Bianca’s grip tightened around her phone. "Because you owe ."
"I owe you nothing," he replied smoothly. "We are even. As a matter of fact, I got nothing from our exchange. Luca doesn’t want here. I have to co back to Vienna soon. So tell exactly how I owe you?"
Her jaw locked. The audacity. "Ricardo, don’t test . The girl must die or I will have your head," she spat.
"Imagine that," Ricardo said lightly. "You know, I am quite happy you are miserable with Luca, Bianca. You didn’t think I would ever be enough. Well, who is laughing now?"
The cruelty in his tone was designed to wound.
The call ended.
Bianca stared at her reflection in the dark screen for a split second before sothing inside her snapped. A raw, animal sound tore from her throat as she hurled the phone across the room. It struck the wall and shattered, fragnts scattering across marble.
Her scream echoed through the suite.
For a mont, she stood there breathing hard, chest rising and falling, fists clenched at her sides. She hated this feeling. The loss of control. The helplessness. The reminder that despite the ring on her finger, power still had conditions.
She sank onto the sofa minutes later. The fire had burned low. The room slled faintly of smoke.
Footsteps approached and Luca entered, jacket slung over one shoulder, tie loosened. He looked devastating as always.
He stopped in front of her.
"I’ll be leaving in a bit," he said. "Is there anything you need?"
Anything you need.
The simplicity of it almost made her laugh.
Bianca looked up at him slowly. "Were you thinking of her?" she asked simply.
"Excuse ?" Luca raised a brow.
"Were you thinking of her while you were fucking ?"
Luca’s jaw tightened. "I am not having this conversation." He turned and walked into the bedroom.
Bianca followed.
He picked up his travel bag from the bed. His gaze swept the room once, scanning for the shorts he had worn to dinner. They were not where he had left them. His eyes landed on the laundry basket.
Understanding dawned.
"It’s in the fireplace," Bianca said from behind him. "I’m sure it’s already a pile of ashes by now. You couldn’t respect enough to keep her out of our marriage," she continued. "You brought her underwear into my ho."
Still no raised voice. No hysterics. She had been raised for this. Trained in posture, restraint, presentation. Even jealousy had to be handled with elegance.
Luca turned slowly, prepared to dismiss her, to walk past her, to end it.
Then she spoke again.
"She is going to die, Luca... painfully."
There was no emotion in the statent. Just cold intent.
That made him pause.
He placed his bag back down. Then he moved toward her with that familiar, infuriatingly calm smile. He stopped close. "I am only going to speak about this once," he said quietly. "You co even a hair’s breath around her, Bianca...I will have you killed and delivered to your parents’ house in pieces."
Bianca had always been intoxicated by Luca’s ruthlessness. It wasn’t just the way he carried himself—the taut muscles, the dangerous elegance—but the way he ruled every room he entered. She had been raised around n with power, n who thought their dominance was a birthright, but Luca...he wasn’t just power; he was art, sculpted danger, every curve of his jaw, every slash of his blue eyes, ticulously designed to unsettle and enthrall in equal asure.
It made her pulse spike, made her think about things she shouldn’t in polite company.
"I don’t care," she spat. "I am a Vitale, Luca. I will not be disrespected. If she breaches the sanctuary of my ho again, I will be the one serving her to you in pieces."
His hand wrapped around her throat, enough to hurt. Anger danced in his eyes. "I thought you knew ," he said. "I am disappointed...really disappointed that you have no fucking idea who you married."
She swallowed against the pressure of his palm, caught in the insane thrill that always followed him. "I am not Julian, who cums at your every word," he hissed. "I am not one of those n hoodwinked by your beauty. I didn’t marry you, Bianca. My father did. Deal with what you get."
Her pulse thudded violently in her chest, caught between indignation and arousal.
He released her throat but didn’t step back. His hands lingered, grazing her shoulders. "Oh...try this with again," he murmured, dark amusent in the corners of his mouth. "I will build you a mansion, Bianca, and attach a cuff to your ankle. Make you my prisoner. Test ..." He leaned so close she could feel the brush of his lips on her temple. "...Bianca."
"I am your wife," Bianca said quietly.
"Then that should be enough for you. You have the title. You are the queen."
Bianca finally realized, with a pang of bitter clarity, that she’d been going about this the wrong way. Her beauty—her carefully honed weapon, the subtle sway of hips, the right smile at the right ti—had always gotten her what she wanted. Always. But with Luca, it was useless.
Her charms were inert against him, her usual arsenal of flirtations disard and laughed at in the face of his dominance.
This other woman—the one who had entangled her husband in invisible chains she could neither see nor touch—had done what Bianca could not. Cast a spell over Luca, a spell that bent him in ways Bianca had never imagined.
"I’m sorry," she breathed, a whisper to the room. Apology wasn’t weakness; it was acknowledgnt of the rules in a ga she was only beginning to understand.
Luca left the house, leaving nothing but a trace of danger she could almost taste. Bianca smiled, small, amused. Why get her hands dirty when others could do the work for her? Why risk her marriage, when outsiders could execute her will, leaving her clean, untarnished? She just had to get to know her target adequately.
(Brought to you by Jennifer Willard)
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