops on everything we do and say?” Nem scrunched her button-y nose.

I flicked her chin playfully. I found out about Sterling’s fascination with other people’s business the hard way. After masturbating in the room next door to Sterling at thirteen and a half, I found a box of Kleenex on my nightstand and a Practice Safe Sex brochure the next day. To Sterling’s credit, I would say I read the motherfucker twice and had never in my thirty years of miserable existence on this planet had sex without a condom.

“I wonder how she’d react when we do more than kissing,” my bride-to-be reddened, looking down between us.

Might want to reconsider that, darling. I have an erection the size of a salami and any audience be damned.

“I suggest we find out tonight.”

“How curious of you. You’d make a wonderful investigator.” She bit on a smile.

“The only mystery I intend to unfold is how deep I can bury myself inside you.”

“I can’t believe you’re a senator…” she mumbled to herself.

Me neither.

On that high note, we left, arm in arm.

The evening took a nosedive from the moment we set foot in Francesca’s parents’ manor. Not unexpected, but unsatisfactory all the same.

For one thing, as soon as we reached the Rossi estate, I’d noticed news vans swarming the neighborhood, barricading the main street, and causing a commotion of bystanders. Arthur had invited journalists and local news channels, and they, of course, came running to his doorstep.

A senator marrying the daughter of a mobster. It had more juice than a Big Gulp.

Determined not to allow Arthur to fuck up my life more than he already had, I opened the door for Francesca and escorted her into her former house, ignoring the catcalls from the reporters and the flash of the cameras from the photographers by their side. Once we got inside, Francesca clung to me like I was her lifeline, and I realized with dread instead of glee that, in a way, I was. Nemesis no longer saw this house as her home. I was her home now. And I was haunted beyond belief, ready to exorcise my need for her.

Her parents approached us, keeping a safe distance from one another. Her mother looked like she hadn’t slept in approximately two months, wearing too much makeup to hide the effects of her mental state, and Arthur looked an inch or two shorter. Since I had zero illusions about Sofia Rossi leaving her cheating husband, I had to deduce that I’d done just what I came here to—rocked his boat a little more and shattered another facet of his life.

We did the customary kisses and hugs charade, “Salute!” glasses of Bellini, then they introduced us to their circle of friends.

I noticed three things immediately and simultaneously:

1. Arthur Rossi had invited a very leggy, very blonde, very demoted, and therefore very vindictive reporter who was intimately acquainted with my cock—Kristen Rhys.
2. He also invited some of the most fishy and ill-reputable people in the country, including ex-cons, gang leaders, and the likes of which I normally stayed far away from. He hoped this would contaminate my reputation—which, I had no doubt it would, since Kristen was there to take notes.
3. Without even really needing to look, I instantly found Angelo standing there, nursing a glass of wine, making lazy conversation with other guests.

This wasn’t an attempt to appease me and show that the Rossi’s were on board with our upcoming nuptials. This was a setup.

“We have quite the audience tonight; think you can handle our flavor of guests?” Arthur swirled his drink, shooting me a menacing smile. We hadn’t spoken since I RSVPed his invitation, after which I hadn’t filled in the authorities about what really happened. More leverage for me—one more secret I could use against him. Of course, that meant this place was swarming with security, thanks to my future father-in-law.

Good thing we only had a few more weeks of pretending. Francesca and I would soon be married, and then my plan would be executed. I was going to throw him in jail and make sure he rotted there while I fucked his daughter and left his wife to accept the Keaton couple’s very charitable hospitality. I was not generous enough to pay for the grand mansion in Little Italy, though. Francesca’s mother was welcome to move to one of the multiple properties I owned across Chicago.

The ultimatum was going to be clear—if the mother and daughter wanted my protection, and my money, and my mercy, they were to turn their back on Arthur—and I’d found the poetic justice almost perfect. After all, there was only one thing worse than losing a close, loved relative to an unexpected death—losing their love and affection while they were still alive.

“I can handle anything you throw at me, Arthur. Including, but not limited to, your spawn, who is, in fact, handled quite nicely behind closed doors.” I yawned, ignoring the look of surprise and hurt Francesca flashed me.

It was not in my nature to kiss and tell, but in that case, there really was nothing to tell. We did nothing but heavy petting. It wasn’t my intention to humiliate Nemesis, but it was necessary in order to humiliate her father. And choosing between her anguish and his pride, I’d run over my future wife to get a kick out of Arthur any day.

Rossi’s nostrils flared, his eyes zooming in on me like two barrels of a gun.

He shook it off quickly, turning his head to his daughter.

“Angelo Bandini and his family are here. Shame it didn’t work out with him and Emily after all,” Arthur tsked, studying Francesca’s expression through the rim of his glass, which was tilted up again—no surprises there. Nemesis was still staring at me, bewildered. It took everything for her to drag her eyes to her father and address him. If I were half-decent, I’d apologize. As it happened, I was not only a bastard but also keen on her forming this opinion of me prior to us having sex. It would help me set boundaries for what we were and weren’t.

“Oh?” She smiled politely as though they were complete strangers. Either my future wife was a very good actress, or she really was over her silly fixation with the Italian stud. “I’m sorry to hear.” She moved her gaze back to me, demanding an explanation.

Your father is a cunt. Good enough for you?

“Don’t say that to him, you fool. Say that to him.” Arthur shoved Francesca in the other direction toward Bandini. I was about to escort my betrothed to her fuck buddy when Arthur placed a firm hand on my shoulder. His smile was full of teeth and menace, and he reeked of alcohol. His eyes were red and small but laser-focused on me.

“Senator Keaton, I would love to introduce you to my friend, Charles Burton.”

As in the same congressman who had just resigned to avoid an ethics investigation after groping his employees. Might as well stick my cock in the nearest squirrel’s ass. It would make less of an embarrassing headline and wouldn’t put my morals in question.

“I’m sure you would, but I have something to attend to,” I gritted out, taking a side step, my shoulder brushing his.

“Nonsense.” He clasped my arm, pulling me back. The only reason I relented was because I didn’t want to cause a scene in front of Kristen and give her something else to write about tomorrow morning. “Didn’t you donate to his campaign?”

I did. Before he tried to put his dick in everything in his office, pencil sharpener included. Of course, Burton was already next to me, hugging and congratulating me, as my bride drifted like a magnet to Angelo, who was already racing toward her, his hurried, barely contained steps making my eyelid twitch. They met halfway, then stopped abruptly, their arms dangled beside their bodies. Their awkwardness told me that nothing had changed. They still didn’t know how to act un-in-love. My eyes followed them religiously as Burton began to talk my ear off, shooting excuses about why he had to step down. The notion that I cared nearly disturbed me. At this point, he could murder an entire strip club, and I would still be more interested in the way my bride-to-be—my fucking bride-to-be, thank you very much—flushed at something Angelo had told her, lowering her gaze to the floor and tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. They knew I was looking, so they kept a respectable distance, but everything in their body language screamed intimacy.

The place was full of people, and I had to remind myself that this was not Bishop’s son’s wedding. They couldn’t sneak into the bathroom and fuck. On the other hand, I did just throw her under the bus to get a rise out of her father, so my defiant fiancée had every motivation to poke me back with the one thing she knew drove me mad—her ex-whatever (I didn’t know or care what they labeled each other).

“…and then I told them that I will not, under any circumstances, take a lie detector test.” Burton continued blabbing, clasping my shoulder. “The audacity to even ask—”

“Hey, Charles?” I cut him off.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t give a single flying fuck why you stepped down or about the rest of your nonexistent career. Have a nice life. Or don’t. I regretfully do not care either way.”

With that, I shook his touch off, plucking a glass of champagne from a silver tray that floated around the busy room by one of the penguin-looking waiters as I dashed toward my bride-to-be. I was a few feet away from them when a shoulder sliced through the crowd, blocking my way. My eyes met the top of a gray head, hair sleeked back and carefully trimmed. Bishop.

He shook his head, his shit-eating grin wider than his face. Finally, and after weeks of my dangling his future over his head since I’d found out he and White were bribed by Arthur, he was in a position to shit over my plans.

“Nineteen, huh? She must be tight as our goddamn budget.” He chuckled, swirling his whiskey in his tumbler.

“How would you know anything about tightness? Everything about you is loose, your morals included.” I smirked back. I was, for all intents and purposes, a perfect gentleman and a polite conversationalist when in social circles. But Bishop and White were no longer people I needed to impress. I’d known that since before the masquerade, which was why I had allowed myself to piss off Francesca there in the first place.

“I don’t remember you leaving a lasting impression on the Rossi girl the first time you met. Suffice to say, I’m not the only one with questionable ethics in this room,” Preston replied, throwing smiles and waves to everyone around us.

“Whatever you’re implying, you can go ahead and say it,” I hissed.

“You’re already blackmailing Arthur for his daughter. That much is clear. The girl is not yours.” He tipped his chin toward Angelo and Francesca. He said something that made her cup her mouth and duck her head down. Smitten. “What I’m trying to figure out is—does that mean that White and I are in the clear?”

Thank fuck for arrogant idiots like Bishop who had their lives handed to them on a silver platter. He actually thought my end game was young pussy as opposed to taking down the biggest mobster in Chicago since Al Capone. That, of course, worked to my advantage. If Bishop and White were under the impression that I’d already got what I was looking for, they’d keep their guards down.

And so, even though separating Francesca and Angelo was of the essence, settling this matter took priority now.

“I have what I need.” I smiled easily.

Bishop nodded, smiling and tapping my shoulder. He leaned toward me and whispered, “How is she in the sack? A lamb or a lioness? She is spectacular, Keaton.”

I was glad it was not possible to strangle a person through an expression alone because if it were, Preston Bishop would be dead, and I would be escorted to the nearest police station. I neither knew nor cared why it bothered me so much that the governor spoke of my future wife as if she were a racehorse I’d purchased. I downed my champagne glass and tipped my chin up.

“How’s your wife in the sack?” I asked.

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Actually, I don’t think I will, Preston. Miss Rossi’s age does not give you the permission to talk about her like she’s a piece of meat.”

“But…”

“Enjoy the rest of the party.”

I sauntered past him, inwardly cursing Arthur for being an asshole, Angelo for existing, and myself for ever wanting to lay a hand on the beautiful siren dressed as Nemesis. The decision to marry her was supposed to chain Arthur further to my plan and clean up my reputation. Instead, it made everything a thousand times more difficult and complex. When I slanted my gaze sideways to look for Nem in the throng of partygoers, I found Kristen instead, cradling her drink and raising it in my direction with a cunning smile.

It was an invitation I declined by ignoring the gesture, roaming the room with my eyes for long minutes only to find that Francesca and Angelo were not in the room anymore. I climbed up to the second floor, checking her room, and every single other bedroom in the house, then the bathrooms, before I remembered that my fiancée was fond of gardens. I figured if Angelo and Francesca were going to fuck, they’d go somewhere private. But I forgot one little thing. Nemesis claimed to have loved Angelo. A few stolen kisses and rushed promises under the pink sunset were just as rewarding to them as a rendezvous between the sheets.

I descended the garden’s stairs to find them sitting on a stone fountain, their knees angled toward one another. He caressed her cheek, and she let him.

He tucked a curl behind her ear, and she let him.

He plastered his forehead against hers, and she let him do that, too. Their breaths were heavy, their chests falling and rising in harmony.

And I stood there, watching, simmering, fire coursing through me, I regretted humiliating her in front of her father. For I learned, for the first time, that my actions toward her had consequences.

I compromised her honor, so she was compromising mine.

The only difference was, I did it to spite someone else. She truly loved another.

Bandini leaned toward her face, brushing his thumb along her lips. Her eyes drifted to her thighs again, drunk on a moment they both knew they couldn’t prolong. There was pain and sadness in his touch, confusion in her expression, and I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I stepped into something bigger than I’d anticipated. This wasn’t puppy love. This was the real thing.

She looked up and said something, taking his hands in hers and bringing them to her chest. She was begging for something.

What the hell can this boy give you that I can’t?But the answer was obvious. Love. He could give her real love, something she would never receive in the Keaton mansion. Not from me and not from her vegetables.

He nodded, getting up and walking toward the balcony’s double doors. I was surprised and disturbed by the relief I felt before hardening again. She probably noticed me and told him to run off before I killed him with my bare hands. I took a step toward the garden, ready to reclaim her and make sure she did not leave my sight again the rest of the evening. But as soon as Angelo walked away, she looked left then right and approached a group of middle-aged women. Making polite, disinterested conversation, she kept her eyes stuck on the second floor of the house the entire time, and after no longer than five minutes, she disappeared inside the house.

I followed her steps again, convinced they were going to the same place, when a feminine hand clasped my forearm, making me turn around.

“Do you at least go down on her?” Kristen smirked, her freshly applied red lipstick and precisely pinned blond updo showing she’d freshened up before hunting me down. I shook her off, laser-focused on going upstairs and finding my fiancée, but she blocked my way to the staircase, which was already teeming with people as it was. I had no particular objection to shoving her out of my way, but considering the amount of security, media, and the fact that she, herself, was a journalist, it wasn’t the best idea of the century. Yet again, I had to face the question that seemed to be eternal since Francesca had walked into my life—my career and reputation, or catching her little cheating ass red-handed?

Good news? I still had logic on my side.

Bad news? For now.

“I dug around.” Kristen snapped her fruity gum in my face, batting her lashes.

“Did you find a bone, or someone to bone you, for that matter?”

It irritated me that my internal thoughts bled outside my mouth. I usually prided myself in an admirable dose of self-control. But knowing my fiancée was probably fucking another guy upstairs made me want to rip the walls off with my own fingernails. Whereas I was quite content letting Francesca scratch her Angelo itch a few weeks ago, now was a completely different matter.

“Are you not interested to hear what I found out?”

“Not really.” I elbowed her aside gently, starting up the stairs. She chased me, grabbing the hem of my blazer and tugging. Not a chance, sweetheart. I was at the curve of the stairway when her words made me stop.

“I know why you did this to Rossi. He was responsible for that explosion. The one that killed your parents when you were at Harvard.”

I turned around, observing her—really looking, not just skimming her features—for the first time. Kristen was not a bad journalist, and under any other circumstances, I would respect her. But since it was me she was trying to fuck over, I had no choice but to fuck her harder, all puns intended.

“Do you have a point to your hearsay?”

“Rossi made you an orphan, so you took his daughter as retribution. An eye for an eye. I’d say it’s a pretty good lead.” She tipped her champagne glass back, taking a sip. I smirked, assessing her coldly.

“I took Francesca Rossi as a bride because I liked her. True, I have no kind words to say about her father, but it won’t be him warming my bed at night.”

“She doesn’t even share your bed yet. How interesting.” Kristen slow-clapped at my restraint at putting up with such behavior. Since she finally let go of my blazer, I turned around to complete my journey to the second floor just as Angelo slipped out of a guestroom, squeezing past my shoulder in the narrow hallway. I took one sniff at him and knew that he had just had sex. His lips were swollen, and his hair was disheveled and damp with sweat. Kristen’s eyes lit up at the look of him making his grand escape. Glee oozed from her big fat smile. I grabbed his arm, turning him around to face me. This night was going down in the books as my worst night as a public figure and possibly as a human being. Angelo stared at me, heaving.

Frantic. Breathless. Guilty.

“Leave before I ruin your life,” I spat out at Kristen. “And this time, you won’t get a third warning.”

She laughed. “Seems like you two have a lot to talk about.”

My former mistress scurried away, her laughter carrying in my ears long seconds after she was gone. I plastered Angelo to the wall, grabbing him by the collar.

I knew it looked bad.

I knew I had to explain it tomorrow morning.

I simply no longer cared.

“Who was with you in that room?” I demanded.

“I’d strongly advise you stop acting like a thug unless you’d like to be treated like one.”

I strongly advise you to stay away from my future wife before I really do kill you.

“You’ve had sex,” I countered.

“Thanks, Captain Obvious. I was there.” He laughed, regaining some of his composure, which infuriated me even more.

“Who with?” I pulled at his collar, almost to the point of choking. That sure wiped the smile off his face. I knew I had to calm down before people started noticing the little scene I’d created. But I couldn’t, for the life of me, gather my wits.

“See, my first answer to you. None. Of. Your. Business, Keaton.”

“Senator Keaton.”

“Nah. You sure as hell don’t represent me.”

“Any particular reason why you insist on getting on my bad side?”

“You’re on my future father-in-law’s bad side,” he said, unflinching. I had to hand it to him—he had balls the size of cantaloupes. “And the race to Francesca’s heart is one I’m going to beat you at.”

“I very much doubt you’re capable of beating me to anything other than pre-ejaculation, kid.”

“I’m fully prepared to test that theory. Heads up—I told Francesca I would gladly marry her without dowry, and that I am more than happy for my family to shell out whatever money is needed to untangle her from her Keaton situation. Might want to find another bride to fit that dress you bought.”

I was about to punch him in the middle of my engagement party when my fiancée slipped out of the second floor, too. She looked like a barely contained mess. Her smeared makeup was carefully wiped from her face, her eyes were wild with realization. Paired with Bandini’s frank admission that he’d slept with her, I saw very clearly what everyone else at the party were about to see, too.

Yet again, Francesca Rossi had been fucked by a man who was not her fiancé.

At her own engagement party.

Minutes after she was on my arm, no less.

I pushed Angelo down the stairs, pulling my future wife by the arm. She shrieked when I touched her, her eyes darting up in hysteria before softening when she saw it was me. Then she saw what was written on my face. If she could read me—which she could by now—she knew she was in deep trouble.

“What do you want?” she seethed.

A loyal fiancée.

A fucking shotgun.

For this nightmare of a sham relationship to be over.

“You just broke our verbal contract, Nemesis. Not a good thing to do with a lawyer.”

She frowned but didn’t try to defend herself.

There was a guillotine inside me, and I wanted to snap her pretty head off her body.

Tonight.

I’d just wiped the tears from my eyes after telling my mother that I was starting to warm up to my husband. The revelation was bittersweet, if not completely crushing. Perhaps it was the nightly encounters in the vegetable garden, or the way he kissed me so openly in front of Ms. Sterling tonight when he picked me up.

“Is it Stockholm syndrome, Mama?”

“I think it’s just young love, Vita Mia. Love is, after all, a little mad. Otherwise, it is not love but merely infatuation.”

“Do you have to be mad to fall in love?”

“Of course, you do. Falling in love is, by definition, going crazy for someone else.”

“Are you crazy about Dad?”

“I’m afraid I am. Otherwise, I wouldn’t stay even though he is cheating on me.”

That happened, too. And it threw me off even though I should have seen it coming. It was not uncommon for the men of The Outfit to take a mistress or two.

Mom said that if it rips you apart, that means it is real.

“But shouldn’t love feel good?”

“Oh, nothing is good if it doesn’t have the power to feel bad, too. It’s all about the quantities, Francesca.”

Quantities.

The quantity of my affection toward Wolfe revealed itself when Angelo ushered me to the garden away from the throng of people. Despite my feeling completely crushed and angry at my coldhearted fiancé, I’d wanted to stay with him and brave my father together. Then Angelo sat me down and brushed a dark curl from my eyes and asked me if I was happy. I thought about it long and hard.

I wasn’t happy.

I was not unhappy, either.

I’d realized that not only did I harbor unexplainable, positive feelings for the man who’d imprisoned me, but I no longer craved Angelo’s touch the way I had before Wolfe bulldozed his way into my life. I still loved Angelo, but only as the kid who protected me from his brothers and shared smiles with me from across the dining table. Instead of his warm, familiar, soft hands, I longed for my fiancé’s strong, callous, hard palms. The realization struck me like lightning, and I told Angelo that although I felt bad about him and Emily—it was over between us.

For good.

Once I saw the look on his face, I took his hand and brought it to my chest, begging for his forgiveness. And when he stood up and walked away, all I wanted to do was find my mother and tell her. I had to wait until Angelo was nowhere near me so it wouldn’t look like we were going to the same place.

Angelo had disappeared inside the house shortly after. My cousin Andrea said between sipping mimosas that she saw him slipping into a guestroom upstairs with the blonde reporter Wolfe used to date.

“The one with the pretty hair? Tall? Lanky? Tan?”

I didn’t need a reminder to the fact that Kristen was gorgeous.

“Right. Thanks.”

Instead of feeling anger at his behavior, all I felt was strange hostility. Even that wasn’t toward Angelo—it was toward my own fiancé, who had humiliated me in front of my parents when my father threw a jab at him.

Now we were in the car, staring outside our windows as we always did, watching Chicago whooshing by in its majestic, grayer-than-Wolfe’s-eyes glory. I fiddled with the edges of my white dress, unsure what to say or do. Again, Wolfe arrived at the silly conclusion that I’d slept with Angelo. And again, I felt that defending myself was encouraging a pattern where I always had to make excuses for talking to a friend.

Did he really think so little of me? We had a verbal contract, and since striking it, time had passed. Time in which I kissed him and caressed him and opened my thighs for him to stroke me there through my clothes. I stroked him, too. Did that mean nothing to him? Did he really think I could do that with any man at any time?

“I will not marry a whore,” Wolfe said with dry resolute, still staring out the window. In the rearview mirror, I could see Smithy, his driver, cringing behind the wheel and shaking his head. I closed my eyes, willing myself not to cry.

“Let me go, then.”

“Am I hearing an admission, Miss Rossi?”

“I will not defend myself in front of a man who does not deserve my pleas,” I said, as calmly as I could.

“Is he worth my wrath?”

“You don’t scare me, Senator Keaton,” I lied, ignoring the tears clogging my throat. I liked him. I did. I liked that he defended me in front of my father, and that he offered me the freedom to study and work and leave the house unattended. I liked that he was at war with my family but didn’t put me in the middle of it.

I even liked that he didn’t want me to be his baby machine. Liked that he was agreeable whenever I decided to play nice with him. That the version of Wolfe I was going to get—the jerk or the sharp-tongued admirer—solely depended on my behavior toward him. I liked how his body enveloped mine like a shield, how his lips scorched my skin, how his tongue swirled over my needy flesh.

“Yet,” he corrected, his jaw as hard as granite. “You’re not scared of me yet.”

“You want me to be scared of you?”

“I want you to behave for once in your miserable, bratty life.”

“I did not sleep with Angelo Bandini,” I said for the first time that evening, and—I promised myself—also for the last time.

“Shut up, Francesca.”

My heart coiled in the corner of my chest, and I swallowed the bitterness bleeding in my mouth.

When we arrived at the house, he rounded the car and opened the door for me. I stepped out and ignored him, pushing the front door open. I was so mad I wanted to scream until my vocal cords tore. He had such little faith when it came to me. Who had made him so hardened and skeptical?

Probably my father.There was no other way to explain the bad blood between them.

Behind me, I heard Wolfe instruct his bodyguards to stay out of the house, which was against protocol. He never went against protocol.

I rushed to my room, desperate to gather my thoughts and think of a way to tackle this. I didn’t stop to think that running away from confrontation may look to him like an admittance. My only sin was sitting somewhere public with Angelo and telling him that he needed to stop texting me. That I wanted to give my future husband a fair chance.

“You can forget about college.” Wolfe slammed his phone and wallet against the marble mantel behind me. “The deal is off.”

I turned around sharply, my eyes flaring in disbelief.

“I didn’t sleep with Angelo!” I railed for the second time. God, he frustrated me to no end. He never once asked me for an explanation or voiced his concern. He just assumed.

Wolfe stared at me, placid. I ran toward him, pushing his chest. This time, unlike the first and second time I pushed him, he moved backward, just an inch. There was heat in my touch. I wanted to hurt him, I realized, more than he had hurt me.

Quantities.

“Are you sure you’re a lawyer? Because you sure suck at collecting evidence. I did not sleep with Angelo.” Third time.

“I saw you in the garden together.”

“So what?” I was so upset I couldn’t even explain myself properly. I clung to his dress shirt, tugging down and twining my arms around his neck to pull his head down. I pressed my lips to his, desperate to show him that what we had was real, at least for me, and that in my kiss, there was something unique—a potion—I could never give anyone else.

He didn’t move or reciprocate. For the first time since I’d met him, he did not demolish whatever stood between us the second I gave him permission to touch me. Normally, whenever I moved an inch toward him, he crossed an ocean, drowning me with kisses and caresses. He devoured me if I let him. This time, his body felt rigid and cold under my fingertips.

I took a step back, the dull pain in my chest spreading all over my body.

“I like you, Wolfe. I don’t know why, but I do, okay? You make my body feel different. It’s confusing, but it’s true.”

And boy, was it ever. The truest thing I’d ever said. My blush was back in full force, ready to obliterate my face.

“That’s very kind of you.” He smiled at me sardonically, standing taller and bigger and more frightening than I’d ever seen him before. “Tell me, Nemesis, do you think allowing me to fuck him out of you would help your chances at attending Northwestern?”

“Wh…what?” I pulled back, blinking. He still didn’t believe me. There was nothing I could do or say to change his mind.

He lifted his hand, stroking my cheek. Usually, I basked in his attention as though it were a glorious sunray on a December day. Tonight, his touch made me shiver and not with excitement. I was still wet because he was there, because he was present, and because his eyes were on me. But it felt all wrong. My desire for him felt dirty and desperate. Doomed, somehow.

“I’m not lying to you,” I said, biting my lower lip to keep it from trembling. “Why do you always think the worst of me?”

He lowered his lips to mine, and whispered, “Because you’re a Rossi.”

I closed my eyes, inhaling venom, exhaling hope. I felt like I was drowning even though I was standing in the middle of the foyer in the arms of the man I was going to marry. I knew what I had to do just then to save him from hating me. I just wasn’t sure if, by the end of it, I would still be able not to loathe him.

Wolfe was not going to believe me, and it was too late and too convenient to tell him that I was a virgin now.

No. He had to learn that himself.

“Take me,” I whispered brokenly. “Sleep with me. Compromise me.” I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling my pride leaving my body, evaporating like mist. “Fuck Angelo out of me.”

He took a step back, and I could see the war raging inside of him.

Too proud to accept my offering, and too angry to turn it down.

“Please,” I clung to the collar of his shirt, rising on my toes and plastering my body against his. His erection dug into my stomach and gave me false, stupid hope.

“I want you.”

“You want Angelo more.”

I shook my head fiercely, kissing his jaw, the corner of his lips, his Cupid’s Bow.

“You,” I breathed. “Just you.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and stepped away from me. I clung harder to the fabric of his shirt, clutching him in a vise grip.

“You’re turning me down? Really?” I whispered against his neck, feeling his Adam’s apple bob against my lips, his stubble, and his tight muscles. Every inch of his body tried to fight it. Us.

“Get on your knees,” he rasped, “and beg for me to fuck you.”

I drew away from him, my eyes widening.

“What?”

“You fucked another man at our engagement party. The second time you have fucked him since we got engaged. I want you to kneel and beg for me to fuck him out of you. And I am afraid that there is no other way around it, Nemesis,” he said coldly, raising a thick, dark eyebrow, his jaw locked with rage.

I was speechless.

I cupped my mouth, stifling an agonized moan that had threatened to tear past my lips. His face remained indifferent, unaffected; I wondered how he could be so cruel to the woman he was going to promise his forever. There was no going back from what I was about to do, if, indeed, I was to do it. I wanted to turn around and walk away. But I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if I did that, we would be over.

He needed to know that I didn’t sleep with Angelo. And, after lying to him that I had, multiple times, there was only one way to prove my innocence.

The logic behind the idea was twisted, but so was Wolfe. Our whole relationship was crazy.

With an unsteady inhale, I began to lower myself to my knees in front of him. I pressed my eyes shut, determined not to see what was on his face as I stripped off my dignity for him. Mama used to say that pride was the most exquisite jewelry a woman could wear even when you’re naked. But Wolfe had just ripped it from my neck, every pearl of confidence rolling on the floor. I bowed my head down, and when my knees touched the marble, a groan of pain and self-hatred escaped my mouth.

I hate you.

I like you.

I wish I could quit you.

If I didn’t show Wolfe the truth, he’d make my life hell or worse—throw me back to my parents, cancel our engagement, and make me the talk of the entire city of Chicago. He would use whatever he had against my father, and we would be poor, powerless, and defenseless without my father to protect my mama and me from poverty, the Irish, or The Outfit’s cutthroat society.

I would lose everything.

The choice not to kneel was never truly mine. I couldn’t afford for this wedding not to happen. And I couldn’t afford for my future husband not to believe me as I knew it would make both of us miserable and hateful toward one another.

The foyer was so silent, I could hear the echo of my heartbeat ricocheting off the ceilings. I slanted my chin up and cracked my eyes open, meeting his punishing gray ones. We stared at each other for a few seconds, my fingers laced together at the small of my back. He was right. Kneeling for someone did make you feel like a peasant.

The minute you willingly lowered yourself for someone else, they would never, ever look at you the same way. In or out of bed.

“I will not take you by force.” His voice was a sharp-edged knife, traveling across my nerves, nipping though not cutting all the way in.

“I offer myself willingly,” I said, my head bowed down.

“Up.”

I stood up.

“Come to me and kiss me the way you did Angelo tonight.”

I swallowed the sour bile rising in my throat. Hatred, humiliation, excitement, dread, and hope swirled in my chest. With my knees bumping into each other, I made my way back to him, pressing my lips to his as I wrapped my arms around his neck.

My body hummed with dark energy. I wanted to devour him with rage and show him that I was innocent. That I was still untarnished, and that I was his. But I was met with such passive disinterest, I couldn’t muster up the courage to do to him all the things I wanted to.

He lowered his lips to meet mine—finally—and I thought he would reciprocate, but he just grinned into my mouth. “If that’s how you kiss the man you want so desperately, I can see why Angelo didn’t put up a better fight to win you.”

That was when I lost it.

I bit down on his lower lip, hard, raking my fingernails through his hair and tugging at the same time he tore the front of my dress by the cleavage, ruining the designer number completely. My skin burned, and my back arched. I kicked out of the dress, crushed silk mounting under my heels, pulling him to me, wrapping myself around him like a deadly octopus. I was a black widow swallowing him whole. We wrestled each other furiously, stumbling toward the staircase and bumping into a hanging picture, a console table, and a statue. He hoisted me up and carried me upstairs, drowning my moans with kisses, suffocating his own groans of pleasure by biting my chin and lips and earlobes. Bruising me with punishing lust. Marking me with his envy.

Ms. Sterling was in the hallway, watering the huge plants on the marble stands against the grand crème walls. When she saw us biting and groaning at each other, me in his arms mostly-naked, she gasped, rushing toward the west wing.

He bit my upper lip and drew it into his mouth, carrying me to my bedroom. Angelo seemed a lifetime away, out of reach and as far away as the moon. Wolfe was here, in the flesh, burning me like the sun. Deadly and infuriating and—I knew, I just knew, as lost as I was in his touch. I had no idea how he was going to deal with the aftermath of what was about to happen. But I did know that he was going to be humbled when this was all over.

I was not a liar.

I was not a cheater.

I was his future wife.

I tried to warn him, but he didn’t believe me.

When we reached my room, he kicked the door open and threw me on the bed.

I laid there, staring at him with raised chin and what I hoped was confidence. I wanted to be arrogant and cold even as he took me. Even as I submitted to him. Even when I gave him my most precious and only possession. A possession he most assuredly did not earn tonight.

My virginity.

He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his cigar pants and regarded me with disdain, assessing me now that we were completely alone. I was wearing nothing but my white bra and matching panties. I knew he liked what he saw because he had that darkened look in his eyes. The one that made the room hotter, the air dense like fur.

“Take everything off but the heels,” he demanded.

“I’m not a stripper,” I hissed, narrowing my stinging eyes at him. “I’m your future wife. Strip me like you take your vows—like you mean it, Senator Keaton.”

“Vows that obviously mean nothing to you,” he said again, even more aloof. He barely looked at me as he did, making a point. “Off, Francesca.”

I grinned, gathering my courage. When my arm moved to my back, unclasping my bra, I could almost see his pulse quickening on the side of his neck. His face remained cool even when I removed my underwear, remaining in nothing but my heels in my bed.

He leaned down, still fully clothed, stared into my eyes, and brought his arm between us. He pressed the heel of his palm against my private area. I felt my wetness pushed against the dusting of hair there, damp and cool on the outside but hot from within.

“I will say this one time, Francesca, then consider my conscience clean. If you don’t tell me to leave right this minute, you will be devoured, wrecked, possessed, and owned for the entire night. I will fuck Angelo out of you, and then the rest of the idiots who were unfortunate enough to touch you and think there’d be a second time. I will not be considerate. I will not be compassionate. So if you’re used to gentle lovers and hour-long spooning, say the word, and our verbal contract will be terminated.”

“And you will still marry me?” I asked.

His nostrils flared. “I will marry you, but you’d wish I wouldn’t.”

He thought I’d been with other men. I told him I was someone else—and he took my word for it. Who I really was didn’t matter to him. Wolfe went to extreme lengths to prove that to me. What struck me as peculiar, though, wasn’t his words, but the situation. He was willing to forgive me, to honor our verbal agreement I allegedly broke, even though in his eyes, I’d slept with my former flame not once, but twice since we’d gotten engaged. He said he did not negotiate, yet he absolutely did. With me.

“Are you afraid to actually feel something if you touch me?” I taunted. “Your walls of icebergs are thawing, Senator.”

“Ten seconds to decide, Nemesis.”

“You already know the answer.”

“Say it. Eight.”

I smiled, though inside, I was crumbling. He was going to take my virginity and by force. He thought I was already compromised, and to prove how wrong he was, I needed to let him hurt me the way it hurt him to see me with another man. I knew what it looked like. Angelo did touch me. He did lean against me. He did trace my hair with his fingers. Moved his thumb across my lips. And then he snuck out of a room after having sex with someone else while I was MIA.

The evidence was there, stacked against me.

“Five.”

“Try not to fall in love with me.” I opened my thighs.

“Francesca. Three.”

“It will be a terrible inconvenience, il mio amore. To love the wife you took in vengeance.”

“One.”

“Stay,” I snapped, loud and clear.

He advanced toward me and pulled me down by my waist so I was lying underneath him. I sucked in a breath as he put his hand on my neck and scooted up, caging me with his knees locking my thighs, still fully dressed.

“Open my zipper.”

I couldn’t breathe, let alone work his zipper. So I just stared at him, hoping he would not misread my shock as defiance. But he did. Of course, he did. With a growl, he unzipped himself and pushed down his pants. I didn’t dare glance down and see what was waiting for me. My heart pounded so fast and hard I thought I was going to puke. I quickly assembled all the information I had on lovemaking and decided that I’d be okay. I was aroused, wet where I needed to be, and in the hands of the most desirable man in Chicago.

With his pants around his knees, he slid one finger into me, his face void of emotion.

I inhaled and tried to look calm even when the tears slammed into the back of my eyeballs again. It hurt. I wasn’t sure what hurt more, the physical discomfort or the way he looked past me as though I was nothing but a body.

The same way he had stared at Kristen.

He popped his finger into his mouth and sucked on it, expressionless, then dipped his finger into me again, retrieved my arousal, and pushed it between my own lips. I was forced to taste myself. Musky and sweet. I flushed red, my nipples puckering, so sensitive I wanted to rub them against his hard chest.

“He used a condom?” He wiped the remainder of my wetness on my cheek. I wanted to cry until there was nothing left of me but held back.

He was about to find out the truth in a few short moments that I was telling the truth the first three times, so I told him what he wanted to hear.

“Yes.”

“At least you had the decency to do that. I will not be using one, but a morning-after pill will be waiting on your nightstand first thing. See, having children with a leg-spreading whore is low on my to-do list. You will take the pill, no questions asked. Am I understood?”

I closed my eyes, shame dripping down my body like sweat. I was agreeing to this. To all of this. Consenting to his words, his actions, and his cruelty. I had, after all, gone down on my knees, begging for this moment to happen.

“Understood.”

“I would play with you a little, but you’ve been prepped by another, and I’m not in a generous mood.” He smirked darkly, and then, with one sudden thrust, he pressed his cock home, slamming into me with such force, my back arched, my chest meeting his, and stars exploded behind my eyelids as pain pierced through me. He tore past the natural barrier of my body and was buried so deep inside me, it felt like he was ripping me apart. The sting was so profound, I had to bite my lower lip to suppress a scream of sheer agony. My whole life, Clara and Mom warned me off tampons, bike riding, and I even had to wear thick breeches for my horse rides, to preserve that which was so sacrosanct, so holy. Only to be met with this.

Motionless, soundless, and tense under his body, the only clue that I was still conscious was the tears that began streaming down my face. I bit my lip hard so as not to make a sound.

I am a rusty barbwire, twisted together, knotted into a ball of fear.

“Tight as a fist,” he groaned, his feral voice meeting my complete silence as he thrust so hard, so fast, and so rough, I thought he was going to slash me apart into miniscule shreds. My tears slid from my cheeks down to my pillow as he pushed deeper and deeper, and I could feel the walls of my virginity coming down and bleeding out of me. But I didn’t tell him to stop, and I didn’t confess my virginity.

I lay there and let him have me. He took my innocence with force, but I couldn’t give him any part of my pride. Not even a small piece of it. Not after what occurred in the foyer.

After a few thrusts, I forced myself to open my eyes and blurrily watched his impassive, angry face. Something seeped between us, covering my thighs, and I knew what it was. I prayed with everything I had in me that he didn’t notice it yet.

But he did. He noticed. His eyebrows snapped together, and he registered my face, my tears, my agony for the first time.

“Period?”

I didn’t answer.

He pulled back from me carefully, his gaze dropping between us. There was blood on the inside of my thighs and on my white linen. I grabbed the collar of his shirt, drawing him back to me. I was desperate for his body to hide mine.

“Finish what you started,” I rustled, exposing my teeth. I could feel the pulse of his heart against his chest, he was so close.

“Francesca.” His voice was gruff and drenched with guilt. He brought his hand to my face to rub my cheek, but I slapped it away. I couldn’t bear his new, tender tenor. I didn’t want him to be gentle with me. I wanted him to treat me as his equal. With the same anger and lust and hatred I felt for him right now.

“Now do you believe me?” I smiled bitterly through the tears that just kept coming down like rain, desperate to wash away the last few minutes. His frown smoothed, and he raised himself up from me, about to draw away, but I pulled him back to my body harder.

“It’s done.” I looked him in the eye and saw so much misery in them. I locked my ankles behind his back, caging him inside me. “I decide how I want my first time to be. Finish this. Now.”

To my horror, more tears came through, and he licked them as he lowered himself back to me. His tongue rolled from my neck to the pillows of my cheeks, catching all the tears parachuting from my eyes. “Nem,” he tried reasoning with me.

“Shut up,” I buried my face in his shoulder as our bodies connected, him driving into me again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

His thrusts were gentle now, easing into me while brushing the tips of his fingers back and forth over my outer thigh, a leisured, intimate gesture that was nothing more than a sweet lie. The heel of my foot rubbed the fabric of the pants he never bothered to remove. I knew that he wanted to try and finish to get it out of the way. I also knew that it was too late to minimize the damage.

After a few minutes of dull pain, he began to up the pace. His face grew tight and his eyes darkened, and that was when I could bear to look at his features again without feeling like he shoved a knife into my chest every time he pushed into me. He finished deep inside me, the warmth of his lust conquering every part inside me. I clung to his shoulders, feeling frayed and tattered beneath him, my lower body so wounded it almost felt numb.

He levered up so he could look at me, staring at my face without meeting my eyes.

We stayed silent for a few moments, him still on top of me. He didn’t ask me why I didn’t tell him I was a virgin earlier. He knew. Finally, he rolled off me. I scooted away and stood up, covering myself in a lavender satin nightgown I retrieved from the back of my desk chair.

He sat on my bed behind my back, bent forward, looking a little stunned. His face blank, his shoulders hunched. A far cry from the brash asshole, future husband I knew who always oozed of overconfidence. I didn’t blame him for his silence. Words seem too insignificant for what happened here tonight.

I took my cigarette pack from my nightstand and lit one up right inside his house. It was the least he owed me.

He knew and I knew that if he tried to give me affection, I wouldn’t be able to live it down.

“I have an early day tomorrow. My final dress fitting, then shopping for college,” I said, taking a seat at my desk overlooking the garden I’d loved the way I’d wished I could love my future husband. Wholly and without expecting much back.

“Nem.” His voice was so gentle, I couldn’t bear it. I propped my chin on my knuckles. His hands were on my shoulders now as he stood behind me, lowering his forehead to meet the crown of my head. He released a rugged breath that made my hair fly everywhere on my face. The room smelled of sex and metallic blood and desperation that wasn’t there before.

“Leave,” I said coldly.

He kissed the top of my head.

“I will never doubt you again, Francesca.”

“Leave!” I screamed, pushing off the desk. The wheels of the chair hit his feet, but he didn’t seem to care about the pain. He left after that, but what happened between us stayed in my room.

When I woke up the next morning, two Advils, a morning-after pill, a bottle of water, and a warm, wet washcloth waited on my nightstand. I instantly knew that Ms. Sterling was privy to what happened during the night.

I took the Advils and the pill, drinking all the water. Then I spent the rest of the day crying in my bed.

I paced the east wing.

Back, forth.

Back, forth.

Walking had never been so excruciatingly maddening. I wanted to kick down the door and barge inside. I barely had it in me to send Kristen a letter from my lawyer, threatening to sue her for every penny she ever earned if she published the piece on me. I also knew I couldn’t hold her back from dishing out the dirt for much longer, but again—did I care?

Not. One. Bit.

“Give her time.” Sterling was shadowing my every movement like a fucking tail. As if I was going to force my way in.

Done quite enough of that for a lifetime, Sterling.

“How much time?” I barked. I was not well versed in the whole relationship gig.

I was even less familiar with the world and feelings of teenage girls. Even as a teenager myself, I opted for more mature women. They didn’t take me seriously, and there were no expectations to be met.

“Until she feels well enough to leave her bedroom.”

“That could take weeks,” I spat out. Francesca already proved to be able not to eat for long periods of time. If disobedience was a competitive sport, my future wife would make it to the Olympics. And medal.

“Then that’s what you’ll give her,” Sterling said with conviction, signaling me with her head to leave Francesca’s wing and come down to the kitchen with her.

I couldn’t unsee the bloodbath between her legs, or the way her thighs shook, twitched, and tensed under mine.

I’d always had a talent for reading people. That was how I’d become a star politician, impeccable prosecutor, and one of the most formidable men in Chicago. Which was at odds with the fact that I failed to notice my young, very sheltered, nervous fiancée was a virgin. I was so blinded with rage thinking she’d slept with Angelo that I didn’t take her word for it. And she—the smart, sensitive, gorgeous vixen that she was—served me with a healthy slice of humble pie, making me finish every bite of what I’d started.

I should’ve seen it from miles away. She came from a strict Italian family and went to church every Sunday. She simply wanted me to see her as more worldly and less of a naïve little mouse. Unfortunately, it worked. Too well for her liking.

The weight of my guilt sat squarely on my shoulders. I shredded her savagely, and she met me, thrust for thrust, her eyes on mine, her tears fierce but silent. I thought she was guilty and angry with emotion. I hadn’t realized I was bulldozing through walls I had no right bringing down.

Traditionally, in Italian weddings in The Outfit, the bridegroom was supposed to present the bloodied sheets to his peers. I had no doubt Arthur Rossi was going to die a slow, painful, internal death if I sent her sheets his way six days before the wedding. There was no mistaking what happened here. And there was no confounding Francesca suffered every moment of it. But somehow, and despite my worst intentions, I couldn’t bring myself to do that to her.

I retired to my study, resisting the urge to check in on her. I wasn’t entirely sure I should give her time, but I no longer trusted my instincts when it came to her. Typically a cruel and calculated creature, I’d lost control several times in the past month, all of them because of my young bride-to-be. Maybe it was best to take my housekeeper’s advice and let her be.

I opted to work at home that day on the off chance she’d leave her room. She’d missed her appointments, and when her mother came to pick her up to shop for her upcoming school year, Sterling sent her away, albeit with a carrot cake, explaining that Francesca was suffering from a terrible migraine. Mrs. Rossi looked distraught as her driver pulled away from the curb. Through the window of my study, I caught her trying desperately to call her daughter. Still, I didn’t have it in me to feel sorry about what happened to anyone who was not my future wife.

The day passed, as bad days do, significantly slow. All the meetings I’d summoned to my house turned beneficial and productive, however. I’d even managed to squeeze in a conference call with my public relations manager and his assistant, something I’d postponed for weeks. When I finally left my office, it was well past dinnertime.

I ate in the kitchen, not meeting Sterling’s judgmental gaze. She sat across from me, her hands in her lap, staring at me as though I just mauled a baby. In a sense, that was exactly what I had done.

“Any more great ideas? Maybe I should send her back to her parents?” I snarled when it became apparent she was not going to stop looking at me.

“You should definitely not do that.” It was the first time Sterling spoke to me in that tone. Even when I was a child, she did not treat me like one. She did now.

“I’m not going to wait for her to come out any longer.”

“You shouldn’t have waited a minute,” she agreed, sipping my fine scotch. Things were dire between Francesca and me if Sterling resorted to drinking. She hadn’t drunk an alcoholic beverage in two decades.

“Then why did you tell me to wait?” I flipped over the plate with the prime rib, sending it flying across the kitchen. It crashed against the wall.

“I wanted you to suffer the way she did.” She shrugged, standing up and walking out of the kitchen, leaving me to stew in the fact that I did, in fact, suffer.

I fixed myself a glass of bourbon, heavy on the rocks, and made my way to the east wing. Nem’s bedroom door was closed, and I pushed it halfway open without knocking, out of habit, before thinking the better of it.

I brushed my knuckles over the oak wood of her door.

“May I come in?” My voice felt stiff and rigid.

I did not ask for permission to do anything.

And I was not fond of the idea of making it a habit.

No answer.

I pressed my head to the hard surface and closed my eyes, breathing in traces of her scent. The mandarin shampoo she used. The sweet, vanilla lotion that made her skin glow. The thought she was so sore she might have needed to go to the doctor’s today flashed through my mind, accompanied by an even more unsettling idea—Francesca wouldn’t tell me if she was too sore. She would cling to the remainder of her pride. The same pride I stripped off her viciously in my quest to avenge something that did not really happen.

I pushed the door open, finding my fiancée splayed on her four-poster bed, staring at nothing. I followed her line of vision. It was a blank spot on the wall that captured her attention. She did not so much as blink when I stepped in.

I made my way to her, sat on the edge of her bed, and took a sip of my bourbon, handing it over to her. She ignored both me and the drink.

“I’m sorry,” I rasped.

“Go away,” she groaned.

“I’m not sure that’s an option,” I admitted frankly. “The more you think about what happened, the more you’ll hate me.”

“I should hate you.”

I took another sip of my drink. I wasn’t going to argue my defense. It was inexcusable whether she told me she was a virgin or not. “That may be true, but we’d both suffer if you do. And although I deserve my fair share of suffering—” I said, and she cut through my words.

“Yes, yes, you do.”

“I do,” I agreed, my voice too soft for my ears to believe it was mine, “but you don’t. You’ve done nothing wrong. And while I’m not a good man, I am not a terrible one, either.”

She looked down at her hands, inspecting them as she tried not to cry. The fact that I knew how Francesca’s almost-crying face looked like proved that I’d been less than an ideal fiancé to her.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?”

She chuckled, shaking her head.

“You’d already made up your mind about me before I even opened my mouth at the masquerade. And frankly, I didn’t much care what you thought of me. But yesterday, I told you…no, I repeatedly told you I didn’t sleep with Angelo. Three times. So I think the better question is—why didn’t you believe me?”

I gave it some thought. “It made disliking you easier.”

“What a coincidence. Your actions made me dislike you, fiercely.” She crossed her arms over her chest, looking away.

“I do not dislike you any more, Nemesis.”

I didn’t hate her. I respected her. Even more so since she didn’t let her pride get in the way yesterday. She got down on her knees to prove a point. That I was a bastard, and that she was speaking the truth. I took her purity and knew that in order to fix this, I would need to give her some of my own pride.

A price beyond anything I’d ever agreed to pay. A security deposit to make sure I could keep my fiancée, not only physically but in the same mental state from prior to our engagement party. The same fiancée who rubbed her soft, little body all over mine in her vegetable garden every evening, gasping in awe every time I “accidentally” touched her clit through the fabric of her dress.

“Put your hands above your head,” I said, turning around to face her.

She arched an eyebrow, still staring at the wall.

“If you continue staring at it, I’ll have to give you a good reason to.”

“Such as?” I piqued her interest. That was my in.

“I’m thinking about a life-size portrait of myself.”

“My idea of a nightmare,” she mumbled.

“With Sterling standing above my seated figure, holding one of her novels.”

She bit her lower lip, stifling a smile. “You’re not funny, Senator.”

“That may be, but I’ll have plenty of time to find your brand of humor. Hands above your head, Nem.”

She turned her head to look at me, her eyes two pools of misery. Misery I created, adding drops of it every single day I kept her here. I didn’t look away. I faced the result of my sins.

“I’m still sore.” She was first to break the eye contact, looking down.

“I know,” I whispered. “I’m asking you to trust me.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because if you stop trusting, you’ll end up like me, and that’s a miserable existence.”

Hesitantly, she curled her fingers around the edge of the headboard. My heart squeezed at the implication of her obedience. She wore the same simple, pastel lilac nightgown that she’d covered herself with yesterday. It rode up her smooth, milky white thighs. I dragged my hand from my knee to her inner thigh, massaging the sensitive area for a few minutes, loosening her bundled muscles. At first, she was as stiff as a stone, but when I moved to the other thigh and she realized I wasn’t going to go anywhere north without her permission, she began to relax under my hands.

“I won’t hurt you,” I assured her, sliding her underwear gently down her thighs, “in the bedroom,” I finished.

“You did yesterday,” she pointed out.

“And I apologize for that. From here on out, I’ll make sure it will always be good for you.”

“You said you don’t care about making it good for women.”

I said those words before I nearly raped you.

Not that I actually did in the eyes of the dry law. She asked for it. She begged for it. Got down on her knees for it. But it was to prove a point. We both knew she didn’t enjoy it. We both knew I took something from her I did not deserve.

Her eyes met mine as I spread her thighs, sliding my thumbs toward her slit and rubbing circles in the sensitive area near her groin. I did not bow down to anyone, much less a Rossi. But I wasn’t bowing down to Nemesis, I was merely making my own point. That sex was great, if done right, and if both participants were on the same wavelength.

“Don’t move your hands,” I ordered, my voice hardening with lust. I saw her chest rising and falling in a mix of anticipation and fear. I could work with that. Her legs quivered with adrenaline before I even laid my tongue on her. I slid her nightgown up and tossed it over her shoulder, exposing her pink, coin-like nipples.

Wretchedly gorgeous.

Wickedly innocent.

Irrevocably mine.

After she was completely exposed to me, I took off my shoes, socks, dress pants, blazer, and dress shirt until I remained with nothing but my black Armani briefs. Another thing I didn’t do often—get naked in front of a woman. Sex wasn’t indulgent. For me, it was an outlet. I rarely fucked my flings in a bed, opting for quickies, and even when I did, it usually didn’t last past my climax. Nemesis stared at my hard-on through my briefs, curiosity and dread swimming in her cerulean eyes.

“Do you want to see it?”

She nodded, blushing. Something inside me burned hot.

“Would you like to see all of me? You will not have to touch me. Tonight’s all about you.”

She swallowed, biting the corner of her lower lip. Carefully, I took down my briefs, standing completely naked in front of her. I couldn’t remember the last time that happened and tried reason with myself that the concept of marrying someone forced you into lowering your walls, but that didn’t mean they were going to be broken. There was going to be a lot of bathroom and Jacuzzi and shower and mirror sex in the years to come. It made no difference if she saw me naked today, tomorrow, or in a month. I joined her in her bed and settled between her legs, cupping her cheeks. I lowered myself down to her and kissed her, gently at first, before squeezing her jaw open, wrestling my tongue against hers, licking the corners of her mouth and sucking her lower lip the way that drove her crazy.

Her muscle memory kicked in instantly, and she remembered all the times before last night. She moaned, responding to my peace offering by removing her hands from the headboard and tracing my jaw with her fingers.

I took her wrists and placed her hands back on the headboard.

“Patience, Nem, is a virtue.”

“Which I don’t have.” She momentarily forgot that she was mad at me, grinning like the sweet teenager she was.

“Which you’ll have to learn, being the wife of a senator.” I chucked her under the chin—that was my MO—then kissed her again with more abandon, and passion, and fury. She gave in to me completely, and I trailed my kisses down her neck and between her breasts, before taking one of her nipples and sucking it into my mouth. It pebbled between my teeth, and I tugged at it softly enough not to scare her, but her body still jerked in fear. I moved to the other nipple, rubbing the one I’d just sucked with my thumb, and when she braced herself for the same treatment, I licked a pattern around it, blowing cold air on the sensitive, wet skin. She shuddered against me, another groan slipping past her lips.

Francesca was a tentative woman, and I had no doubt, despite the poor introduction I’d given her to sex, she would be a fast learner.

I slid my tongue down the center of her chest, dipping it inside her navel, then began to trace wet kisses on her inner thighs and just above her slit. I knew by the patches of faded dry blood marking her thighs that she’d yet to take a shower since yesterday. It seemed fitting that I would lick her better, tasting my own semen on her skin, knowing that it was awfully unhygienic, but that I couldn’t ask her to shower. Not for me. She groaned, thrusting her groin into my face, her knuckles whitening with the strain it put her under not to touch me.

“Hold still.”

“Sorry.” Something that sounded a lot like a giggle fell from her luscious lips.

I loved that she let me do this to her despite the bastard I’d been to her so far. I didn’t find it docile. It showed that she had courage and the guts to face me in bed, after all. I also loved that she was so innocent. Neither waxed nor groomed for sex. I slid my hands to the back of her thighs and grabbed her ass cheeks, elevating her up as I started licking a shallow trace along her slit. It was red and engorged from yesterday, and I hated myself with a passion I usually reserved for her father.

“You’re delicious,” I said hoarsely.

“Oh,” she squeaked above me, panting, “this is…wow. Yeah.”

I slid my tongue between her folds. I hadn’t gone down on a woman in over a decade, but if someone was worth tasting, it was my future wife. Her body coiled a little at first, then loosened as she spread her thighs wider and let me push my tongue all the way in, fighting against the tightness of her pussy. She was tense—not surprising, considering everything she went through yesterday—and still extremely small. The idea of thrusting my fat cock into her again, and soon, made my erection strain against her bloodied linen. I felt it throbbing, my pulse smashing against my balls.

After a few minutes of licking her, I flicked my tongue in and out of her. She moaned, her body rocking with pleasure as she became looser and less self-conscious. She peeked at me, cracking open one eye. Her hip met my face time after time as she chased my tongue, her nipples so hard, I couldn’t help but play with them simultaneously. I put pressure on her clit, sucking and swirling my tongue around it for long minutes, prolonging her orgasm every time she was close by abandoning her clit and licking at a stain of blood on her inner thigh. After twenty minutes, I decided she could have her climax. I closed my lips on her little nub and sucked it so hard, she screamed. Francesca quaked around my face as her first orgasm shot through her, and her hands left the headboard, finding my hair and yanking at it brutally. I felt the burn in my scalp but didn’t relent. Instead, I reached for my bourbon and fished out an ice cube, sucking the alcohol out of it before sliding it between the sore lips of her pussy as I drew her clit with less ferocity now, sending her into another climax that crashed into her and made her moan so loud the windows nearly rattled.

There were two more orgasms after that.

“Can you teach me how to touch a man?” she asked when we were done, and she was propped against the headboard, me beside her, still naked and hard.

“No,” I deadpanned. “I can teach you how to touch me. Touching other men in this lifetime is not looking good for you, Nem.”

It was stupid to think about that kid, Angelo, at that moment. The need to make him go away hit me somewhere dark and primal. I spared her the part where he set her up and made me believe that he actually fucked her. She’d had enough of a shitty night yesterday, thanks to yours truly.

She wrapped the sheets around her body, tapping her chin, as if contemplating whether she should say the next thing.

“What you saw in the garden…” She hesitated. I wanted to tell her not to bother, but the truth was, I was interested to know what happened. Where they’d both disappeared to.

“My father pushed me to talk to Angelo. After Bishop approached you, Angelo offered to take the conversation somewhere we didn’t have to shout over other people’s voices. I told him I didn’t hate it here. Which I guess was true until last night. He got upset and walked off. I went upstairs to my room, and on my way up, my cousin told me he slipped into a guestroom with the blonde reporter who was trying to coax Bishop into an interview.”

Kristen.

The little witch set me up, and Angelo played along. I wondered if they knew how far I’d go. They were going to pay for that little stunt. Too bad the two assholes were taken with Francesca and myself. They’d make a fitting couple.

Francesca chewed on a lock of her hair. “My mom was in my room. I’d seen her from the garden, and we talked for a while.”

Pause.

“My dad is cheating on her.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I was. Not for her parents. Her mother let me take her daughter away. But for Francesca herself, who had to deal with the fall of her family over a period of a few short weeks.

“Thank you.”

There was no trace of hostility in Francesca’s voice. God, she was sweet, and she was all mine. Not just her body but also her words and her courage.

I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that my future wife’s pussy was going to be on my daily menu from this day forward. I put my glass on her nightstand and turned around to her, pressing a kiss on her forehead.

“Go eat your dinner, Nem.”

“I’m not hungry.” She shifted and winced. She was still sore all over, and I made a mental note to have Sterling provide her with a new warm washcloth every night for the next week.

“You can’t look famished at the wedding,” I retorted.

She sighed, rolling her eyes. “What’s for dinner?”

I was still sitting naked next to her, ignoring the vulnerability of my position. Intimacy was too awkward for my liking.

“Prime rib and sautéed asparagus.”

She scrunched her nose. “I think I’ll pass.”

Such a teenager.

“What do you feel like eating?”

“I don’t know, waffles? I don’t normally crave sweet things, but I’ve had the worst day.”

My nostrils flared. I was such a piece of shit to her.

“Diner down the road serves them. Thick and fluffy. Come on. We could use the fresh air.”

“It’s eleven o’clock.” She shifted her gaze to her wristwatch, her teeth sinking to her lower lip with unease.

“It’s open twenty-four hours.”

“Uhm. Okay. Together?”

I grazed her chin. Again. “Yes. Together.”

“You don’t strike me as a waffle-eating man.”

“True, but I might eat you for dessert when we come back. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, and quite frankly, pussy has never tasted as good as yours.”

She reddened in an instant, looking away. “Your compliments are strange.”

“I am strange.”

“You are,” she said, munching on her lower lip. “And that’s the part of you I dislike the least.”

I stood up, casually slipping into my clothes again. Much, much better. Less vulnerability. More barriers. Then something occurred to me.

“Tomorrow is your first day of college.”

Of course, Francesca opted to start college a week before her wedding. We were both relieved not to have to plan a sham honeymoon. Back when we had our verbal deal, we could barely pretend to stand each other.

“Yeah. I’m excited.” She offered me a small smile, scurrying toward her walk-in closet and slipping into one of her dresses.

“Who’s driving you?”

She didn’t have a driver’s license, and I hated her parents for never bothering to teach her. She was almost like a tropical fish to them. Gorgeous in her fancy aquarium, but they put no effort into nurturing her.

“Smithy, of course.”

Of course.My blood was still making its way from my dick back to my brain.

“Time?”

“Eight o’clock.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” I repeated. I had absolutely no idea what came over me. Not about the waffles, and not about driving her there. Up until now, I offered her independence only when she asked for it, dangling a demand over her head. If she did this, then she could have that. As we made our way downstairs, I noticed Sterling sitting at the kitchen table, reading a book and smiling. I bet she was quite smug, knowing I’d gone upstairs to get back in my future wife’s good graces. I wiped my mouth, then licked my lips for traces of my fiancée.

“Not a word,” I warned Sterling as Francesca went to get her jacket.

She zipped her lips with her fingers.

Francesca appeared at the kitchen door. I turned around, lacing her arm in mine. We poured into the starless Chicago night.

“Villain?”

“Yes, Nemesis?”

“Do you think Smithy might be able to teach me how to drive?”

She wanted her wings back.

She had every right to them. I knew since I wanted her protected from everyone around her. Including me.

“Fuck Smithy, Nem. I’ll teach you.”