Chapter 18

Victoria

 

 

 

I stood at the window long after Adrian had gone inside. My heart was in my throat, even after he had disappeared from sight. Part of me hadn’t expected him to come after me, had hoped I never saw his face again. While another part of me had been aching for him to come because, if he did, that meant he wanted me more than he wanted his wife. That he cared about me more.

Right?

I pressed my forehead against the coolness of the glass, closing my eyes. I felt half insane with the way I was constantly being torn in half. I ached with everything inside me, unable to fight what I felt for a man who didn’t deserve my love, while knowing how wrong it was to feel the way I did.

I had told Dante that I didn’t want to see Adrian. Yet, the more I stood there, self-pity making me feel as if I had something to be ashamed of, when it had been Adrian who had deceived me, I couldn’t stand it. This wasn’t me. I wasn’t some little princess who expected the world to cater to every whim I had. I wasn’t some damn cry baby who hid from the things that hurt me and let others deal with them for me.

I was Victoria Vitucci, goddammit. I could deal with the Russian on my own.

Fuck it.

I pushed away from the window and headed for the door. My heart started pounding with each step I took. As I took the back stairs to the rear of the house, my anger began to reach boiling point. I wasn’t even sure who I was more pissed at: him or myself.

“Him,” I muttered under my breath as I bounced off the last step and marched toward Dante’s office. “Definitely him.”

Reaching the closed office door, I paused, squaring my shoulders, taking two deep breathes, and then twisting the knob.

Stepping inside the spacious office that I had only seen a handful of times in my lifetime, my eyes went straight to where Dante sat with a glass of his favorite scotch in hand. His face was an emotionless mask, but I knew him almost as well as Scarlett did. I could see the anger simmering underneath, and my heart softened toward him for a moment.

Dante had risen quickly within the ranks of the Cosa Nostra, despite the tension that had occurred between his family and my uncle Gio. He had been a good soldier, and he was an even better underboss. But he was first and always mine and Scarlett’s friend—more Scarlett’s than mine. Still, he loved me like a sister, and it was that affection that was making me consider the marriage my father wanted between us.

With Dante, I knew my heart would be safe. We weren’t in love with each other, so I knew he would never have the power to hurt me or break me. Not like Adrian had done.

And that alone was enough for me to marry him.

“Kotyonok,” Adrian’s voice was gruff.

I slowly turned my head to look at him. I had known where he was the second I had stepped through the door, and it had taken a willpower I didn’t know I possessed to not instantly look at him. I hadn’t trusted myself. I had needed a few extra seconds to compose myself before I could safely look at him.

Now, I just stood there, my hands clenched at my sides as I looked up at him dispassionately. At least, I hoped I was looking at him dispassionately. Inside, my heart was weeping for the pain he had put me through, and for how much I wanted to be back in his arms.

He looked good in his black on gray suit, but I could see the dark shadows under his eyes. As my eyes skimmed over him, I noticed he had lost a little weight, and my heart ached with the thought that he hadn’t been getting enough sleep or eating.

Stop it, Victoria. He’s not yours.

“Hello, Adrian,” I murmured, proud that my voice didn’t shake with all the pent-up emotions whirling inside me.

“Victoria, amore, I told you that I would deal with our guest.” Dante’s voice was low and full of a deceptively sweet amount of tenderness that, if I hadn’t known him so well, I would have suspected was full of actual romantic love for me.

It had its desired effect when I saw Adrian’s dark eyes flame with possessiveness and jealousy. I could practically feel the tension vibrating off him as he took a threatening step in Dante’s direction.

I quickly turned my eyes from him, hating myself for how much I liked seeing those emotions coming from him. My gaze landed on Dante, who gave me that sweet, almost seductive smile of his, not in the least intimidated by the scary Russian only a few feet away who was no doubt planning ways to kill him.

Any other woman would have fallen at his feet at the sight of that smile being graced upon them. He was a very sexy man, lethal, and powerful in his own right. But I knew him too well to just fall at his feet, or any other part of him. There had never been anything more between us than friendship. He was simply playing a game with Adrian, and I found I was liking it. Liking that my Russian wolf was so easily bated.

I liked it so much that I found myself smiling a true, heartfelt smile for the first time in forever.

“Thank you, but I think I can actually deal with this on my own.” I hoped, at least.

Dante stood and took my hand, pulling me into him then brushing a tender kiss over my brow. “As you wish,” he murmured, his eyes promising he wouldn’t be far.

I was secretly glad, because despite all the bullshit I had spun to myself upstairs about being Victoria Vitucci and not a crybaby, I didn’t necessarily trust myself alone with the man who had so easily stolen my heart.

He turned his head, his face turning to stone as he looked at Adrian. “I’ll leave you two to sort yourselves out.”

He squeezed my hand before releasing me, then crossed to the door. As he opened it, he glanced back at us. “Make sure you invite him to the wedding, amore. We can’t leave my old friend here off the guest list.”

I kept my eyes on him until the door closed. Behind me, I could feel Adrian’s tension nearing the exploding point. I stilled myself before facing him once again.

“Wedding?” His voice was hoarse, his eyes wild.

I shrugged, pretending I wasn’t getting a small kick out of how Dante had pushed his buttons. “He’s jumping the gun, actually. I haven’t decided yet if I want to marry him. Regardless, it’s something my father has been wanting since I was born.”

That last part had his head snapping back as if I had physically slapped him. As if what I had just said had hurt him. I didn’t get the thrill I thought I would at the sight of his pain. If anything, it only made me hurt even more.

Talking about marrying someone else was doing exactly what I had ached to do—make him hurt just as much as I was hurting. Yet, I took no pleasure from it.

Only more heartache.

Maybe I wasn’t like my mother after all.

He crossed the space that divided us in the blink of an eye, before catching me around the waist and lifting me against him. “I will kill him before I let you marry him,” he growled before pressing his lips roughly, punishingly into mine.

He tasted of good whiskey and desperation. His lips bit into mine, trying to force my mouth open so he could conquer me yet again.

I tried to resist, to hold myself back, but it was useless. My body knew this man, loved and adored him just as much as my heart did, and it melted against him. Then my mouth opened under the assault of his kiss, and when I felt the brush of his tongue against mine, I was lost.

I lifted my hands, brushing my fingers over his short dark hair and down over his back. He moved his hands from my waist to my ass, and then I wrapped my legs around him. I felt the throbbing thickness of his erection on the inside of my thigh and couldn’t hold back the moan of hungry need that was torn from me.

I barely felt him moving, but I didn’t protest when he fell back onto the sofa where Dante had been sitting only a few minutes ago. I straddled his waist, exploring every part of him I could reach through his layers of clothing.

He lifted one of his hands from my ass and tangled it in my hair, wrapping my hair around his wrist while he slid the other between my legs, pushing my skirt up and my panties to the side so he could touch my drenched pussy.

My body quivered at his first touch, a few drops of need trickling onto his hand as he stroked my clit with his thumb and teased my hole with his middle finger. Then he broke the kiss, licking his way down my neck until he reached the throbbing pulse beating erratically at the base of my throat.

I bit my nails into the material of his suit jacket as I struggled to hold on while my lower body moved of its own volition to the rhythm he was setting as he pushed his finger in and out of me.

He went a little deeper with each tender thrust, stopping just short of pushing through my virginity. My head fell forward as I swallowed one moan after another, but I couldn’t completely hold the noise back and a small whimper escaped.

Adrian’s hold on my hair tightened, and he pulled my head back, his dark eyes aflame with a mixture of hunger and raging anger. That much anger might have scared me if it had come from anyone but him. I knew deep in my heart that he would never physically hurt me no matter how pissed he got at me.

“You are mine, kotyonok. You will always be mine. Don’t think for a single minute that I will sit by idly while you marry someone else. I will fucking kill him and anyone else who dares to think you are anyone’s but mine.”

His words broke the spell he had weaved over me, and I pushed against his shoulders.

“I’m not yours, though, Adrian. You’re married, remember? You have a family.” I shakily got to my feet and hastily fixed my panties and skirt, hating myself more than him in that moment for how easily I succumbed to him. “You have a wife and kid back in New York.”

“No,” he gritted out, following me as I backed my way toward the door. Then understanding lit his eyes, as if he was just then figuring out why I was so upset. I guessed he hadn’t talked to his wife yet, and if he had, she hadn’t mentioned seeing me in Anya’s apartment. “It’s not what you think. Nothing is what it looks like. Just let me explain.”

“No!” I cried, knowing I had made a mistake in coming down here to confront him. Not five seconds alone with him and I had given in to my need for him, had almost done something stupid on that freaking couch. For fuck’s sake, I had been mere seconds away from begging him to fuck me, to take everything he wanted from my body as long as he continued to make me feel so good. He could so easily twist and turn my body against me. “I don’t want to know. I can’t bear to know. You have everything I wish I could give you. That I wish I could have. But that can never happen—we can never happen.”

“We can, and we will,” he said with a dangerous growl. He caught one of my hands with both of his before I could reach the door, jerking me around to face him. “I love you, kotyonok. I can’t give you up. I won’t.”

Those were the words I had been aching to hear from the first time I had told him I loved him. But it was wrong. He wasn’t allowed to say them to me. I wasn’t allowed to grab them and hold them close to my chest and savor the fact that this man loved me.

And it was killing me.

I stopped struggling and went completely still against him. I stomped down on the flame of joy his words have given me and forced my eyes to not show so much as a flicker of what I was feeling.

“I’m going to marry Dante, so go home to your wife and son, Adrian. We have nothing more to say to each other.”

For a long moment, he just stood there, looking down at me. His chest lifted and fell with each harsh breath he took. Then he lowered his head until we were eye level. His face had gone pale, but there was pure menace in his voice when he spoke.

“There is plenty more to say, but I can see that you aren’t going to listen. Just remember what I said. I will kill him, Victoria.” Reaching around me, he opened the door and straightened to his full height. He stepped around me, then turned to face me one last time. “I love you,” he murmured in a voice so tender it brought tears to my eyes.

Before I could draw in another breath, he was gone, the door shutting quietly behind him.

I love you.

The words echoed around the room and inside my heart. I wanted to say them back to him, yet I bit my lip to keep them locked inside.

He wasn’t mine, and I wasn’t his.

He wasn’t …

… mine.