Reign: A Romance Anthology

by Nina Levine

  I see a door and make a run for it. Bursting into the late afternoon sunshine, I flee into an alleyway and run toward the street where I wave down a cab and make my escape.

  “I am going to break every bone in his body,” Alessandro seethes. “I’m going to pull his tongue from his mouth and make him watch as I feed it to the dogs.”

  Beside him, my father’s fists clench tighter on the table.

  We’re sitting at the dining table in our apartment. Alessandro. Cristian. Alberto. My father. Me.

  After fleeing Luca, I came straight home.

  I didn’t call the police.

  I called my husband.

  And my father.

  Now that I’ve told them everything, the air is tight with tension. My father is seething. Alberto is fuming with disgust, and Cristian is visibly angered. But it is Alessandro who is beside himself with white-hot rage. I have never seen his eyes so dark. Never seen his face so taut with fury. While we all sit, he paces.

  “We take our time,” my father says. “Keep him waiting. Watching. Anticipating. And then we strike.”

  Knowing my father is right, but itching for revenge, Alessandro lets out an anguished growl and punches the wall, over and over, before swinging back to face us.

  “I want to make him pay now!” He stalks toward my father. “I know she is your daughter. I know you want revenge. But I want your permission to do this myself.”

  My father looks at me, and I realize he is waiting for my consent to let Alessandro undertake my revenge.

  I hate this life. This bullshit.

  “If we call the police, he’ll go to jail,” I say, despite knowing none of the four men in this room will be willing to involve the police.

  “This is no time for cops, Bella,” Alessandro growls. “This is time for family.”

  “Luca Castabella must pay for what he did to you,” my father explains. “It was a declaration of war.”

  “And war is what I will give him,” Alessandro snarls.

  I look at my father and then to Alessandro. Once enemies, this moment is forging a bond between them.

  I stand up. I don’t want any part of this. They’re going to do what they’re going to do. But I don’t want to know the details.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a shower and lie down.” I feel exhausted. It’s late, and hours have passed since I got home and called my husband. Now I need to wash the day away and crawl into bed. I doubt sleep will claim me, but I need the quiet so I can process what happened to me today.

  In the shower, I let the water relax me and calm my mind, and by the time I’m dried off and pulling on my favorite cotton nightie, I’m already feeling calmer.

  I walk to the bed and climb in. I don’t even bother with the covers. I sink down and curl into my pillow, praying the events of today will vanish into the deepest recess of my mind where all the bad things go and stay hidden forever.

  After some time, I feel the mattress dip behind me, and feel Alessandro’s strong arms come around me and hold me to his powerful body.

  His embrace is warm and comforting, and I clutch his hands to my chest as I fight the urge to cry.

  He says nothing, but he doesn’t need to, his presence and his touch is enough.

  When sleep steals me, my heart is calm and my fear is gone, because I am in Alessandro’s arms.

  Exactly where I want to be.

  17

  Alessandro

  Something pulls me from my sleep. My eyes open to a silent, moonlit room. I feel for Bella, but the space beside me is empty.

  Rising up on one elbow, I see her standing at the window looking out into the night, the lights of the city moving across her sad face.

  “Bella?” My voice cuts into the quiet and she turns to look. She’s wearing a short nightdress so sheer I can see her nakedness underneath. My body tightens and heat funnels through my veins.

  She walks slowly toward the bed and climbs in. She says nothing. But I can see the mix of anguish and lust on her face as she slides her thighs on either side of my hips, her palms gliding over the deep grooves of my abs.

  Immediately, my cock begins to throb with need.

  “What are you doing?” My voice is thick.

  Her lips part with a small gasp of pleasure as she feels my hardness between her legs.

  “I want you, Alessandro.”

  Leaning down, she seals her lips over mine and sweeps her tongue into my mouth. The kiss is deep and desperate, and the groan rumbling between us is laden with heavy desire. It’s my groan, and it is thick with lust and need because I am so turned on, I’m at risk of losing all sense and reason. I kiss her back. I’ve wanted this for so long and God, it feels like heaven.

  Without warning, she breaks away to pull her nightdress off, and the sight of her nakedness almost does me in. Her ample breasts, her tight pink nipples, the deep tan of her smooth-as-satin skin.

  She is fucking perfect.

  Flawless.

  Enticing.

  Mine.

  With a growl, I grip the nape of her neck and pull her back down for a kiss, allowing myself to get lost in the silkiness of her mouth and the sweet taste of her lips.

  But again, she pulls away to straighten, her hooded, lust-filled eyes fixed firmly to mine as she starts to rock against the hard outline of my cock.

  Fuck.

  I want this.

  I’ve wanted this my whole adult life. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve fucked my hand fantasizing about her.

  But in every one of those fantasies, Bella wanted me for very different reasons than what she does now. Right now, she doesn’t want to fuck me for pleasure. Or because she loves me. Or because she wants me.

  She wants to fuck me to forget.

  I may be an asshole. But even I can see that this is coming from a dark place inside her. Tomorrow morning, she’ll regret it. She’ll wake up and hate me even more.

  She reaches between us to take me in her hands.

  “Wait,” I rasp.

  Her dark eyes find mine. “You don’t want this?”

  Fuck yes, I want this.

  But not like this.

  “I want this more than I want to breathe,” I rasp out.

  “Then what’s the problem?” Her hands find my cock. “I want you to fuck me, Alessandro. And I want you to do it hard.”

  It takes all my strength to stop her from pumping my tormented cock. Every cell in my body is screaming at me to give her what she wants.

  Except the ones in my heart.

  They’re telling me this isn’t right.

  She tries to move her hands, but I hold them still. Her big eyes find mine and her face tightens. “You don’t want me?”

  I release her hands and reach for her chin. “Angel, if you knew just how much I want you—”

  She pulls out of my reach. “Then why are you stopping this from happening? Isn’t this what you want? Me in your bed, rubbing my pussy over your cock and asking you to fuck me.”

  Her words are crude and said with resentment, confirming what I already thought. That this is coming from a dark place, and I need to lead her away from it, despite my body’s protests.

  She climbs off me. “What games are you playing?”

  “I’m not playing any.”

  She grabs her nightdress and shoves it back on.

  “Don’t kid yourself, Alessandro. This whole goddamn arrangement is a game.”

  I can see how this is going to play out. She’s not getting the respite from her pain with sex, so she’s going to get it via an argument.

  She climbs off the bed, but I am right behind her. When she tries to stomp away, I take her by the arms and pull her to me.

  Towering over her, I hold her tight. “If I thought for one second that this is what you really wanted, I would spend the night making you come until you begged me to stop. I would do so many things to this beautiful body of yours, Bella, things that would give you so much pleasure. I kn
ow a million ways to make you come with my name on your lips, but it’s not happening like this. Tomorrow, you’d wake up and you’d feel taken advantage of, and it’s my responsibility as your husband to make sure you never feel that way. Do you understand?”

  Her tight, angry face softens, and tears flood her eyes. When her chin quivers, I wrap my arms around her and hold her tightly against my chest.

  “You’re in pain, Bella. I’m not going to add to it.”

  She nods against me before pulling away and returning to bed.

  18

  Bella

  I wake up the following morning alone.

  Alessandro is gone.

  Being almost nine o’clock, he’ll be at his office.

  I check my phone to find several messages, including one each from my father, Imogen, and Ari, as well as a message from Alessandro. Despite not wanting to think about what happened last night, I open his first.

  I let you sleep because you needed it. We’ll talk tonight.

  I drop my phone onto the bed and lie back into the pillows.

  I feel flat and drained of energy, my heart heavy.

  I am headstrong and tough, but I’m still shaken. Yesterday’s events scared the hell out of me, and Alessandro’s rejection last night has left me numb.

  Last night I was ready to give him what he has been chasing for weeks, yet he turned me down.

  It makes me question his motives. He says he is doing this for love— so I will remember what we had all those years ago.

  But there is a part of me that questions if this is some kind of revenge.

  Filled with a sudden need to know who I am married to, I climb off the bed and cross the room to the far wall. Behind the Gustav Klimt print on the wall is a safe. Alessandro doesn’t know I know it’s there. But I saw him remove something from it last night when he thought I was asleep.

  After removing the picture from the wall, I inspect the safe.

  It’s old school. Easy to crack.

  I want to know more about my husband.

  I’m a little rusty, but I eventually get it open.

  Safes can tell you a lot about a person.

  But nothing could prepare me for what I find.

  I look at the folded paper in my hand.

  It’s the paper heart I gave Alessandro the day before we left Italy. It’s faded and worn. The paper has softened with age, the texture smudged and flimsy from years of being touched.

  He’s kept it all these years.

  Something inside me unlocks.

  Something I’d long thought dead and gone.

  I remember when we’d both learned that my family was moving to America and how brokenhearted we’d both been.

  “Mi angelo, please don’t give your heart to any other boy,” Alessandro had begged, holding me to his chest so I could feel the rapid beat of his heart.

  Two days later, on our last afternoon together, I had pressed this paper heart into his hand and made my promise to him. “My heart is yours. It will only ever be yours.”

  Then, in the shade of the olive grove, I’d given him what I could never give any other boy.

  As he’d held me afterward, he’d made a promise to me that I had clung to through all the pain and grief of leaving behind the boy I was in love with. “On our eighteenth birthday, I will find you and we will never be apart again.”

  “Do you promise?” I had cried, my tears spilling down my cheeks.

  He had kissed me then. A deep, sweet kiss that had promised so much. “On my soul, I promise you.”

  Yet, he never came.

  I turn the paper heart over and there are our names, written in the crude but careful handwriting of a lovesick sixteen-year-old girl. Bella loves Alessandro forever.

  Emotion tightens in my throat because all those feelings, all that love, finds its way back into my heart again. The truth is, it never really left. It was only held back by my wall of anger and heartache.

  The final inkling of doubt falls away, and suddenly, nothing matters but finding Alessandro and telling him that I get it. I understand now. Why he wanted this crazy, unorthodox arrangement. It was because his love for me hadn’t died, and he was looking for a way back to me.

  Love blooms in my chest because I can feel it so deeply.

  I can forgive him, but I want to know what happened.

  Why did he never show up?

  I take a car to his office, my heart light as I ride the elevator to the second floor.

  The doors to the elevator office open and I walk toward his receptionist’s desk.

  Just as I reach it, he comes out of his office with a woman.

  A very attractive, very well-put-together woman.

  Amélie.

  Of. Fucking. Course.

  19

  Alessandro

  The moment I look up and see her walking toward us, I know she’s angry.

  Her face is calm.

  But her big eyes are stormy as fuck. They move to Amélie and then come back to me.

  She’s jealous.

  And it’s fucked up, because knowing she is jealous excites me.

  Why?

  Because it means she feels something for me other than contempt.

  “Bella, what a surprise,” Amélie says, greeting her with a kiss to each cheek. But Bella remains rigid, her eyes fixed to mine. Amélie notices her mood and seems to deliberately fuel it by placing her palm on my chest, her eyes flirty as she adds, “I appreciate you squeezing me in, darling.”

  Bella’s jaw tightens and her back is stiff, but she says nothing as she watches Amélie walk away.

  I invite my wife into my office.

  The door closes.

  “Do you still fuck her?” Are her first words.

  My back is to her and I turn around. “No.”

  “Does she know that?”

  I cock an eyebrow at her. “You’re angry.”

  “Not at all. I just want to know who my husband is fucking.”

  Something inside me snaps. This back and forth between us is doing my fucking head in. I cross the room and take her arms. “I’m not fucking anyone. And I won’t. I just want you, goddammit, Bella. Is this about last night? I told you why I couldn’t do that to you.”

  Her face softens. “No, it’s not. I appreciate what you did. You were right, I was emotional, and it wouldn’t have been right, for either of us.”

  She removes something from her pocket and hands it to me.

  It’s the paper heart I keep in the bedroom safe.

  The paper heart I’d kept in my wallet until I’d moved to New York when I had put it in my safe instead because I couldn’t risk something happening to it.

  “You broke into my safe?”

  I don’t know if I’m pissed or impressed.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not normally like this, and if I wasn’t so surprised to find this, I would be more ashamed that I did. I’m sorry, Alessandro.” Her fingertips graze the paper heart in my hand. “Why did you keep it?”

  I look at it. How many times had I held it in my hand, wanting her, missing her, my heart aching for her?

  “It was all I had left,” I say quietly.

  A strange moment hangs in the air between us.

  It’s the moment of truth.

  “Why did you never come find me?” she asks softly.

  I lift my eyes to meet hers. “Oh, but I did.”

  Bella takes a step back. “You did?”

  “A year after you left, I ran away. I couldn’t wait to see you any longer. I organized a fake passport through one of my father’s contacts and came to America to find you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you and wondering if you still thought about me? Or had you stopped loving me and moved on? I couldn’t take the not knowing. I was a lovesick teenager, and nothing was going to stop me finding out. Except…”

  “Except what?”

  “I was young and impressionable, and New York was nothing like home. It was so big and busy, and utterly c
haotic. I wasn’t prepared for how different it was, and it made me wonder if you were different too. After all, the city had been your home for twelve months already. Had it changed you? Were you the same girl? Did you still love me? Or had you forgotten me? Found someone else to fill my place. The doubt was nothing like I had ever known, and it made me question everything. But nothing more so than myself.”

  “So, you left?”

  “Not before I saw you.”

  Her eyebrows shoot up. “You did? When? Where…?”

  Remembering how it felt seeing her still tightens something in my chest. I’d been so sick with love and longing.

  “You were sitting outside your school with your friends. God, Bella, you looked so beautiful, you took my breath away. I was so desperate to close the distance between us, to speak to you, to touch you… to kiss you again.” I shake my head, remembering the yearning in my teenage heart. “You were laughing with your friends, and it was obvious you were the center of attention. Of course, you were, even from where I was sitting, I could see how special you were. How beautiful and charming. Then, a blue sports car pulled up and two boys got out and walked over to you. They were there for you. Rich boys. American boys. One of them was clearly interested in you and I thought…” I feel foolish exposing my teenage thoughts to her because if I could, I would go back and tell my teenage self to man up and stop being such a coward. “I thought you were interested in him too.”

  By the look on her face, she’s trying to recall the car. Or the boy. I can see she can’t remember it.

  But I can. As if it were only yesterday.

  How my body had tightened with jealousy.

  How my hands had fisted at my sides.

  How unworthy I felt.

  “You and one of your friends left with the boys, and that was the moment I realized I had lost you. You weren’t the same girl anymore. You were surrounded by all these worldly people. What would you want with a simple boy from a small coastal town in Italy? I was your past, and your future was far brighter than being with someone like me.”