Vicious Promise by M. James
Sofia
Iwake up the next morning overwhelmed by sadness, my chest aching and on the verge of tears. I’d dreamed that I was back in my old apartment, sitting in the living room with Anastasia watching trashy reality tv while we drank wine and ate popcorn. Instead, when I open my eyes I’m in this new, strange bed, in this huge and impersonal room, and I miss my old home and old life so much that all I want to do is curl up into a ball and cry.
Instead I resolutely get up, and walk over to the dresser to fish out a pair of jeans and one of the light, sleeveless tops that I picked out. As I slip my feet into a pair of buttery-soft leather flats, I glance over at the row of velvet boxes on the nightstand, all containing my new jewelry.
Am I supposed to put on diamond earrings to go down to breakfast?Everything about this life that Luca lives is so unfamiliar. I walk over to the window and push back the curtains—the ones in the guest room are normal drapes over a more normal sized, if still large window—and hold up my left hand to the light. The huge diamond sparkles in the sunlight, and I frown, realizing that I hadn’t thought to take it off last night before I went to bed.
I don’t want to examine that too closely. I tell myself that it was just an oversight, that I was too confused by the appearance of dinner in my room to think about it, or that I didn’t want to slip up and forget to put it back on this morning. Anything other than the possibility that I might already be getting used to the weight of it on my hand, that I might actually like wearing it. That I might think it’s beautiful.
Turning away from the window, I grab the pair of silver hoops that I’d picked out yesterday, and pull my hair into a bun atop my head. I have no doubt that the stylist Luca mentioned is probably going to show up today, so there’s no point in trying to do much else with it.
I head down the staircase, trying not to think about how just two nights ago, I tried to make a break for freedom down these steps, how it ended with Luca pinning me up against his front door, making me feel things that I’ve never felt in my entire life. If this were a movie, I know exactly how that would have ended. It would have ended with that stupidly short dress up around my hips, and Luca claiming his prize as the first man to ever be inside of me, while I gasped and moaned and begged for more, completely giving myself over to him.
But this isn’t a movie. It’s not a story of any kind, it’s my life. A life that has been, without my knowledge, promised and bartered away years ago. And if I give in to Luca, I’ll lose the last thing that I have power over.
It’s true that a night with him would be something beyond anything I’ve ever dreamed, that it would be worlds away from what I’d always expected my first time would be—clumsy, probably a little painful, and almost certainly not living up to the hype. Even Ana, once she’d figured out that I’d never slept with anyone, had warned me not to expect too much from the first time. “It gets better later on,” had been her exact words, if I remember correctly.
But with Luca, it wouldn’t be clumsy. It might not even be painful. And it would definitely exceed anything I’d heard about—regarding the first time, or probably any other time.
It would also be only once. Loveless. Passion without substance. Pleasure without any meaning.
If I’d been someone who had had plenty of casual sex before, if I weren’t so naïve and innocent when it came to what went on between two people in the bedroom, maybe I could have enjoyed what Luca could offer me, and then written it off as an experience. Taken from him as much as he would take from me, and then shut myself off.
But that isn’t the case, and now it never will be. Luca would take something from me that he can’t give me any equivalent of. Pleasure isn’t enough to make up for allowing him so close to me, allowing him to take something that, even if it never held any deep meaning for me before, suddenly feels like the last thing of my own that I’m allowed to possess.
I’m so deep in thought that I don’t notice at first as I walk into the kitchen that Luca is sitting at the table. He’s behind a newspaper, and as soon as he hears my footsteps he lays it down, his handsome face looking more peaceful in the early morning light.
In fact he almost looks—normal. As normal as a man who is sitting at his ridiculously expensive kitchen table in a suit can, anyway. But he’s holding a newspaper, and has a cup of coffee in front of him—black as his soul, of course—and there’s a plate of eggs and sausage in front of him, as of yet untouched.
“Sausage is bad for your heart,” I tell him as I head to the fridge, trying to seem as unaffected as possible by finding him in the kitchen. It is his house, after all—I can’t imagine this place ever feeling like home to me. But I hadn’t thought that he’d be in here at ten o’clock in the morning—in fact, I was fairly sure he’d probably never set foot in this particular room at all.
“It’s good that I don’t have one then,” Luca says, smirking.
He just made a joke. My cold, calculating, second-in-command to the head of the Italian Mafia fiancé just made a joke. At the breakfast table. In broad daylight. As if us meeting each other here were an ordinary thing.
I feel as if I’m getting whiplash.
I manage to hide the expression on my face, opening the refrigerator and finding a yogurt and a pressed juice. The yogurt is in a glass jar of all things, and the juice looks like one of those seven-dollar-a-bottle types you find at a Whole Foods. The kind of thing that Ana always used to bemoan not being able to afford, that the rich ballerinas at Juilliard lived off of. They apparently were always talking about their juice fasts and wheat grass shots and whatever else they used to stay stick thin and permanently hungry.
But I’m getting married in five days, and although a small, petty part of me wants to show up looking my absolute worst, I’m not entirely without vanity. I’m only ever going to get one wedding day, and I’d like to feel beautiful, even if I can’t stand the sight of my groom.
The problem though, isn’t that you can’t stand the sight of him. It’s that you can, even though he’s a heartless monster and you shouldn’t want him in any possible capacity.
Gritting my teeth, I walk over to the table, plopping down in one of the chairs with the determination to act as normally as possible. If Luca doesn’t want to eat breakfast with me, he can leave.
Luca glances over his paper again, and wrinkles his nose. “Well, I suppose I should be glad that you’re mindful of your figure at least. Designers don’t typically like to dress a girl over a size four.”
“Well, I’m right at their limit then,” I say pleasantly, scooping up a spoonful of blueberry yogurt. “Maybe I should have had some sausage after all.”
He doesn’t take the bait. “The stylist will be here in an hour,” he says, checking his watch. “Apparently dealing with your disastrous hair will take some time, so your appointment to choose your wedding dress has been postponed until late afternoon. But I expect it to all be done by the end of the day, since you have your meeting with Father Donahue tomorrow.” Luca sets his paper down, stabbing one of the sausages with a fork. “Friday night is the rehearsal, and by Saturday night, this entire matter will be settled and over with.” He pops a bite into his mouth, and chews thoughtfully, watching me from across the table. “Carmen will email you the itinerary for the week, with all of your appointments, just in case you forget.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to point out that I don’t have my phone any longer, or any access to a computer, but instead I take that moment to blurt out what’s been on my mind since last night, even though I know I should have come up with a plan for asking him, some way to manipulate Luca into saying yes. But at this point, I’m so drained that I can’t do anything except let the request spill out while Luca looks at me from the other end of the table.
“I want Ana to come with me today, to help me pick my dress,” I say, the words stumbling over each other. “And I want her at the wedding, too.”
Luca looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “I’ve already told you how I feel about your Russian friend,” he says flatly.
“She’s my—”
“Yes. I know. Your only friend. She also has old ties to the Bratva, and—”
“You agreed that I could see her!” The words burst out of my mouth, petulant and angry like the child he accused me of being last night, but I can’t help it. He’s taken so much away from me already, and I’m terrified that he’ll take this last thing, that the only person I have left in the world to love and who loves me will be gone forever.
Luca’s jaw tenses, and I can see that he’s on the verge of snapping again. He sets his fork down, carefully placing his palms on the table. “I agreed to that after the threat was contained—”
“You’re forcing me to get married. You’re forcing me to do this all alone—”
“No one is forcing you to do anything.” Luca looks at me coolly. “You’re welcome to call the wedding off.”
“And then I die.” I bite off every word, my hatred of him from yesterday returning full force. I can’t believe that I started to warm up to him, just because of a ring and him possibly leaving me dinner. I clench my jaw, staring at him with as much anger as I can muster. Fuck him, even if he did bring that dinner up with his own two hands. I’m not a dog, to love my new owner just because he might have fed me.
Luca shrugs. “It’s still a choice.”
“Maybe in your world.”
His face darkens. “Yes. In my world. Which you are now a part of, Sofia, whether you like it or not.”
“Well I don’t like it!” I hear my voice rising, but I can’t stop myself. “My family is dead, Luca. My father is dead. My mother is dead. I know I’ve said it before, but Ana is my only friend! I know you don’t give a shit about what I want, or how I feel, but can’t you for one second pull your head out of your own ass and realize that I might want one person that I love there to help me choose my fucking wedding dress? To be there when I get married? One person to be there for me?”
I’m breathless by the time I finish, and I realize too late that I was yelling, that I just literally cursed and screamed at the man who has the power of life and death over me. I don’t believe for one second that the document I signed yesterday, hell, that even my fucking marriage license will save me if Luca gets tired of dealing with me. This man, and everyone like him and around him, is above the law.
If he saves me, it’s because he’s choosing to. Which begs the question all over again—why?
I expect him to lose control again, to yell back, to threaten me. But instead he takes a deep breath, the muscles in his jaw working as he looks at me with that same hard expression on his face.
“I’ll allow your friend to come and help you choose your dress today,” he says finally. “And she can attend the wedding.”
My mouth drops open. Even with the clear anger in his expression, this isn’t what I’d expected.
“But.” Luca raises a hand, indicating that I shouldn’t speak until he’s finished. It doesn’t matter—I couldn’t have anyway. I’m too shocked. “Caterina will come with you today as well, so that it’s not only you and Anastasia. And Anastasia may not come to the reception. There’s too many people there who might take offense to it, and I think she would be—uncomfortable.”
I definitely don’t think that he cares about Ana’s feelings. But I’m too dumbstruck that he’s actually given in to argue about that. The fact that he’s going to allow her to come to the penthouse today, and that she’ll be at the ceremony, is far more than I’d expected him to bend on.
“Thank you,” I whisper. I should still be angry with him about so many things, and I am, but in this particular moment I’m more grateful than anything else.
“Don’t mistake this for anything other than me having better things to do than argue with you every time I see you, Sofia,” Luca says warningly. “And I’ve already told you what I think of your mouth. The kind of woman I would marry wouldn’t curse like that. Or scream at her husband across the breakfast table.
You’re not my husband yet,I want to retort, but I bite it back. I don’t want to risk him going back on agreeing to let Ana come over today. Instead I just nod. “I’m sorry,” I say contritely, but I can see from Luca’s expression that he doesn’t totally buy it. In fact, he doesn’t look entirely happy that I’ve apologized.
“Who is Caterina?” I ask quickly, trying to change the subject.
Luca’s face smooths instantly. “Don Rossi’s daughter,” he says, taking another bite of his breakfast as calmly as if we didn’t just have a shouting match across the table. “She was recently engaged to my closest friend, Franco Bianchi, who will be my underboss when I take Rossi’s seat.” He pauses, looking up at me. “Try not to judge her based on your feelings about her father. She’s actually quite a nice girl. She might have some good advice for you about—managing all of this.”
It’s a rare admission from him that all of this might be difficult for me, and I can feel myself softening towards him again, just a little. Maybe that’s why he’s doing it. So that you’ll trust him. So that you won’t be on your guard.
Regardless of his power or wealth or status, when it comes right down to it, Luca Romano is a criminal. A man who is willing to hurt or kill others to achieve his own ends. What do I know about him, really? What do I know about the things he might have done?
I can’t afford to let my guard down. Not even for a minute. No matter what he does for me.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say tightly. “Thank you for letting Ana come.”
Luca says nothing as I get up from the table, clutching my unopened bottle of juice. But as I head out of the kitchen, intending to go back to my room and call Ana, I can feel his eyes on me.
I need to be very, very careful.
