Chapter 4 - The Confession
The sheer violence of his confession echoed in the silent penthouse.
I stared up at him, my breath catching in my throat. His hands were gripping my hips, his fingers digging into the red satin of my dress, branding my skin through the delicate fabric. His eyes, usually so controlled, were wild. Frantic. Filled with a terrifying, all-consuming obsession.
"Do you have any idea," Luca said, his voice dropping into a ragged, guttural whisper, "what it has cost me to keep my hands off you for eighteen months?"
I couldn't speak. My mind was spinning, trying to reconcile the polite, distant CEO with the mafia kingpin currently holding me like I was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.
"I saw you on your first day," Luca continued, his thumbs tracing the curve of my waist. "You were wearing a terrible beige cardigan. You spilled coffee on the carpet and apologized to a potted plant. And I knew, right then, that you were going to ruin me."
"Luca..." I breathed, the formal 'Mr. Castellani' entirely forgotten.
"I kept you at the front desk because if I moved you into my office, if you were behind closed doors with me, I would have taken you on the desk within a week," he confessed, the raw honesty of it making my knees weak. "I used formalities like a shield. I called you Miss Thornton because if I allowed myself to say your name, I would never stop."
"So you stalked me instead?" I asked, a tear finally spilling over my lashes. "You put guards on me? You ruined my dates?"
"I kept you safe!" Luca roared, shaking me slightly. "My world is blood, Mera. It is violence and betrayal and men who die in the dark. You are light. You are baking cookies on Thursdays and smiling at delivery men. I wanted to keep you clean. I wanted you to have a normal life."
"Then why did you stop me tonight?" I cried, pushing against his chest. "Why didn't you just let me go to the wedding? Why didn't you let me be normal?"
Luca’s expression twisted in agony. He rested his forehead against mine, his chest heaving as he fought for breath.
"Because I saw you in that red dress," he whispered, the sound broken and desperate. "I walked into the lobby, and I saw you looking like a goddamn queen, and I knew you were walking into a room full of men who were going to look at you the way I look at you. And I couldn't do it. My control broke, Mera. I would rather burn the entire city to the ground than watch you dance with another man."
May you like
The words wrapped around my heart, terrifying and intoxicating all at once. It was a toxic, possessive, dangerous love. It was the kind of love that started wars. It was the kind of love that ruined lives.
And heaven help me, it was exactly what I wanted.
