“Sure. Although I might not know the answer.”
I gathered my courage and said, “Luc’s mother said something to me during that ritual, something I didn’t want to think much about, but that I haven’t been able to get out of my head the last few days.”
“Go on.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Is it possible...” I swallowed back the bitter taste in my mouth. “I mean, could that girl end up pregnant from what they did to Luc?”
Felicity was silent for a minute, then quietly said, “I don’t know. Is that what you think Luc’s worried about?”
“No.” I raked a hand through my hair. “I don’t know. I mean, he hasn’t mentioned that specifically, but after his weird reaction to even the discussion of having kids, it made me wonder if that’s what’s eating at him. Something else he feels guilty about that was not his fault. I don’t want to think his family could be that sick to take even that from him, but after everything else they’ve done, I can’t rule it out. And every time I think about even just the possibility that girl could be pregnant, I feel...wretched. And vile. And it makes me want to strangle every one of them all over again.”
Felicity moved in front of me and braced her hands on my shoulders. “Look at me. I know you’re worried, but I honestly don’t think that’s the case. I hate to use Maricella as an example, but they were willing to do whatever they could to make sure she didn’t have Dante’s child. Luc’s the heir. They’re not going to let some kitten bring his bastard into the world. Luc’s mother was taunting you when she said those words. I truly believe that. She wanted to hurt and scare you, and she did.
“Natalie, they might have fucked with Luc’s body during that ritual, but they brought you there to fuck with your head. They want you to be jealous and scared and for all this to come between you and Luc. Even though they approved your marriage, you know they don’t like the influence you have over Luc. And they’re going to continue to do whatever they can to drive you two apart. You can’t let them. You have to be strong and not give in to their manipulations. But I don’t want you to go on ignoring your own emotions and your own fears, either, because that’s not helping the situation. You have to talk to Luc about all this. You have to tell him how you feel. It’s the only way you’re going to heal. And maybe if you do, it’ll encourage him to talk to you about what he’s feeling as well.”
I knew she was right, but I didn’t know how to do that. I could barely get him to stay in the same room with me lately. How was I going to make him sit still long enough to talk?
I closed my eyes and drew in a shaky breath. “And what if that doesn’t work? What if it just pushes him further away from me?”
“Then you make him listen.” She let go of my shoulders and closed her hand around mine. “Come here. I got you something.”
Blinking, I followed her to the kitchen door. Cool air whooshed around me as she pulled it open. Heading down the three steps to the drive, she motioned me to follow and said, “It’s in the trunk. I didn’t want to give it to you right away in case Luc was in the room.”
I wrapped my long cardigan sweater around the T-shirt and leggings I was wearing, wishing I’d grabbed socks, and followed her barefoot across the pavement to the back of the Range Rover. She popped the back door and grabbed a rectangular box, which she turned and held out for me. “Here. It’s just a few things I thought might help.”
I pulled the top off the box and stared wide-eyed at the contents inside, unable to keep my mouth from dropping open.
Felicity laughed. “Don’t freak out.”
I tried not to, but... Of all the things Felicity could have given me, this was not anywhere close to what I’d expected.
The box was filled with sex toys. All new in their packaging. A couple of things I recognized. Several I did not.
“Um... I’m not sure what to say.”
Felicity chuckled again. “When you said Luc was being pretty vanilla, I thought some of this might help spice things up.”
I recognized a pair of nipple clamps. Luc had used some like that on me in Venice. But the fur-lined handcuffs... I swallowed hard and tried to push away images I didn’t want to see, especially because Felicity was trying to help here, not make me more jealous.
“Um...” I put the lid back on the box, blocking the items from view. “Thanks, I guess.” But inside my stomach was a swirling mess of anxiety. And even though I tried not to, I couldn’t help but wonder how she knew so much about what Luc liked. “It’s cold. We should go back in.”
I didn’t get more than a step away before Felicity caught me by the hand and turned me back to her. “Hold on. You’re not upset, are you?”
“No.”
She stared at me for several seconds, but I couldn’t meet her gaze. I just looked down at the nondescript white box in my hand, hating where my mind was going when she’d done so much for me.
“Shit,” she breathed. “I didn’t even think. No. Absolutely not. Never. Not once.” She squeezed my hand. “Luc and I were never involved.”
Feeling jealous—and hating I was so jealous—I glanced up at her warily. “But your parents set you both up.”
“And they failed miserably.”
“Then how do you know...” I glanced back down at the box, the words sticking in my throat.
“What Luc likes?”
When I reluctantly nodded, she said, “Because Luc and I have been friends a long time. I know Luc isn’t vanilla because he told me back when we were at school together. It’s actually something he struggles with.”
My gaze lifted back to hers. “What do you mean?”
She let go of my hand, sighed, and leaned against the back of the vehicle. “He associates it with his House. With the deviant things they do. But you and I know he’s not like them. Natalie, enjoying a little kinky sex now and then doesn’t make a person a predator. It makes you human.”
I knew that, but hearing her say the words made me see Luc’s actions the last few weeks—the last few days—in a whole new light. I couldn’t deny that the dark Luc, the controlling and domineering Luc who had awakened me in Rome and Venice and who had a way of lighting me on fire with a single look, had been missing since that ritual. Except for the other night.
After our discussion about kids, I’d seen that look in his eyes, the familiar firestorm that told me he was on the edge of control. That he was fighting to keep the hurricane swirling inside him from roaring over me. But I’d wanted him to unleash it on me. Nothing excited me more than knowing he couldn’t control himself when he was near me. I wanted to be any and everything he needed, because if I wasn’t, we were never going to get back to where we’d been before. We were never going to move forward.
I closed my eyes, hating his family even more. “God, that ritual fucked him up badly.”
“Yeah, it did. But you can help him. Until he can regain control of his sexuality, he can’t heal. And if he can’t heal, he can’t get past what they did to him. And we need him to get past it. The future is perched on a ledge, waiting for Luc to become the man he was always supposed to be.”
I opened my eyes and looked at her. I wasn’t entirely sure I could help Luc the way she was implying. What they’d done to him...it had shaken the foundation of who he was, what he believed, and who he wanted to be.
I drew a deep breath. The only thing I knew for sure was that our relationship had been rooted in sex since the moment we’d met. If there was one way to reach him, it would be through that. And I had to try. I was willing to try anything to bring back the man I’d fallen in love with. “Thanks.”
She smiled and pushed away from the vehicle. “Thank me after. And if it doesn’t work, don’t you dare tell him you got all that stuff from me.”
I smiled as she closed the back of the vehicle.
“Come on.” She turned toward the house. “We got stuff for dinner. And don’t worry, we’re not staying. We’re driving up the coast for a romantic weekend. The last thing
you two need is us getting in your way.”
“Luc would probably like that right now.”
“Fuck Luc. And I mean that literally.”
I laughed as I followed her into the house with the box in my hands, thankful that she was here. Now I had a plan. And she was right. I wouldn’t let Luc’s parents drive us apart. We were stronger than them.
We had to be. Because after everything we’d already been through, I wouldn’t accept any other truth.
Chapter Nine
Luc
“Porca puttana,” I muttered, staring at the letter Marco had given me as I sat on the side of my bed in nothing but a towel. “Did you read this?”
Standing across the room with his hands on the waistband of his jeans, Marco sighed. “Yeah.”
A bitter rage brewed inside me. One I was growing less and less able to contain. I crumpled the note in my hand and pushed to my feet. “I should have killed her when I had the chance.”
“And what chance would that have been?” Marco asked as I tossed the note in the garbage in the bathroom, then turned into the master closet for clothes.
“Every day of my damn life till I was twenty.” I tugged on boxers and a fresh pair of jeans, then reached for a sweater from the rack because it was so freakin’ cold up here in Scotland. “The handful of days I was in Italy last month. Does she really fucking think I’m going to forget what they did to me?” I rounded the corner with the sweater still in my hand and stared at Marco across the room. “What they did to Natalie?”
Marco tipped his head and shot me a yeah, they do look. “We both know they don’t want you to forget. But they do expect you to fall in line.”
“Well, fuck them.” I tugged on the sweater even though what I really wanted to do was rip it to shreds, then start hurling shit against the walls, even though I knew none of that would really make me feel better. “They can go fuck themselves as far as I care.”
“The letter was meant to rile you up,” Marco pointed out. “And it worked.”
No shit, it had worked. The letter had been written by my mother, telling me she understood I needed time to get my head on straight, but that soon I’d be required to return to the family and take my place with the House. It was the same line of bullshit she’d hit me with after I’d left Italy twelve years ago. Only this time, she didn’t mention that my father felt bad about what had happened, and I knew that was because neither one of them had any guilt over what they’d done to me. Because they’d never fucking cared about me as a person, only what I represented in their precious House.
“I had to bring it to you,” Marco said as I dropped to the side of the bed and pulled on my shoes. “You know that, right? I didn’t want to.”
I stared down at the carpet, feeling like shit, wishing like hell I’d been born into any other family on the planet. “Yeah, I know.”
“They’re not putting any kind of timeline on you,” Marco said. “You and Natalie can stay here as long as you want.”
“For now.” I closed my eyes and breathed deep, thinking about Natalie. She was safe from my family now but...fuck. I didn’t want her anywhere near them. I didn’t want them tainting her in any way. And, shit, knowing my emotions were so damn volatile these days, remembering what I’d wanted to do to her the other night, how I’d wanted to toss her on this very bed and take out every one of my frustrations on her sweet little body... I didn’t trust myself around her anymore because I knew I was no different from them.
“Let’s worry about timelines when they become relevant,” Marco said, his voice dragging me back from the edge of a rage I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to control much longer. “Fee and I are making dinner for you guys. We got wine and steaks. You’re doing better. Natalie hasn’t killed you yet. That’s worth celebrating.”
He smiled, but I didn’t find any humor in his joke, and he knew it from my scowl.
“For tonight,” he said, ignoring my reaction, “try to just forget about the family and relax.”
Relax? I huffed. There was no way I could relax. Not when I knew my House was lurking in the shadows, just waiting to fuck me over again.
And definitely not with Natalie pressuring me to share my stupid emotions, something I’d decided the other night I’d never do with her, because doing so would undoubtedly unleash a tidal wave of shit I wouldn’t be able to hold back.
Shit that would absolutely make me lose control once and for all.
I managed to keep it together through dinner. Barely.
Fee and Marco did all the work. Whenever Natalie or I offered to help, they pushed us back to the table and refilled our wine glasses. I had a feeling Fee was trying to get me drunk so I’d let down my guard, but the woman had obviously forgotten I wasn’t a talkative drunk. When I drank a lot—like I was doing tonight—all it did was make me horny. And every time Natalie laughed across from me at the table or shifted in her seat, I was acutely aware of that fact. Aware but unable to stop drinking because for the first time in several days, I didn’t feel the urge to put my fist through a wall.
I did have an uncontrollable urge to put my hands on her, though, something I was fighting by drinking more, hoping I’d push past the horny phase and plow right on into comatose.
“And then,” Marco said to my left where he sat at the end of the old wooden table, “Felicity’s brother Jasper decides fencing’s for pussies, drops his sword—”
“Saber,” Felicity corrected from the other end of the table.
“Yeah, whatever,” Marco said with a wave of his hand toward her. “And the jackass comes at me. I mean, I should have stabbed him right through the eye.”
“Please,” Felicity said with a roll of her eyes, glancing at Natalie. “My parents were sitting on lawn chairs watching the whole thing. He’s all talk.”
Marco frowned at her. “Your bratty little brother deserves a good ass-kicking.” To me, he said, “The figlio di puttana could use more than a good ass-kicking as far as I’m concerned.”
Felicity huffed and reached for her wine. Across from me, Natalie lifted her brows, completely confused about the inner workings of House Merrick, but I wasn’t in the mood to explain them to her. And I didn’t want to look at her, because every time I did, I just made myself hotter than before.
So I focused on Marco instead. “And what did you do when he came at you?”
“Nothing,” Felicity answered before Marco could. “He sidestepped at the last second, and Jasper fell flat on his face in the grass.”
Marco chuckled and grabbed his glass. “Little prick had dirt and grass all over his nose. It was hilarious.”
Felicity tipped her head and shot him a look. “He is my baby brother.”
“He’s a twat,” Marco muttered to me under his breath. But looking across the table at Felicity, he said, “The military would do him some good. And don’t even try to argue, because you know it’s true.”
Felicity sighed and glanced toward Natalie again. “Jasper’s a little shit. He’s right. But he’s my brother, and I love him. And he’s barely twenty. He has lots of years to mature. I was a brat when I was young too.”
I chuckled, remembering all too well how much of a brat she’d been when she was younger.
Under the table, Fee kicked my foot. “Watch it, buddy.”
I winced. “Ow. Merda. If you came to abuse me, you can both just leave.”
Fee grinned. At the other end of the table, Marco shook his head and said, “Let’s just hope your father’s health holds up, because none of us want Jasper leading House Merrick anytime soon.”
“He’s not that bad,” Felicity said.
“He’s not Giovanni bad,” Marco said, looking across the table at her, “but Jasper’s definitely nowhere ready for any kind of leadership role. It should fall to you not him.”
“I don’t want it,” Felicity said matter-of-factly.
“You’re smart,” I muttered, swallowing what was left in my glass.
Acro
ss from me, I felt Natalie’s eyes on me, which only made my blood run hotter, so I averted my gaze.
“You’re the oldest?” Natalie asked. “I didn’t realize that.”
“Yes,” Fee answered, “but the Houses are all still very patriarchal, so I don’t have to worry about being the heir to House Merrick. That’s Jasper’s responsibility.”
“The British royal family just changed the laws of succession for the crown,” Marco pointed out.
“They’re figureheads,” Felicity said with a frown. “You know that.”
“Yeah, but your father played a part in that decision. And he’s been talking about changing the line of succession within House Merrick since before we met. He knows Jasper’s not as tough as you.”
Felicity huffed and looked my way. “Do you hear him? If it were up to him, we’d both be ruling our Houses.”
Yeah, I heard him. And even in my inebriated state, I didn’t like what he was saying.
I shot him a look and leaned back in my chair. “It’s a bad idea. One you shouldn’t be encouraging.”
“Why? Because you don’t think a woman can rule? That’s bullshit, and we both know it.”
I chanced one look at Natalie, who was listening to the entire conversation with wide eyes. “No.” I fixed my gaze back on Marco. “Because it’s dangerous. House Merrick might be progressive, but you know damn well the heads of the other Houses will never accept a woman in charge.”
“Well, they just might need to. All the Houses need to change. That’s the point of everything we’re doing.”
He was about to launch into a discussion about all the reasons I needed to step up and take my position with House Salvatici, and I wasn’t in the mood to hear it. I wasn’t in the mood to talk about Houses or responsibilities or the fucking mess I’d been born into. I didn’t give a shit about my House, and I was tired of being pulled in a thousand different directions all because of my bloodline. What I wanted to do was drag Natalie upstairs and let her distract me from the memories and fears and stresses swirling inside me. What I was going to do was go up there alone because I still didn’t trust myself not to lose control with her.