Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 94124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Valentina is showering.
What more incentive do I need than that to shake off my restless mood?
As my pulse kicks up, I increase my pace. I love taking Valentina hard and fast in the shower, but I also like taking care of her. I crave her shy smiles when she’s lavished like a princess as equally as I do the fiery vixen who emerges when she wraps her lips around my cock.
I’m about to enter the wing where the bedrooms are when Valeria steps into my path. She gleams at me like a predator detecting the fresh blood of a virgin as her hand shoots up to my chest like she barreled me over.
“Vanni,” she purrs, her smile too over the top for the hour.
When her nails graze my chest, the dangling charms hooked on them cool my skyrocketing temperature. They’re similar to the charms you find on a bracelet, and they clink together when I snatch up her hand, yank it off my chest, and then drop it faster than a bomb.
She acts ignorant of my fury about being manhandled without permission. It’s a performance she knows well. “The charms are meant to boost fertility.” Her eyes gleam with fake sweetness, and her voice is syrupy. “Despite everything that’s happened, I’ve been praying with a local minister for Valentina’s pregnancy to be successful. You deserve an heir. It means everything to you.”
My veins ice over as I work my jaw side to side. “No,” I say flatly. “It doesn’t.”
Her brow lifts, exposing the surprise glittering in her eyes. “Of course it does. It’s all you’ve ever wanted.”
“Not with Valentina,” I bite out. “With her, it’s about more than that.”
Her smile falters as confusion clouds her perfect face. There’s no denying Valeria’s attractiveness. She’s a beautiful woman who could have more than one schmuck eating out of her palm. I’ll just never be one of them. I’ve dated self-absorbed women before. They’ve never held my interest long enough to go back for seconds.
God invented kindness to be given freely, not traded. There’s strength in a woman who is both kind and confident—especially when she proudly owns every inch of herself.
Just thinking about Valentina’s luscious body and the confidence it yields thickens my cock. I love how her beauty feels alive under my hands when I grip it during a marathon fuck, and I’m done pretending otherwise.
“Giovanni—”
Valeria’s pleading tone rots in the air behind me when I sidestep her and continue down the hall. I’m not solely racing away because the longer I converse with Valeria the less time I’ll have to clean Valentina’s skin with my tongue. It’s to show her she has no power in this situation. No influence.
Even if she is the mother of my child, she is not the narrator of my story.
Sunlight spills across the floorboards when I enter my room at the speed of a rocket launching into space. Then disappointment hammers me when I spot Valentina in the corner of the space. She’s already dressed. Her hair is damp, and her skin is glowing from the shower products the head maid purchased specifically for her.
My cock hardens while recalling how many times I’ve tasted her bodywash over the past week, but the euphoria it instigates is short-lived since her eyes won’t meet mine, no matter how hard I strive for eye contact.
“I need to go.” She speaks fast, like the words might vanish if she doesn’t spit them out. “Work called. I finally got a shift. Because I missed so many last week, Alessandro rostered me on for a day shift. The tips will be less, but anything is better than nothing, right?”
I grit my teeth, stunned she’d lie to me. We have blockers up to stop our phones from being tapped. She can FaceTime her mother and get messages via the same app, but standard calls are impossible to receive within the compound’s walls without a specially designed phone.
Her boss also told her to take all the time she needs when we popped into the pub to rearrange a handful of shifts that didn’t correspond with her mother’s new treatment plan. He might have been fearful of my warning glare, but that doesn’t alter the facts.
Valentina is lying to me.
Lying is usually punishable by death. Valentina won’t suffer the same consequences.
Doesn’t make my frustration any less, though.
“You don’t need to work.”
“I can’t pay you back if I don’t work.” My knuckles crack when the unease in her expression places my anger on a very steep cliff. “I also can’t just sit here while you—” She bites back the remainder of her reply, but I hear it anyway. While you do everything.
Not wanting to push our exchange anywhere close to how I usually conduct an interrogation, I tread carefully. “What’s going on, dolcezza?”
Her eyes glisten, and for a second, her armor cracks. “I need to make sure I can still stand on my own.” Angrily, she brushes a tear off her cheek. “And that I can survive without you.”