My eyes snap open to sunlight streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows and the cold realization that I'm utterly alone. The sheets beside me are pristine, untouched, still hospital-corner perfect.
My wedding night—spent listening for footsteps that never came. Hating myself for the way my skin prickled every time the house settled.
He didn't even take the couch. After all that talk about making me beg, he couldn't stand to be in the same room.
The shower doesn't wash away the humiliation. Doesn't erase the memory of his thumb tracing my jaw, or the way my pulse jumped traitorously at his touch despite everything he is, everything he's done.
I choose the most conservative dress I can find, but it still clings in places that make me remember his eyes during that confrontation.
The mansion feels different in daylight. Less dangerous, more empty. But then I find the photographs lining the hallways, and my chest does something complicated. Cassian through the years, always surrounded but utterly alone.
Not one real smile. In the recent ones, his eyes are flat as glass.
What happened to the man who held me in the pool house?
I shake off the thought. That man was a lie, a performance. This house is the truth—sterile and loveless as its owner.
The dining room at seven sharp makes my breath catch.
Twenty men occupy a table. All of them are dangerous—I can see it in the way they move, the bulges under expensive jackets, the eyes that track threats.
All of them deferring to the man at the head of the table.
Cassian sits like a king holding court, discussing territorial disputes with Rafael in low tones. His hands gesture as he speaks, and I hate how my stomach flutters just watching those fingers that held me down last night move through the air.
He doesn't look at me when I enter. Doesn't acknowledge my presence at all.
A servant pulls out a chair halfway down the table—nowhere near him. The message is clear: I'm here as a formality, not because I'm wanted.
Then she walks in, and the entire energy of the room shifts.
The woman is sex incarnate—red dress, diamonds, confidence that fills the room like perfume. But it's how Cassian's entire body language shifts toward her that makes my chest burn with something that can't be jealousy because I don't care about him.
"Dear," she purrs, her hand sliding down his arm with ownership I recognize. "The Miami deal closed. Twenty million, just like you predicted."
He smiles at her. Actually smiles—warm and real and nothing like the smirk he gave me last night. My nails dig crescents into my palms.
"You always deliver, Ivy." His voice holds warmth I haven't heard since the engagement party, before I knew who he was. "Did Torrisi give you trouble?"
"Nothing I couldn't handle with the right... persuasion." Her laugh is knowing, intimate.
She takes the seat that should be mine, leaning across him for wine so her breast drags along his arm. He doesn't move away. Doesn't even tense.
Like her touch is natural, welcome.
"Oh, you must be the new wife," Ivy says, finally deigning to notice me. "I'm Ivy Marchetti. Cassian and I run the East Coast operations together. I keep my own wing here—third floor, east side. Have for years."
Her fingers trace patterns on his sleeve that speak of intimate knowledge.
"We built this empire together, didn't we? Some things never change, no matter who wears the ring."
The implication hangs in the air like smoke.
She's had him. She knows what sounds he makes, what his hands feel like on bare skin, what makes him lose that iron control. And she's letting me know it.
Something vicious and ugly unfurls in my chest.
When one of Cassian's captains—a pretty boy with perfect hair and obvious eyes—stares at my mouth while discussing arms routes, I don't look away like I should.
I met his gaze. Hold it. Then I smile, slow and deliberate, letting it curve my lips in a way that could be innocent but absolutely isn't.
Not because I want him. But because I want the man at the head of the table to stop looking at Ivy like she matters.
The effect is immediate.
Cassian's hand slams down on the table hard enough to rattle china and the entire room freezes. Every conversation dies mid-sentence.
"Tony." His voice is soft. Deadly. "Did I give you permission to look at my wife?"
The boy's face drains of color. "Boss, I didn't—"
"You didn't what?" Cassian stands with liquid grace that promises violence. "Think I'd notice? Think I'd care?"
He's moving now, crossing the room toward me, and every survival instinct I have screams ‘run.’ But I'm frozen, pinned by blue eyes that burn with something between rage and hunger.
Before I can breathe, before I can think, he's hauled me out of my chair and onto his lap. The movement is smooth, utterly confident in his right to manhandle me like I'm a doll.
And oh God, the solid heat of him. The way my body just melts despite my fury, despite everything. His thighs are steel beneath me, his chest a wall at my back, and I can feel every breath he takes.
His hand clamps on my thigh, burning through silk, his thumb stroking small circles that feel like foreplay. Heat floods my face—from humiliation, from anger, from the way every nerve ending in my body has focused on where he's touching me.
"Let me be crystal fucking clear," he says softly, but I can feel the violence coiled in him, feel how tightly he's controlling it. "My wife is not on the menu.”
The possession in his voice does things to me I'll die before admitting.
"Apologize to her," he orders Tony, but his lips brush my ear when he shifts, and my whole body shivers.
Tony stammers something unintelligible that might be an apology.
"I didn't hear you." Cassian's hand tightens on my thigh, and I bite my lip to keep from making a sound.
"I apologize, Mrs. Greyhaven." Tony's voice shakes. "Deeply. It won't happen again."
"No," Cassian agrees, his thumb still drawing those maddening patterns. "It won't."
He doesn't release me. Not when the conversation restarts with forced normalcy. Not when Rafael briefs him on shipment schedules. Not when Ivy excuses herself with a look that could kill.
I spend the rest of breakfast on his lap, his breath disturbing my hair every time he speaks. Every minute is exquisite torture—my body hyperaware of his, my mind screaming at me to hate this while other parts respond with enthusiasm.
When he finally stands to leave, lifting me off his lap like I weigh nothing, the loss of contact feels like abandonment. But the second our bedroom door closes, I wrench away.
"Don't you ever do that again." My voice shakes with fury and something I refuse to name.
He's already unbuttoning his shirt with maddening casualness, revealing glimpses of tattooed muscle that make my mouth go dry. "Do what? Protect what's mine?"
"I am not your property!" The words explode out of me. "You ignored me all morning, let your ex-lover grope you at breakfast—then suddenly I'm on your lap because someone looked at me? You don't get to pick and choose when I matter!"
His fingers stop on the buttons. The air shifts, charges with electricity I can feel on my skin.
When he turns, it's predator focusing on prey. And God help me, my body responds before my brain can catch up—nipples tightening, breath shortening, thighs clenching.
"You're right." His voice drops to that register that liquefies my spine. "You're not a thing to be owned."
He moves closer, not touching but his heat surrounding me, backing me against the wall until I have nowhere to go. His hand braces beside my head, caging me, and I can smell something uniquely Cassian that makes me want to lean in and bite his throat.
"But you're mine," he breathes, his lips so close to my ear I can feel them shape the words. "My wife. My responsibility. My obsession. And I'll do whatever the hell I want to remind people of that truth."
"I hate you." But my voice breaks because my body is arching toward him without permission, seeking contact my mind says I shouldn't want.
His free hand comes up, knuckles grazing my cheek with devastating gentleness.
"No, princess. You hate that you want me despite everything I am. Despite what I've done. Despite knowing I'm a monster."