Rejected by the Heir, She Married the Don novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Midnight, My Study

Dario sets his terms, Elise sets hers, and his fingers make her come against the edge of his desk. She asks him to be her first.

By midnight the video had been in the family group chat for two hours.

I watched it once on the edge of my bed in the cottage, with the sound off, and then I put my phone face down.

Stefano's mouth said hobby.

Forty people laughed without a sound.

At eleven fifty I walked across the dark lawn to the main house in my green dress, because he had said come as you are.

Luca Ferrante was waiting at the side door.

He looked at me for a long moment, nodded once, and held it open.

The Don's study was on the second floor at the end of the hall.

I knocked, and a voice said, "Come in."

The room was dark wood and one green lamp.

Dario sat behind a wide desk of black walnut, with his jacket off and his sleeves turned back, and he did not stand.

"Close the door," he said. "Lock it."

I locked it.

"Come here."

I crossed the carpet and stopped in front of the desk.

He looked at me from my shoes up, slowly, and I made myself stand still for it.

"Why did you do that tonight?" he asked.

"Because he laughed."

"Men laugh. Why me?"

"Because you didn't." I kept my hands at my sides. "And because it's the one thing in that house he can't take back. I want to be someone nobody in this family gets to dismiss again."

"You want to use me."

"Yes."

Something moved at the corner of his mouth.

"Good," Dario said. "Say it plainly and I'll never have to wonder. I don't mind being used for something I mean to enjoy."

My pulse was loud in my ears.

"I've watched you do my books for a year, Elise. You've never added a number wrong, and you've never once looked at me when I walked through a room." He leaned back. "Tonight you walked the whole length of a terrace and looked at nothing else. Do you know how many women have asked me for what you asked for?"

"No."

"Several. All of them in private, with a drink in their hand and a reason." He tilted his head. "You asked me in front of my family. That's why I said sit."

He stood.

He was very tall, and the lamp threw his shadow up the bookshelves behind him.

"Here is what I am," he said. "In my bed, and in any room I choose, you do what I tell you. Without argument, and without asking why. I am not gentle about it."

"And outside the room?"

"Outside it, you are Mrs. Bertolini. No man in this house outranks you except me."

Heat went through me from my throat to my knees.

I was frightened, and that wasn't the strongest thing I felt.

"I have two rules," I said.

"Go on."

"If I say the word enough, it stops. Everything. And you don't ask me why."

"It stops. I won't ask." His eyes didn't move off mine. "The second?"

"You never lie to me."

"Never," he said.

I believed him completely.

"And no one else touches me," I said. "Ever."

"No one else will touch you and keep the hand." He came around the desk and stopped so close I could feel the warmth of him through his shirt. "Take off your necklace."

My fingers shook on the clasp.

He took it from me and set it on the blotter without looking at it.

"Turn around."

I turned.

His hand slid into my hair at the back of my head, and he drew it gently aside, and his mouth came down on the side of my neck.

I made a sound I had never made in front of anyone.

"That's one," he said against my skin. "Turn back."

When I faced him he kissed me, and it was nothing like the pantry.

Stefano had kissed me politely, always waiting to see if I would let him.

Dario kissed me slow and hard and thorough, with no waiting at all, one hand fisted at the nape of my neck and the other flat on the small of my back, pulling me into him.

I grabbed his shirt.

I felt how hard he was against my stomach, and my whole body went tight and hot.

He walked me backward until the edge of the desk hit the backs of my thighs and lifted me onto it in one move.

"Open your legs."

I did.

His palm slid up the inside of my thigh, under the hem of the green dress, and stopped at my underwear.

"Has he touched you here?"

"No."

"Has anyone?"

"No."

"Good." He hooked the fabric aside with one finger. "You're soaked, Elise."

I covered my face with my hand.

"Look at me."

I dropped my hand and looked.

He slid one thick finger into me, slowly, and I gasped and arched, and his thumb found my clit and began to circle.

"You're going to come on my hand," he said. "In my study, in the dress he picked for you. And then you're going to say my name."

"Dario."

"Not yet."

He worked me with his hand until I was grinding against it, until I couldn't think, until the green lamp swam.

"Please," I heard myself say.

"There it is."

The pressure broke all at once.

I came with my head thrown back and my fingers digging into his forearm, and his name came out of me loud.

He held me through the end of it, his forehead against mine, his hand still between my legs.

When I could breathe, he slid his fingers out and wiped them slowly on a handkerchief and watched me watch him do it.

"That's all tonight," he said. "Friday you'll be my wife."

I was shaking, and I wasn't going to let him see it was from wanting more.

"No," I said.

His eyebrow lifted.

"Be my first, Dario. Tonight."

For a moment the room was entirely still.

"Take off the dress," he said.

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