Don’t forget well suited.

Ettore pointed out the rooms around us, but I didn’t hear a word of it. I was too engrossed with his mouth. So sullen. So petulant. I wanted to kiss his pout away. My lips would touch his and he would lose sight of everything else. Like magic, his woes would fade away and he would fall in love with me. Given half the chance, I knew I would be a good wife.

I only had to prove myself.

Up the stairs we walked. My ears stopped buzzing when he pointed out certain rooms. “This one is where the boys stay. And Ella is down the end of the hall.” My breathing turned choppy when he stilled in front the room at the end of the hall, slowly turned around to face me and said gruffly, “You know which room this is, don’t you?”

I did. The last on his list. It was the master bedroom.

The apples of my cheeks turned pink and I averted my eyes as I nodded lightly.

“Good,” he responded, stepping into me. Crowding me. “Earlier, I asked you if you were sore. This was mere curiosity. You know that nothing would stop me from having you again, don’t you?” My stomach turned wildly. It went out of control when he gripped my chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted until his mouth was a whisper away from my own and said, “You are never too sore for me, are you?” My nerves were out of control. When I didn’t respond, he moved my chin from left to right, and then I was shaking my head. “When I want you, I will have you. Isn’t that right, wife?” He then moved my chin up and down, slowly. He played with me a moment. I wanted the kiss so badly. I stretched for it, but he hovered just out of reach. A slow smirk lifted in the corners of his mouth, pleased by my unconcealed desire. “Perfect.”

Still facing me, he reached behind and opened the door, stepping back through it, revealing the flawless bedroom. At my uncle’s house, I slept in a modest and lonely queen bed. In front of me now was a Californian king with an aged black wooden sleigh frame that held a comforter without a single crease and plush pillows that begged to be slept on. The open door of the walk-in closet showed it was bigger than the bathroom I used at home. Decorated charismatically. It was everything I wished for, and – God willing – I got to share it with Ettore Scala.