was one of the dresses he himself had chosen. The cleavage was a lot more revealing than I would have liked, but I had no choice in the matter. Alessandro was always the one who picked out my outfits for his parties. Once, in the beginning of our marriage, I’d refused to wear the dress he’d selected, and he went berserk when I appeared in a fancy sweater and simple jeans. Furious, he had sent me back to my room and ordered the staff to remove all of my clothes from my wardrobe. For weeks to come, I was forced to either wear the skimpy outfits he had chosen or walk around the house naked. I had never dreamed of disobeying his wishes when it came to the dress code he demanded ever since.
“But something is missing,” Alessandro murmured in my ear, and reached for something in his pocket. It was a shiny diamond necklace.
Smiling at me, he put the expensive piece of jewelry around my neck and closed the clasp. “There,” he whispered, rearranging my hair back over my shoulders. “Much better.”
“Thank you, Alessandro,” I said in a cold, emotionless voice.
He smiled once again and grasped my hand in his, gently pulling me to my feet. Then, he spun me around and his eyes roamed the length of my body before they returned to mine. “No need to thank me, tesoro,” he mused in my ear. “You’ve earned it because you've been such a good girl lately. Of course, save for today's incident that I chose to forget because it made me laugh so badly. You should have seen the look on your face when I told you the doctor was coming to help.”
He burst into a fit of light laughter while I glared at him miserably because I was reminded of where he was about to take me.
His lips brushed against mine, and I felt a rush of electricity shoot through my body as the spicy scent of his cologne spread through the air around me. He was right. In the past few months, I did everything I could not to antagonize him. I had tried to avoid his animosity and please him in any way possible. It made me feel like a coward, but defiance always resulted in punishment, and no matter how hard I fought, he would always win. In the end, I chose to do whatever I could to avoid unnecessary pain.
“Ready?” he asked softly and I nodded my response.
I wasn't ready and I didn't want to go at all, but there was no point in starting another useless discussion.
Alessandro led me into the salon on the first floor. In a matter of moments, I stepped into a space filled with dozens of merciless killers. The entire room reeked of sin and death, and I felt as though I was the only one bothered by it. Alessandro was amused by the fact I was terrified of these people, and whispered in my ear I should relax. According to him, I had nothing to fear because he was there to protect me.
But I took little comfort from my husband's words. The very feeling of all those cold calculating eyes settling on my presence made me feel as if I was suffocating. Regardless of the number of times I’d met these people, I always sensed I didn't belong there.
Alessandro disappeared to join the large group of men, leaving me to mingle with the superficial women who were not at all bothered by the fact the money they spent on their expensive vacations and shopping sprees had gallons of blood sprayed all over it.
When they noticed the necklace around my neck, it became the main topic of conversation and they kept stressing how much they envied me for being married to the young, handsome boss. At those moments, I wanted to scream they were insane and this couldn't have possibly been the kind of life anyone would want for themselves. When they started asking private questions about Alessandro's performance in bed, I couldn’t take it any longer.
I scanned my surroundings, searching for an escape, until I spotted an empty balcony at the opposite end of the room. I excused myself and told the ladies I needed some fresh air. As I shuffled through the crowd, careful not to draw anyone's attention, I caught Alessandro's dark gaze. He smirked and shook his head as though he could guess the reason I fled those women. I smiled shortly and averted