Keeping his bride

Verona

I

LOOK AT the clock and am not surprised that only a few minutes have passed since the last time I checked. I’ve been waiting for hours for Luca to get home. I made his favorite meal today, spaghetti, using his mother’s recipe. I feel like I slaved away in that kitchen, cutting up tomatoes and making my own sauce. I mean, I even made the noodles by scratch! I spent all that time and effort…and Luca wasn’t even home in time for dinner.

Before they left, Benny promised me he would try to get Luca home early, but that clearly didn’t happen. Not that I can blame him for Luca’s actions.

“The spaghetti was amazing, Verona,” Dante says from the doorway. He must have just eaten some in the kitchen.

“Thank you, Dante.”

“I’m sorry that asshole didn’t show up to eat any,” he says with a frown.

“It’s okay. I should have made sure he didn’t have plans first I guess,” I say with a small shrug.

Dante opens his mouth to say something else, but the front door opens, and Luca and Benito walk in. Dante walks back into the kitchen, leaving me alone in the large dining room.

“What smells so good?” Luca asks when he enters the room.

I stand up slowly, and all the anger I had from earlier suddenly collects and pours out into my attitude. “I made you dinner.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t burn the house down,” he says with a dark chuckle.

I narrow my eyes and stare at him. “I worked all day on making your favorite meal,” I tell him.

His dark eyebrows rise in surprise. “You did?” “Yes. Where were you?” I ask.

“What are you playing at?” he asks with a grin. “Are you trying to be the nagging wife in this play?” “This isn’t a play, Luca. This is real life!”

“Oh, and a real marriage, is it?” he scoffs.

His words are slurring, and I know that he drank a lot. But that doesn’t excuse his behavior towards me.

“We’re stuck in this together whether we like it or not,” I explain. “The least we can do is try to make it work.”

“Try to make it work,” he says, laughing as if I told a funny joke. He walks closer to me, and then that’s when I see it.

“What…what is that?” I ask him. On the collar of his white dress shirt is a red smudge.

He looks down and then back at me with those piercing, gray eyes. “What is what?”

“On your collar. Is that…is that lipstick?” I exclaim. The guilty look on his face tells me everything I need to know.

“You were with someone else tonight?”

He shrugs nonchalantly. “And so what if I was.”

“You cheated on me?” The question comes out in a whisper, because I’m so afraid of his answer.

He stares me down, his eyes dangerous, his brows heavy. “You think you can play wife and that I’ll just be faithful to you like a real husband?” He takes a few more steps towards me. “We were forced to get married, Verona. Hell, I don’t even like you!”

Tears fill my eyes as I lower them down to the floor. I can’t even look at him right now. I’m so angry and hurt!

“I hate you,” I whisper vehemently before brushing past him and running up to my room. I lock the door behind me and collapse onto the bed, crying. I thought I could change things between us. I thought I could make this marriage work.

But I was wrong. So very wrong.

Luca

HATE YOU.

I can still hear Verona’s words ringing inside of my head the next morning when I wake up hungover and full of regrets. I drank too much at the club. I almost slept with a stripper and cheated on my wife. Even though my marriage is anything but conventional, cheating on Verona would have been a mistake. It would have been wrong.

I don’t know how to make things more civil between us, so I figure I’ll just give her time to get over it. Time heals all wounds, or so they say.

It’s after lunch by the time I crawl out of bed and get a shower. When I see Benito downstairs in the kitchen, I tell him, “I’m going to eat. And then we’re going to train.”

His eyes narrow. “You think you’re in any condition to train today?” he asks.

“You think a hangover could stop me from kicking your ass?”

He moves his head from side to side, cracking his neck.

“Bring it on, boss.”

Fuck. Maybe I shouldn’t have provoked the beast, but a part of me doesn’t even care if I lose to Benito. Maybe I deserve to have my ass kicked for how I’ve been acting. It’s just that being around Verona drives me crazy. I want to hate her. I truly do. Lord knows I hate her father and the rest of her family. But she makes it so damn hard. And that pisses me off to no end. Why does she have to be so…nice?

“She really made me my mother’s spaghetti recipe last night?” I ask Benito.

He nods in response. “I promised her I would get you home in time for dinner, but that didn’t exactly work out.”

“You could have told me.”

He shrugs. “Would it have made a difference?”

“No, probably not,” I respond. In all honesty, if he would have told me he was trying to do a favor for Verona, I most likely would have stayed out even longer just to spite both of them. I’m fucked up like that. I don’t like knowing that the two of them are conspiring behind my back about me. It’s bad enough that I’ve heard her calling him Benny.

I open the fridge and grab the container of orange juice and a couple of leftover breakfast sandwiches. I’m going to need my strength if I’m going to be working out with my men today. They have been trained by the very best. Trained to maim, kill, do whatever is necessary until they reach their target and end goal.

“We’ll start after I’m done eating,” I inform Benito. “Tell the men to get ready. It’s training day.”

LESS THAN AN HOUR INTO TRAINING, I’m already bleeding from multiple places and barely able to breathe. I bend over with my hands on my knees, trying desperately to catch my breath.

The men I hired are almost all ex-military. They’re used to training for long hours and barely breaking a sweat. It takes a lot out of me to keep up with them, but it’s worth it. Training with them makes me a better fighter. And when you live in my world, you always have to be ready to fight.

“Told you that you were too hungover for this shit,” Benito comments with a big grin.Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“Shut the fuck up and come at me again. I dare you,” I egg him on.

We’re both shirtless and wrestling on the ground like our lives depend on it when someone calls, “Boss, phone call!”

Standing, I square up with Benito and shake my finger at him. “We’ll continue this later, my friend.” Picking up my discarded shirt from the ground, I wipe blood from my mouth. Then, I walk over to one of my guards and grab the cell phone from his hand. Putting it to my ear, I ask, “Hello?”

“Luca, how is married life treating you?” my father asks on the other end.

“About as good as can be expected considering I married a Moretti,” I respond.

He chuckles at my answer. “Well, I called because I would like you and Verona to come to my house for dinner tomorrow night.”

“Sounds good,” I tell him. It will give me an excuse to force Verona to talk to me, because I know she’ll be giving me the cold shoulder until then.

“See you around seven?”

“See you then.” I end the call. Glancing around the property, I search the windows until I find Verona’s room. The curtains move ever so slightly, and I can’t help but smile. She’s been watching us train. I wonder if she’s touching her sweet, little cunt, thinking about me?

“More?” Benito calls from across the yard.

“Oh yes. Much more,” I say with a grin. If Verona wants to watch, then I’ll give her one hell of a show.