She was so close to dissolving and she knew her worth. Knew he didn’t deserve another one of her tears to be spilled in front of him.

Turning, I gave Justin one last warning glare before walking out of the place with Ilaria at my side, officially mine.

6ILARIA

Dante left me alone to shower when we got back to his place.

A small miracle because from the quiet car ride where he was grinding his teeth the whole time I wasn’t sure that he was going to be able to stop himself from fighting with me when we got back to his place.

But when we made it to his penthouse of glass and no personality, Dante had pointed to a room and told me I could get ready for bed in there. It was a silent command but it was made known we did have to talk before bed.

Part of me wanted to be like a child who would crawl into bed, hiding under the covers to pretend that I was asleep to avoid being punished. But I also knew that Dante didn’t seem like the type that would do anything to hurt me.

It was close to 1AM when we finally made it back to his penthouse in the North End.

He wasn’t in one of the brick buildings that lined the neighborhood but across the street in one of the ocean front condos. A gorgeous view of the Atlantic on one side, the other overlooking the neighborhood and Boston, like he could watch all that he owned.

It was a three bedroom bachelor pad, from what I had seen in the walk to the bathroom. The living room was an open concept with a kitchen attached so you could see the TV while you cooked. One of the bedrooms off to the left as soon as you walked in was his gym. Tons of weights and equipment were stuffed inside. There was his office through the next door and finally the room he let me in must have been his bedroom with an en suite.

Everything was in basic colors, swirls of black and gray because of course Dante wanted to have a place as cold as he was.

It wasn’t a surprise that there was nothing about his place that made it feel like a home because that would mean letting people in and I knew men like Dante and how they struggled with that. That’s just the world that we live in. How we were raised.

Men like Dante were the perfect candidates for extensive therapy and yet none of them ever got it.

I slipped out of the shower, thankful for my gym bag that had a spare set of clothes inside. Just a basic pair of gray sweatpants, white socks, and a sweatshirt in the same heather gray as the pants.

Dante had a small blowdryer that I used to loosely dry my curls as I looked at my face. Puffy eyes from crying, no makeup on.

He was really going to see who he was going to marry tonight.

Fucking Justin.

My eyes closed as I leaned over the sink, brushing my teeth and willing myself not to throw up again at the thought of my now official ex boyfriend.

This day had taken too much out of me and I wasn’t sure how tomorrow would go.

A meeting with our fathers and wedding planning was scheduled for only a few hours away and I wasn’t sure how I was going to deal with any of that.

“Are you okay?” A raspy voice made me jump, turning at the sound.

No knock on the door, no warning, and Dante was there, standing behind me in nothing but black boxer briefs covering his hard body and a rosary that was hanging around his wrist.

He toyed with the beads as he looked at me and I wondered if it was a nervous tick.

Filling the space with the scent of his woodsy spice of cologne and tanned, muscled body. He had a sleeve of tattoos I wanted to trace like connect it dot art and a rosary over his ribs with a bible verse over it. 1 Corinthians 16:13 was all I could make out in the mirror that I was staring at him in.

“Don’t you fucking knock?” I asked after spitting out the mouthwash that had been in my mouth. Dante’s eyes darkened and I reveled in the fact he hated my foul mouth.

Good.

“Not in my house.” He retorted, trying to play the power dynamic with me.

His eyes were on mine in the mirror and he frowned, stepping forward as he took my chin in his hand, turning me as he forced me to look at him. Eye to eye as he stared down at me.

“Princess, we have business to discuss.” He talked before I could fight with him, like he knew that I wanted to snap at him.

Dante stepped away from me, motioning me to follow after him. As soon as his back was turned I flipped two fingers in his direction as he moved into the bedroom knowing I would follow behind him.

But he was right, we did have to talk about things and the sooner we talked about things the sooner I could curl up on his couch and fall asleep for a few hours.

Brushing past Dante I picked up my work bag I had taken along with my gym bag from the car. Sitting on the bed as I flipped it open, pulling open my work emails as I double checked that my boss had replied a few hours ago. Sighing in relief that she had returned my email that I had sent from my car before dinner.

“Do you have a printer?” I asked, already picking up my laptop and moving towards the office where I figured it would be.

Dante was following me as I moved through his home, setting up as I answered my own question, figuring it was in the home office I saw earlier.

I hit print and closed my laptop, headed over to the calendar on the wall, flipping past the summer and looking at November’s dates but he was behind me, peeling back the calendar to show August.

It was a silent argument and I wanted to fight with him on this.

I went to stomp on his foot to get him to give me space but he moved before I could slam my foot down. His fingers slipped and we both glared at each other before looking at the calendar which had opened to September now.

Dante’s hand came up and pointed to the 9th, pressing into me as his lips touched my ear. My body tensing as he was against me, assaulting me with his skin against my covered up body, breathing into me as I closed my eyes.

I wasn’t going to get an emotional attachment for my husband. I had seen what it had done to my parents and that wasn’t something I wanted for myself.

Love was too powerful.

The way my parents loved consumed them to the point when my mother died my father should have just laid in the ground and gone with her. His love for her trumped everything else.

Including me.

And I couldn’t let a love that ruined me.

Dante grabbed a pen, drew a heart over the 9th and I felt my eyes roll so hard I gave myself a headache from the motion.

His hand slid over my stomach, pushing up the gray fabric of my sweatshirt so it was his long fingers against my bare skin, soft traces of his finger pads there.

It took everything not to shiver, arch my ass back and feel more connected with him.

I could feel the way that he affected me. The way my stomach clenched, the heat between my legs. My clit ached to be touched as I flooded my panties, thinking about how after he went to bed I’d slide my hands into my pants and press the spots that he set alive with a simple touch.

“Looks like we’re all booked for 9/9, Mrs. Luchese.” He whispered into my ear, despite it just being the two of us here.

His lips kissed my ear with each word and I let my head hit the wall, trying to get some space between us. I needed to pull myself from the fantasy I was in and set up the walls and boundaries I needed