Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 98583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
“Fuck your connections,” he whispers. “I just want you.”
And it finally breaks in me. I realize with a jolt that he really doesn’t care about my family name anymore. Maybe our relationship started out that way, but slowly, as we’ve gotten to know each other more and more, it changed.
To the point where he’s torching any progress he might’ve made.
All because he loves me.
And he loves me, not the Willing-Morris name, not the WM Fund, not the big fancy house or the charity galas or benefit balls or any of that, but me. He’s lighting this whole city on fire because he wants to make sure I’m safe from Demir, and he doesn’t care who he pisses off in the process.
When he kisses me, I burst into tears. “I’m sorry!” I say, crying like an idiot as I bury my face against his chest. “I know it’s weird that I’m crying right now!”
He sounds startled. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, honestly, I’m really good. I just—” I cry harder. Oh my god, he’s sacrificing for me. I have no value to him anymore, and that doesn’t matter, because this isn’t about what I’m worth.
It’s about how we feel for each other.
“It’s alright,” he says, hugging me and rubbing my back. “I don’t know what I said, but everything’s alright.”
“It wasn’t you.” I manage to get control of myself and wipe my eyes. “I’m just happy, that’s all. You really don’t care about my name, do you?”
“Lucy? I mean, it’s fine and all—”
“No, asshole. My last name. My family connections.”
He wipes another tear away. “Not a fucking bit.”
“Good.” I pull him down to me. I’m so hungry for his lips it’s killing me. I bury my mouth with his, drowning myself in his taste. “Because I don’t either.”
I stay in his office feasting on him, feeling freer than I’ve ever been, all the chains and shackles that used to keep me bound to a version of myself I thought I had to be finally loosening and drifting away.
Chapter 38
Adriano
Istand at the window overlooking the city from my Willing-Morris Fund corner office and smile to myself.
This view is old money.
It’s power and prestige.
The Marino Famiglia has plenty of raw muscle and income. We could take on any organization in this city, go toe to toe with any vicious fucker that wants to hurt us, but we’ve always been locked out of this world.
The world of high society and complicated finance.
All because we don’t have the right name or the proper credentials.
But fuck those people.
Though maybe I just like this office so much because I stole it from Lucy’s asshole brother.
I turn back to my desk with a smile on my face. I keep thinking about what Lucy told me last night. How she basically told her grandmother to fuck off. I’m so fucking proud of her it’s like iron in my chest. I can’t stop thinking about my wife, about her pregnant glow, about her lips on mine, about all the vicious and filthy sex we had on my office desk, about her on her knees, sucking me off like the beautiful little slut she is, about talking afterward for hours, how she told me living with her grandmother was like trying to grow in the shadow of a monster.
And how she’s finally squirming her way out and finding her own path.
It only makes me love her that much more.
Because Lucy’s strong. It’s hard to live with a person like Helena. I bet her grandmother has been dominating her since she was a little girl.
But all it took was a little space for her to finally realize she’s her own person and make her own decisions.
The phone on my desk buzzes. I hit the intercom button. “Yeah?”
“It’s me,” Luca says.
“You don’t have to identify yourself. I know you’re out there. What’s going on?”
“Shit, sorry. This fucking office. I’m not used to all this fancy shit.”
“Luca. What’s going on?”
“He’s here. Richard DeLuca’s waiting for you in the lobby. Should we bring him in?”
“Make him wait another five minutes. No, make that ten. You know what to do?”
“I’m on it.”
“Good man.”
The intercom line goes dead. I turn it off on my end and sit back, smiling at the ceiling. I’m half hard picturing Lucy down on all fours, panting and moaning, sweating and gasping as she orgasms again and again, when finally, there’s a knock at my office door.
“Come in.”
Richard DeLuca enters. He’s not giving me his charming, smarmy party smile anymore. Last we spoke was at that sunglasses thing, back when Demir nearly got his claws into my Lucy. If I recall correctly, he’s married to that nightmare of a woman, one of the terrible assholes that treated my wife like shit back in the day.
Now though, he’s all business, which is what I was hoping for when he reached out to make this appointment.