Chapter 10: Where He Touched You

Elise's POV

On Tuesday Teresa sent me to the cellar for six bottles of red.

The wine cellar sat under the kitchen, down a stone stair with a heavy door at the bottom.

I went because I wanted to be useful to someone.

Dario had been in the city since dawn, and Luca with him.

The house had been quiet for two days, the way a house is quiet when everyone in it is listening.

I found the bottles Teresa wanted on the third rack.

I had one in each hand when the door shut behind me.

"Don't scream," Stefano said. "I only want to talk."

I turned around slowly.

He stood against the door in a grey sweater with his sleeves pushed up.

He looked as if he hadn't slept.

"Open it."

"In a minute."

"Stefano."

"I miss you."

He said it simply, and I almost believed it.

"I was a coward at the dinner. My friends were watching, and I've been sick about it for a week."

"You said it to forty people on camera."

"I know."

"You smiled."

"I know. I'm sorry, Elise."

I put the bottles on the rack, because my hands had begun to shake.

I noticed the camera in the corner of the ceiling.

Its little red light was dark.

"That camera hasn't worked since spring," Stefano said, watching me look.

"Nobody fixed it. Nobody ever checks the cellar."

He had planned this.

He came toward me across the stone floor.

"He's not what you think. He's not gentle with people.

"Come back, Elise, and I'll fix it. I'll tell them it was a joke."

"I am home."

"In his bed?"

"Yes."

His face twisted.

He took my left wrist in his hand, hard, over the ring, and the other hand went to my jaw.

"He's forty," he said through his teeth.

"You think he'll keep you? He'll use you up and put you in a corner. You're mine."

He kissed me.

It was a hard, ugly kiss.

His thumb pressed the corner of my jaw and his fingers crushed my wrist.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Rejected by the Heir, She Married the Don from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.