Broken Promise by M. James
Sofia
Ileave Luca’s room, not knowing what to think.
I never expected any of what happened last night. Just like I’d told him, I’d expected him not to come home. To leave me here, afraid and vulnerable, until he was done with his weekend away. I hadn’t expected him to come rushing home.
But it’s not just that. It’s everything that happened afterward.
And I’m afraid—just as afraid as I was last night when that man stood in the doorway with a gun pointed at my face—but in a different way.
If I trust Luca, he has the potential to break my heart. He’s told me over and over again that he’s wrong for me. That he can’t love me. That he was never meant to be a husband. And yet we keep slipping closer to just that—to living as man and wife in reality, and not just on paper.
If I don’t trust him, I’m going to live a lonely life. One without pleasure, without happiness, without touch. Even if I could somehow escape him, eventually, I know that I’ll never be entirely free of him. I’ll always be looking over my shoulder, waiting for him to come after me, to reclaim what’s his. After that, I could never be in another relationship and put someone else that I might love in danger.
And after last night—I’m not sure if anyone else could ever quite measure up.
I’d known sex could be pleasurable, of course. Fun. Exciting. I’d heard Ana talk about it often enough. I might have been a virgin, but I wasn’t an idiot. I knew sex could run the gamut from disappointing to mind-blowing.
None of that late-night gossip had prepared me for the reality of last night, though. Somehow Luca had taken the pleasure I’d felt that night he’d teased me to the point of begging and doubled it, tripled it. I’m sore and raw and aching, and part of me still wants to fall back into bed with him right now, just to feel it all over again.
Something happened between us that was more than just ordinary sex. It was desperate, hungry, passionate. The kind of sex that I’d thought only existed in fiction.
But it had been real. And it was addictive.
You’re like a goddamn drug.I can hear Luca’s voice rasping in my ear, and I know exactly what he meant. I could lose myself in that kind of pleasure, forget everything other than how good it was. How it made me feel so alive, so connected to him.
I have to keep my head on straight, I tell myself as I get dressed, pulling a t-shirt over my head and quickly braiding my wet hair. Luca’s gone to talk to Raoul and the rest of the security, and I need to check on Caterina and Ana. I can’t afford to lose my head and fall into the trap of thinking that this is more than it is. For all that he told me he’d be faithful, Luca didn’t pretend this morning that we were suddenly in love. That we were going to be happily married.
In fact, he made a point of reminding me exactly the opposite—that he can’t love me. That he’s not the kind of man I would ever have wanted to marry, and he never will be.
The problem is, I don’t fully understand it now. I’d thought that Luca clung to his bachelorhood because he wanted to keep being the same playboy he’d always been, because he didn’t want a wife in his space, cramping his style, putting restrictions on what he could and couldn’t do. He didn’t want to have to sneak around in hotel rooms or go to other women’s apartments instead of bringing them here and then kicking them out.
But clearly, that’s not the case. He’d had no problem agreeing to fidelity—if I believe everything he said, then he’s been faithful since the night he brought me home, even though I never expected it.
So if he doesn’t want other women, then what’s the problem?
Maybe it’s just me,I think as I walk downstairs. Maybe, you’re just not the kind of woman he could love. Too innocent. Too naïve. Too weak.
He’d have been better off marrying someone like Caterina, someone who knew how to be a mafia wife and what to expect. But instead, he got me.
Caterina and Ana are sitting at the kitchen table when I walk in. There are takeout containers in front of them, and Caterina has her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee, taking a sip of it just as I walk in.
Ana raises an eyebrow at my wet hair. “You look like you’re feeling better. Did you get any sleep?”
I flush pink, and Caterina sets her coffee down, looking at me suspiciously. “Sofia?”
“Luca came home last night.” I sink into a chair opposite them, glancing at one of the takeout containers. “Did Carmen send this over?”
“Yeah. It’s from that place a few blocks down that does really good brunch.” Ana shoves it towards me. “There’s some ricotta pancakes left. But let’s go back to the part where you said Luca came home?”
“Someone alerted him about the break-in. He flew back last night.”
“Is Franco here?” Caterina asks hopefully, and I wince as I look up at her. I can see her expression faltering as soon as she sees my face, and I feel my heart break a little for her. I feel guilty for the hours of pleasure I spent in bed with Luca since last night—I was fucking my husband all night after he came home in a rush to make sure I was okay. Meanwhile, her fiancé is still banging models in some other country for his bachelor weekend.
You could be married to someone like that,a tiny voice in my head whispers. You thought you were.
I can’t argue that. For all Luca’s faults—and I’m not forgetting them just because he gave me several orgasms last night—he cared enough to come back to me as soon as he’d heard what happened.
“Luca said he’s sending the jet back to pick them up,” I say lamely, knowing that it doesn’t make up for the fact that Franco isn’t here now. “He’ll be back sooner than they planned, I think.”
“I figured as much,” Caterina says quietly.
“I’m sorry.” I bite my lip. “I wanted this to be a good weekend for you.”
She smiles weakly, shrugging. “This is just life. I didn’t really expect more from him. I’d just—hoped, a little bit. But it’s alright. I knew what kind of man he was when I agreed to marry him.”
That last statement gives me pause. I hadn’t known what kind of man Luca was when I’d agreed to marry him. I’d thought I did, but I’m beginning to suspect that I was wrong in some ways. And it makes me wonder if I was wrong about other things, too.
As if summoned, Luca steps into the doorway, looking over the three of us before his gaze settles on me. “Morning, ladies,” he says, that deep voice sending a shiver over me. He walks behind my chair, looking at Caterina and Ana.
“I apologize for what happened last night,” he says, and I can feel his hands resting on the chair behind me. “I’ll be talking to and questioning the security today to try and find out how anyone managed to get up here in the first place. I’ll find out how this happened, I promise.” He pauses, hands gripping the back of the chair. “It wasn’t my intention for any of you to be in danger. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Caterina says quietly. “You did try.’’
“Bullshit.” Ana spits out, and I’m suddenly aware of how quiet she’s been this entire time. “You told Sofia you’d protect her when you married her. You forced her into this marriage because it was supposed to keep her alive. And yet, she almost was shot last night. Whatever is going on, you should have been here, dealing with it, instead of off getting your dick wet with your boys.” She glares at him, her gaze flicking down to my neck and then back up to Luca. “And then what? You were still so horny you had to come home and fuck Sofia, too? You’re a disgrace. And a liar.”
“Ana!” I exclaim, my heart suddenly pounding in my chest. Luca has been remarkably calm throughout all of this, but I don’t know how he’ll react to being spoken to like that. Rossi would probably have Ana killed on the spot for that kind of disrespect. While I know Luca isn’t that kind of man, I don’t know that he’ll stand for being yelled at by a girl that I know he doesn’t particularly like or entirely trust.
“No, it’s fine,” Luca says, his voice cool and even. “Anastasia, can I speak to you in private?”
“Luca, she didn’t mean—” I start to protest, but Ana is already standing up, still glaring at him.
“I’d be happy to,” she says coldly, stalking out of the kitchen.
Luca follows her out without a word, and I feel my stomach clench, turning over as I watch him walk out to the living room with her. Their voices don’t carry well, but I can hear them talking in low, angry tones, and it makes me feel a little sick.
“It’s fine,” Caterina says, trying to console me. “Luca is probably angrier with himself than she is with him.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it.” I bite my lip, glancing in the direction that they went.
Caterina stands up, collecting the empty containers from the table and carrying them to the trash. “Did you two really--?” she trails off, glancing at my neck. “Did you want to?”
I hesitate, feeling myself flush a little. “Yeah,” I finally say quietly. It’s hard for me to admit that I gave in, but I also don’t want Caterina to think that Luca forced me to do anything that I didn’t want to. “It just—kind of happened.”
“It might be a good thing.” Caterina turns on the faucet, washing her hands before facing me. “Some peace between the two of you might help Luca focus on the problem of solving the feud with the Bratva before it spins out of control.” She takes a deep breath. “You’ve been there for me, Sofia, even though we don’t know each other all that well. So I’m going to give you some advice, even though I know you might not want it. Being a mafia wife isn’t just about looking the other way while your husband sleeps around, raising kids, and being a pretty face at dinners.”
“Then what is it about? Because so far, that’s all I’ve seen.”
“It’s about knowing when to let things go so that your husband can do what he has to. It’s about accepting that the man you married has sides to him that might frighten you sometimes, might even disgust you, but that it’s part of who he is. And if he’s a good man, he won’t like those parts of himself, either. It’s up to you to help him live with it.”
“What about Rossi?” I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help saying it. “He seems to like those parts of himself. And he wants Luca to be the same way.”
“My father isn’t a good man,” Caterina says evenly. “I’ve always known that. I love him because he is my father and I know no other way to be a good daughter. But he isn’t good.”
“And you think Luca is?”
“I think he wants to be.” Caterina looks at me, her gaze unflinching. “And I think what happens next, in these coming days and weeks, will determine a lot about what kind of man he is in the future.”
I don’t know what to say to that. “I didn’t ask for any of this,” I say quietly. “I didn’t ask to be his wife.”
“You could have said no.” Caterina shrugs. “I know that’s not what you want to hear. But you didn’t have to take the vows.”
“What kind of choice was that? Marry him, or die? That’s not a choice.”
Caterina laughs then, and there’s nothing cruel in it, but it still catches me off guard. “Yes, it was.”
* * *
I can’t getthat conversation out of my head for the rest of the day. Luca doesn’t tell me what he and Ana talked about, despite my asking him, only that he sent her home after their conversation. He has his driver take Caterina back to the Rossi house as well, assuring her that Franco should be back by the evening.
After that, he leaves me to question the rest of the security team, with Raoul there to keep an eye on me. He doesn’t mention our conversation this morning or really say much at all other than to tell me he’ll be back this evening and to stay in the penthouse—not to go up to the roof or outside at all. The latter annoys me a little, but I let it go. I’m not going to be a pushover, but I can’t deny that things are better when Luca and I aren’t fighting.
The apartment feels huge and empty without Caterina and Ana, and I don’t really know what to do with myself. Exhausted and sore from last night, I decide to take a nap. I could go back to my room, and as I walk up the stairs, I tell myself that I’m going to. But as if my feet have a mind of their own, I find myself walking towards Luca’s room.
The sheets still smell like us, like my soap and his cologne, the faint scent of our warm bodies still clinging to them, and I press my face into the pillow, feeling more lost and confused than ever. My skin tingles with the memory of what we did last night, and I don’t know how to reconcile that with my conviction that I shouldn’t love a man like Luca.
And then, of course, there’s the problem of him believing he can’t love me.
My dreams are a mess when I finally fall asleep, a mixture of terrifying montages of running away from men with guns, finding myself tied up, trapped, unable to flee, that turn into glimpses of me tangled up with Luca, panting and moaning as he makes me come over and over again, and then vanishing into thin air right as I call out his name.
I wake up feeling bleary and disoriented, sometime in the mid-afternoon. The room feels too hot, the sun shining through the window directly onto the bed, and I sit up slowly, pushing my tangled hair off of my face.
There’s a long, flat box sitting just inside the door, white with a huge black bow wrapped around it and tied elaborately on top. Someone must have left it while I was sleeping, and after last night, the thought of someone coming into the bedroom while I’m sleeping makes me feel jittery and anxious. But Raoul has been watching the interior of the apartment, and I can’t help but think that with Luca home, the security team won’t put a foot wrong.
I hope that when he said he was “questioning” them, he meant with words and not anything more violent.
Gingerly I get out of bed, padding barefoot across the hardwood floor to the box. It feels light when I pick it up, and I set it on top of the bed, tugging at the bow until it comes undone and the sheer black ribbon falls onto the dark grey duvet.
The interior of the box is filled with metallic gold paper, and I push it apart to see a dress nestled there, with tags that read Alexander McQueen.
When I pick it up, I can’t help but gasp. My closet is full of designer clothes now, thanks to Luca, but I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as this dress. It’s made of red silk that feels as soft and fragile as a butterfly wing, with small white and gold chiffon flowers scattered across the knee-length, full skirt. Each petal is perfectly cut, with a small crystal at the center of each flower, and looks as if they’re floating above the rippling silk. The neckline is plunging—even just looking at it, I can tell that it ends just about at my ribs, with wide, gathered straps at the shoulders.
It’s a wearable piece of art, and I can’t imagine where I’m actually going to wear it or why it’s here. I can’t even leave the apartment, let alone go out somewhere worthy of this dress. It almost makes me sad because it’s so incredibly gorgeous.
There’s a white and gold envelope inside the box, and I set the dress down carefully, unsure how I’ll even feel brave enough to put it on. It’s not that it’s all that daring other than the neckline, but it’s so beautiful and delicate that I’m almost afraid to touch it. Reaching for the envelope, I open it to find a card inside, with bold handwriting on thick, cream-colored stock.
Sofia,
Even though we’ve been husband and wife for a week now, I’ve never taken you out on a proper date. Since it’s so overdue, I thought you should have something exceptionally beautiful for the occasion. Meet me on the rooftop at 9 pm—not a second earlier.
Your husband,
Luca
My fingers feel numb, and I almost drop the card out of sheer shock. I read it again, and then a third time, unable to quite believe what’s written there.
Luca and I had a great night, sure. Hot, passionate, undoubtedly driven by the fact that I’d come so close to death. But a date?
I can’t imagine Luca taking anyone out on a date. Well—if I think about it, I guess I can, but not my idea of a date. When I think of Luca dating, I think of Italian villas and helicopter rides, the kind of over-the-top romance you see on the Bachelor, nothing that ever lasts.
There’s no part of me that can imagine Luca and I going out for a movie and dinner at some cute hipster-y bar, the kind of place that I always pictured going on dates to, in the occasional moment that I pictured it at all.
But there it is in black and white—admittedly, written in flowing script on a card that looks like a wedding invitation, instead of typed out in a text. Still—it’s Luca, my husband, asking me out on a date.
I don’t know if it’s the passionate sex we had last night or the fact that we’ve managed to have two whole conversations without it devolving into a fight in almost as many days. However, I still feel a tingle of excitement instead of the dread I would have expected.
The only thing I’m even slightly sad about is that I can’t just call Ana and ask her to come over. Normally, I’d have her help me get ready, but I can’t even text her to tell her about it. Still, even that doesn’t ignite the incandescent rage that I would have felt a couple of weeks ago. Maybe I’m just getting used to this new apartment and the restrictions that came with it, or—
Is it really so hard to understand why it’s like this?I’d felt so suffocated by Luca’s orders—because if I’m being real, that’s what they are—but after looking down the barrel of a gun held by a man who unquestionably wanted me dead, it’s hard to argue that he’s been unreasonable. The Bratva threat is clearly not under control. And as for the fact that marrying him was supposed to keep me safe from all of this—
If there’s one thing I do believe, it’s that Luca wants this threat stopped as much as I or anyone else does. And even if our marriage didn’t make Viktor stop these attacks, it did keep me safe from Rossi.
I could just be rationalizing this all away. My brain might just be scrambled from so many orgasms. But I can’t deny that my stomach is fluttering with butterflies at the thought of what Luca might have planned for tonight, and it has nothing to do with fear.
It’s impossible to concentrate on anything else for the rest of the day. I take a shower to freshen up from my nap and start getting ready about an hour before I’m supposed to meet Luca upstairs. I tell myself that I don’t have any specific reason for the fact that I made sure that every inch of me was freshly shaved or that I chose a lacy pink thong to slip on underneath the dress, but as I stand in front of the mirror curling my hair, I know it’s not totally true.
I want Luca to like what he sees if he winds up taking that dress off of me tonight.
After coloring my hair blonde for so long, it’s still strange to see it back to my natural deep, rich brown, but I can’t deny that it does look better on me. The pale blonde washed out my olive-toned skin, but the mahogany shade that the stylist gave me with the mixture of lighter and darker balayage that she painted in makes my skin almost glow. My dark eyes look even wider as I blend cream and gold eyeshadows over my lid to match the little flowers on the dress. The effect is only more exaggerated. I’ve never been a beauty expert, but once I’m finished swiping on mascara and adding a red lip to match the dress, I have to admit that I look beautiful.
Beautiful enough for someone like Luca. Beautiful enough to hold my own. If Caterina always looks like a queen, I look like a princess. Belle going on a date with the beast—right after she figured out that maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.
I know that I might be slipping down a dangerous slope. One that could end with my heart broken, or worse. But I feel helpless to stop it. Now that Luca and I have started—I want to know where this goes. It feels dangerously like what I imagine chasing a high must be.
Just before nine o’clock exactly, I make my way to the stairs that lead up to the rooftop deck. I’m careful not to go up them until the clock changes over. Then I walk up them carefully in my high-heeled Louboutin sandals, gingerly touching the diamonds at my ears. It felt strange to put on diamonds to go up to the roof. Of course, I’m still wearing my mother’s dainty necklace that I never take off, which always looks small and insignificant next to the glittering expensive jewelry that I have from Luca. But this isn’t the kind of dress I could wear pearl studs or silver hoops with.
If there was ever a dress made for diamonds, it’s this one.
I push the door leading up to the roof open, stepping out onto the deck. And then, as my eyes adjust, my mouth drops open as I take in the sight in front of me.
