Chapter 24 Twenty four
Elena's POV
I avoided him for two days. I became a ghost in my own prison. I took my meals in my room. I hid in the sunroom, locking the door behind me. The world outside the windows was bright, but inside, I felt gray and frayed.
My journal was a mess. The pages were not filled with careful observations, but with chaotic, anguished lines. ‘I came apart in his hands. And he walked away.’ I wrote it over and over, as if the repetition could make sense of it. ‘A gift, he said. No debts. What game is this?’ The words swirled into dark, frantic sketches: shaded figures in alcoves, the curve of a neck, a hand that was both cruel and tender.
I needed something real. Something not touched by him.
I found it in Sophie, one of the young maids. She was timid, with kind eyes that darted away quickly. When she brought my lunch on the second day, I didn’t let her flee. “Thank you,” I said, holding her gaze. “What’s your name?”
A moment of startled silence. “Sophie, signorina.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Sophie.” A simple, human exchange. A small act of normalcy that felt like stealing a breath of clean air. She began to linger just a minute longer, her movements less fearful. It was a tiny rebellion, a thread to a world where people were just people.
But the thoughts always circled back. To him. To the memory of what he could do to my body with just his hands and his voice. My resolve, which had once felt like stone, now felt like sand, shifting and unstable.
I heard the other staff whisper, their voices hushed with real fear. “The Don does not like delays.” “His temper is… severe.” They spoke of the old man in the dark as a force of nature, a calamity waiting to happen. Every whisper was a cold splash of reality. This was the man I was contracted to. The monster. And I was in his house, letting his son unravel me in dusty corners. The risk was astronomical. It was madness.
Yet, when I put charcoal to paper, my hands remembered the feel of his shoulders under my palms. My skin remembered the heat of his breath. The shame was still there, but it was now woven through with a golden thread of pure, addictive sensation.
On the third morning, I ventured to the garden. I needed open sky. I was sketching the same gnarled olive tree, but my lines were harsh, aggressive, digging into the paper.
I heard his footsteps on the gravel before I saw him. A calm, deliberate rhythm I’d come to know in my bones. My hand froze.
He stepped into my line of sight. He looked impeccably composed, but his eyes were dark fires. They drank me in, taking in my messy hair, my smudged fingers, the distressed set of my mouth. A small, knowing smile touched his lips.
“Running only makes the chase more thrilling, gattina,” he said, his voice a low purr that wrapped around me in the open air. Little cat. A term of endearment that felt like a possession.
I stood up, clutching my sketchpad to my chest like a shield. “I’m not running.”
“You’ve been hiding from me for two days.” He took a step closer. The garden, once vast, suddenly felt as small as the alcove. “Hiding in your tower. Sketching your fury. Does it help?”
I said nothing. My heart was a trapped bird.
He took another step. He was close enough now that I could see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes, could smell the familiar scent of sandalwood and clean, sharp will. “I have enjoyed the chase. More than I should.”
He reached out and plucked a stray leaf from my hair. His fingers brushed my temple. A simple touch that sent a shockwave through my system.
“But I am done chasing,” he said, his voice dropping, losing all its playful pretense. It was flat. Final. A statement of fact that turned my blood to ice and fire at once.
Matteo's POV
I gave her two days. It was a strategic retreat. Let her marinate in the memory. Let the gift of pleasure curdle into confusion, then into a craving. I watched her on the feeds I did have: the hallways, the garden paths. She was a storm contained in a simple dress, pacing, sketching, staring into space.
She befriended the maid, Sophie. I noted it. A harmless outlet. A need for human kindness. It softened something in my chest, an ache I didn’t want to examine. She was starved for connection. I wanted to be the only one who fed her.
I heard the whispers she heard. The staff’s fear of the “Don.” Good. Let the myth of the old monster press on her. Let it make my contrast (the man who offered gifts, not threats) all the more stark.
But patience has its limits. Two days of watching her haunt my house, of feeling her absence from the spaces we shared, was its own special torture. The memory of her climax in the alcove was a constant, throbbing hum in my blood. My own release in the bathroom had been a pitiful substitute. I wanted the real thing. I wanted her. Not just her body, but the challenge in her eyes, the stubborn set of her jaw. I wanted her full, conscious surrender.
I found her in the garden. She was attacking her sketchpad, her entire body tense with unresolved energy. She looked beautiful in her distress. Alive.
I announced my presence with my footsteps. She froze. The war in her eyes when she looked at me was everything. Fear, desire, anger, curiosity, a delicious chaos.
I called her gattina. Little cat. It suited her. Skittish, elegant, with hidden claws.
She claimed she wasn’t running. A brave, transparent lie. I moved closer, dismantling her personal space piece by piece. I asked if her sketching helped. Her silence was answer enough.
When I closed the final distance and pulled the leaf from her hair, the touch was an excuse. Her skin was warm. She flinched, but didn’t retreat. Her breath caught. The chemistry between us was a live thing, crackling in the sun-dappled air.
I made my declaration. I am done chasing.
It was the truth. The games of slow seduction, the careful construction of a sanctuary within the cage… I was finished. The two days of absence had clarified it. I didn’t just want to win her rebellion. I wanted to end it. I wanted her allegiance. Her choice.
And I would have it.
The chase was over. Now, the capture would begin in earnest. But this time, the capture had to be mutual. She had to walk into the snare with her eyes open. My next move would require her to come to me.
I held her gaze, letting her see the unwavering intent in mine. No sly smile. No calculated charm. Just the raw, uncompromising truth of my want and my will.
Then, I turned and walked away, leaving her standing alone in the sunlight with my ultimatum hanging between us.
The ball was in her court. But the court, the sun, the very air she breathed was all mine. And soon, she would know it.