Three days after the pool, and I still can't close my eyes without feeling Matteo's mouth on me.
I've been avoiding him—ducking into rooms when I hear his footsteps, taking meals in my room, finding excuses to be anywhere he isn't.
But every time we do cross paths, he gives me that knowing smirk. That look that says I know exactly what you taste like, and we both know you'll be back for more.
It's infuriating. It's humiliating.
It's not wrong.
A maid delivers a note mid-afternoon. Cream paper, heavy and expensive, with handwriting so precise it looks almost printed. My office. 4 PM. —L
No please. No explanation. Just a summons from a man who expects to be obeyed.
I arrive at exactly four o'clock, refusing to be early like an eager servant or late like a petulant child.
Luca's office is exactly what I expected—dark wood paneling, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes, a massive desk that looks like it's witnessed a hundred terrible decisions.
The air smells like old books and expensive whiskey and something cold, something that reminds me of winter.
He's behind the desk when I enter, reading documents, fountain pen in hand. He doesn't look up.
I stand there for a full minute. Maybe longer. The clock on the wall ticks steadily, counting out each second of silence. He knows I'm here. He's making me wait. Establishing control without saying a word.
Finally, without lifting his gaze from the papers: "Sit."
I sit in the leather chair across from his desk, back straight, refusing to fidget despite the urge crawling under my skin.
Another thirty seconds pass before Luca sets down his pen and raises those steel-gray eyes to mine. The impact is immediate—I feel pinned, catalogued, dissected like a butterfly under glass.
"How are you settling in?" His voice is flat, professional. The boss checking on an asset.
"Fine."
"Is the room comfortable? You have everything you need?"
"Yes."
"The staff has been treating you well?"
"Yes."
The questions continue in the same vein—polite, perfunctory, utterly devoid of warmth. He could be interviewing a new hire. Reviewing quarterly projections.
There's no trace of the man who stood in the library and offered me pleasure beyond anything I'd imagined.
But beneath the surface, I sense something else. The way his shoulders sit too rigid beneath his perfectly tailored charcoal suit. The faint shadows under his eyes that his expensive grooming can't quite hide.
The tension in his jaw, like he's clenching his teeth against words he won't let himself say.
Exhaustion. Weight. The burden of holding everything together while pretending it costs him nothing.
My eyes drift to his scar—that pale line cutting from his temple into his hairline, disappearing into the dark hair he keeps slicked back with such military precision.
I've wondered about it since my first day as a maid. What kind of violence leaves a mark like that on a man like him?
"You're staring," he says flatly.
"How did you get it?"
Silence stretches between us. The clock ticks. I think he won't answer—that he'll dismiss me or change the subject or simply pretend I haven't spoken.
"The night my father was killed. I was twenty-four."
His voice doesn't change. Doesn't waver. He might as well be reading a grocery list.
"Three men came for him. I killed two. The third got close enough to leave a souvenir before I put him down."
The words settle into the space between us, heavy as stones.
"That's when you became head of the family," I say quietly. "At twenty-four."
"Someone had to."
"Your brothers…"
"Matteo was twenty-one and too reckless. Santo was eighteen and still playing soldier." His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. "It had to be me."
I look at him—really look, past the expensive suit and the cold eyes and the mask of control he wears like armor. And I see it.
The exhaustion carved into the lines around his mouth. The weight pressing down on those broad shoulders. The loneliness of a man who's decade and never once been allowed to set it down.
"You carry everything, don't you?" The words come out softer than I intended. "The family. Your brothers. This empire. All of it on your shoulders. Every day. And no one ever asks if you're okay."
Something flickers in his gray eyes—surprise, maybe. That someone sees. That someone bothered to look.
The mask slides back into place almost immediately. "It's not your concern."
"You're incredibly tense."
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. Before I can think about what I'm doing, I'm standing, moving around his massive desk.
Luca watches my approach with perfect stillness, only his eyes tracking me—like a predator uncertain whether to strike or retreat.
"What are you doing?" His voice carries a warning.
"Something stupid, probably."
I step behind his chair and put my hands on his shoulders.
He goes rigid beneath my palms. Iron and stone, coiled tight enough to snap. Every muscle locked against the intrusion, against the vulnerability of being touched without his explicit permission.
I begin to knead the knots anyway. Feeling the resistance. The control he refuses to release even now, even for something as simple as this.
"You don't have to."
"I know. Be quiet."
For a long moment, nothing changes. My fingers work the tension in his shoulders, his neck, the rigid line of muscle along his spine. He stays frozen, barely breathing, and I start to wonder if I've made a terrible mistake.
Then, slowly, impossibly, Luca Moretti begins to relax.
A breath escapes him. Low, shuddering. His head tips back, coming to rest against my stomach, eyes closing. The most powerful man I've ever known, surrendering to my hands.
I keep working. Finding the knots, the places where he holds his stress, the physical manifestation of a decade spent carrying impossible weight. His breathing deepens. His shoulders drop.
The iron melts into something almost human beneath my touch.
Then his fingers find my leg.
I freeze. His hand has drifted to my calf—resting there, warm through the thin fabric of my dress. Then it travels upward. Featherlight. Unhurried. Not grabbing, not demanding.
Just... tracing. Up to my knee. Along my outer thigh. Back down.
Gentle, hypnotic strokes. Like an artist drawing invisible lines with a brush. Like he's memorizing the shape of me through touch alone.
Neither of us speaks. The only sound is the clock ticking on the wall and my increasingly unsteady breathing.
His fingers trail up again, higher this time, skating along my outer thigh beneath the hem of my dress, and I feel the touch everywhere—between my legs, in my chest, in the base of my spine. Heat pools low in my belly.
My hands have stilled on his shoulders, forgotten.
The touch isn't sexual, exactly. It's something else. Something more intimate. More devastating.
Then he stops.
Opens his eyes.
Lifts his head.
"That's enough."
His voice is rough. Unsteady. The first crack I've ever heard in his iron control.
I step back on legs that don't feel entirely solid. Luca doesn't turn around. Doesn't look at me. His hands rest flat on the desk, knuckles white, like he's physically restraining himself from reaching for me again.
"You're dismissed."
I leave his office on shaking legs, heart pounding against my ribs, and I understand something terrifying.
Luca Moretti doesn't need to kiss me. Doesn't need to pin me down or taste me or make me scream his name. He doesn't need any of the weapons his brothers use so effectively.
He owns my thoughts. He's in my head.