I lay there and let him have me. He took my innocence with force, but I couldn’t give him any part of my pride. Not even a small piece of it. Not after what occurred in the foyer.

After a few thrusts, I forced myself to open my eyes and blurrily watched his impassive, angry face. Something seeped between us, covering my thighs, and I knew what it was. I prayed with everything I had in me that he didn’t notice it yet.

But he did. He noticed. His eyebrows snapped together, and he registered my face, my tears, my agony for the first time.

“Period?”

I didn’t answer.

He pulled back from me carefully, his gaze dropping between us. There was blood on the inside of my thighs and on my white linen. I grabbed the collar of his shirt, drawing him back to me. I was desperate for his body to hide mine.

“Finish what you started,” I rustled, exposing my teeth. I could feel the pulse of his heart against his chest, he was so close.

“Francesca.” His voice was gruff and drenched with guilt. He brought his hand to my face to rub my cheek, but I slapped it away. I couldn’t bear his new, tender tenor. I didn’t want him to be gentle with me. I wanted him to treat me as his equal. With the same anger and lust and hatred I felt for him right now.

“Now do you believe me?” I smiled bitterly through the tears that just kept coming down like rain, desperate to wash away the last few minutes. His frown smoothed, and he raised himself up from me, about to draw away, but I pulled him back to my body harder.

“It’s done.” I looked him in the eye and saw so much misery in them. I locked my ankles behind his back, caging him inside me. “I decide how I want my first time to be. Finish this. Now.”

To my horror, more tears came through, and he licked them as he lowered himself back to me. His tongue rolled from my neck to the pillows of my cheeks, catching all the tears parachuting from my eyes. “Nem,” he tried reasoning with me.

“Shut up,” I buried my face in his shoulder as our bodies connected, him driving into me again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

His thrusts were gentle now, easing into me while brushing the tips of his fingers back and forth over my outer thigh, a leisured, intimate gesture that was nothing more than a sweet lie. The heel of my foot rubbed the fabric of the pants he never bothered to remove. I knew that he wanted to try and finish to get it out of the way. I also knew that it was too late to minimize the damage.

After a few minutes of dull pain, he began to up the pace. His face grew tight and his eyes darkened, and that was when I could bear to look at his features again without feeling like he shoved a knife into my chest every time he pushed into me. He finished deep inside me, the warmth of his lust conquering every part inside me. I clung to his shoulders, feeling frayed and tattered beneath him, my lower body so wounded it almost felt numb.

He levered up so he could look at me, staring at my face without meeting my eyes.

We stayed silent for a few moments, him still on top of me. He didn’t ask me why I didn’t tell him I was a virgin earlier. He knew. Finally, he rolled off me. I scooted away and stood up, covering myself in a lavender satin nightgown I retrieved from the back of my desk chair.

He sat on my bed behind my back, bent forward, looking a little stunned. His face blank, his shoulders hunched. A far cry from the brash asshole, future husband I knew who always oozed of overconfidence. I didn’t blame him for his silence. Words seem too insignificant for what happened here tonight.

I took my cigarette pack from my nightstand and lit one up right inside his house. It was the least he owed me.

He knew and I knew that if he tried to give me affection, I wouldn’t be able to live it down.

“I have an early day tomorrow. My final dress fitting, then shopping for college,” I said, taking a seat at my desk overlooking the garden I’d loved the way I’d wished I could love my future husband. Wholly and without expecting much back.

“Nem.” His voice was so gentle, I couldn’t bear it. I propped my chin on my knuckles. His hands were on my shoulders now as he stood behind me, lowering his forehead to meet the crown of my head. He released a rugged breath that made my hair fly everywhere on my face. The room smelled of sex and metallic blood and desperation that wasn’t there before.

“Leave,” I said coldly.

He kissed the top of my head.

“I will never doubt you again, Francesca.”

“Leave!” I screamed, pushing off the desk. The wheels of the chair hit his feet, but he didn’t seem to care about the pain. He left after that, but what happened between us stayed in my room.

When I woke up the next morning, two Advils, a morning-after pill, a bottle of water, and a warm, wet washcloth waited on my nightstand. I instantly knew that Ms. Sterling was privy to what happened during the night.

I took the Advils and the pill, drinking all the water. Then I spent the rest of the day crying in my bed.

I paced the east wing.

Back, forth.

Back, forth.

Walking had never been so excruciatingly maddening. I wanted to kick down the door and barge inside. I barely had it in me to send Kristen a letter from my lawyer, threatening to sue her for every penny she ever earned if she published the piece on me. I also knew I couldn’t hold her back from dishing out the dirt for much longer, but again—did I care?

Not. One. Bit.

“Give her time.” Sterling was shadowing my every movement like a fucking tail. As if I was going to force my way in.

Done quite enough of that for a lifetime, Sterling.

“How much time?” I barked. I was not well versed in the whole relationship gig.

I was even less familiar with the world and feelings of teenage girls. Even as a teenager myself, I opted for more mature women. They didn’t take me seriously, and there were no expectations to be met.

“Until she feels well enough to leave her bedroom.”

“That could take weeks,” I spat out. Francesca already proved to be able not to eat for long periods of time. If disobedience was a competitive sport, my future wife would make it to the Olympics. And medal.

“Then that’s what you’ll give her,” Sterling said with conviction, signaling me with her head to leave Francesca’s wing and come down to the kitchen with her.

I couldn’t unsee the bloodbath between her legs, or the way her thighs shook, twitched, and tensed under mine.

I’d always had a talent for reading people. That was how I’d become a star politician, impeccable prosecutor, and one of the most formidable men in Chicago. Which was at odds with the fact that I failed to notice my young, very sheltered, nervous fiancée was a virgin. I was so blinded with rage thinking she’d slept with Angelo that I didn’t take her word for it. And she—the smart, sensitive, gorgeous vixen that she was—served me with a healthy slice of humble pie, making me finish every bite of what I’d started.

I should’ve seen it from miles away. She came from a strict Italian family and went to church every Sunday. She simply wanted me to see her as more worldly and less of a naïve little mouse. Unfortunately, it worked. Too well for her liking.

The weight of my guilt sat squarely on my shoulders. I shredded her savagely, and she met me, thrust for thrust, her eyes on mine, her tears fierce but silent. I thought she was guilty and angry with emotion. I hadn’t realized I was bulldozing through walls I had no right bringing down.

Traditionally, in Italian weddings in The Outfit, the bridegroom was supposed to present the bloodied sheets to his peers. I had no doubt Arthur Rossi was going to die a slow, painful, internal death if I sent her sheets his way six days before the wedding. There was no mistaking what happened here. And there was no confounding Francesca suffered every moment of it. But somehow, and despite my worst intentions, I couldn’t bring myself to do that to her.

I retired to my study, resisting the urge to check in on her. I wasn’t entirely sure I should give her time, but I no longer trusted my instincts when it came to her. Typically a cruel and calculated creature, I’d lost control several times in the past month, all of them because of my young bride-to-be. Maybe it was best to take my housekeeper’s advice and let her be.

I opted to work at home that day on the off chance she’d leave her room. She’d missed her appointments, and when her mother came to pick her up to shop for her upcoming school year, Sterling sent her away, albeit with a carrot cake, explaining that Francesca was suffering from a terrible migraine. Mrs. Rossi looked distraught as her driver pulled away from the curb. Through the window of my study, I caught her trying desperately to call her daughter. Still, I didn’t have it in me to feel sorry about what happened to anyone who was not my future wife.

The day passed, as bad days do, significantly slow. All the meetings I’d summoned to my house turned beneficial and productive, however. I’d even managed to squeeze in a conference call with my public relations manager and his assistant, something I’d postponed for weeks. When I finally left my office, it was well past dinnertime.

I ate in the kitchen, not meeting Sterling’s judgmental gaze. She sat across from me, her hands in her lap, staring at me as though I just mauled a baby. In a sense, that was exactly what I had done.

“Any more great ideas? Maybe I should send her back to her parents?” I snarled when it became apparent she was not going to stop looking at me.

“You should definitely not do that.” It was the first time Sterling spoke to me in that tone. Even when I was a child, she did not treat me like one. She did now.

“I’m not going to wait for her to come out any longer.”

“You shouldn’t have waited a minute,” she agreed, sipping my fine scotch. Things were dire between Francesca and me if Sterling resorted to drinking. She hadn’t drunk an alcoholic beverage in two decades.

“Then why did you tell me to wait?” I flipped over the plate with the prime rib, sending it flying across the kitchen. It crashed against the wall.

“I wanted you to suffer the way she did.” She shrugged, standing up and walking out of the kitchen, leaving me to stew in the fact that I did, in fact, suffer.