Chapter 68 Sixty eight
Elena's POV
The world had gone quiet after the car ride, the kind of quiet that comes after an explosion. I spent a day like a ghost. He let me. I didn’t see him. Maybe he knew that if I did, I’d start screaming and never stop.
But as the sun set, the numbness cracked into a cold, clear thought. A last stand.
I found him writing in his study. He didn’t look up. "I have conditions," I said, my voice hollow.
He lifted his gaze, his eyes unreadable in the lamplight. He waited.
"My own space. A real studio, with north light. You don't touch it or interfere. Ever. And Sophie stays as my maid. Only her."
He leaned back, studying me. "And in return?"
"I will stand at that altar tomorrow. I will wear the dress. I will say the words."
A long moment passed. "Agreed," he said. Then he leaned forward, just an inch, and the air changed. "But understand, Elena, the words you say will be binding in every way."
It wasn't a threat about law. It was a promise about the night to come. My skin prickled. I gave one sharp nod and left before he could see my hands shake.
Matteo's POV
She was broken. I’d done that. The look in her eyes after the car stopped… it was fear of the void I’d shown her. The world without my walls. I gave her the day. Let the silence do its work.
When she walked in, she was pale like a wraith but her chin was up.Her spark was buried, but not gone.
"I have conditions." Her voice was flat, but the steel was there. Good.
I listened. A studio. The maid. Simple demands. A desperate grasp for pockets of autonomy. She was building her own, smaller cage inside mine. She didn’t yet understand they were becoming the same.
"And in return?" I needed to hear her say it.
Her eyes locked on mine. "I will stand at that altar tomorrow. I will wear the dress. I will say the words."
A surge of pure triumph shot through me. The surrender was formalized. "Agreed." But she needed to know this was a claiming. "But understand, Elena, the words you say will be binding. In every way."
I let the implication hang, heavy and dark, between us. A flush touched her throat. She nodded, that quick, jerky movement, and fled.
I sat back. The victory felt hollow. I’d wanted her fire, not her ashes. But I’d take her ashes. I’d breathe on them until they glowed again. Tomorrow, she would be mine. Truly mine.
Elena's POV
The dress arrived in its giant white box, like a coffin. Sophie helped me into it, her fingers trembling on the buttons. "You look…" she began, but stopped.
"I know," I finished quietly.
I looked in the mirror. A stranger stared back looking like the perfect monster’s bride.
Just then, the door opened.
I saw him in the mirror before I turned.He stopped dead in his tracks.
All the air left the room. His face… changed, the cold Don vanished.
For one heartbeat, I saw the man from L’Ombra. Raw, hungry desire burned in his eyes, so intense it was like a touch.
He crossed the room slowly, as if in a trance. He stopped behind me, our eyes locked in the mirror. His fingers traced the lace at my throat. The touch was shockingly gentle.
"Tomorrow," he said, his voice thick, rough. "You become my wife."
His hand slid down, resting just above my heart. I could feel its heat through the layers. "And tomorrow night," he vowed, his breath stirring my hair, "this dress will not be removed gently."
It was a threat. A dark, explicit promise of a conquest with no mercy. It should have chilled me.
Instead, a traitorous, shameful heat flooded my veins. My breath hitched. He saw it. In the mirror, a slow, knowing smirk touched his lips.
He dropped his hand, turned, and left without another word.
I stood there, staring at the ghost-bride, my skin on fire where he’d touched it, hating him, hating myself, and feeling more terrifyingly alive than I had in days.
Matteo's POV
Ricardo told me the dress had arrived and I went to see it. I was not ready for the sight I met.
I pushed the door open and my mind went blank. She stood at the mirror, her back to me, a vision in white. Not the white of innocence but the white of a queen.
The sight punched the air from my lungs. All my plans, my calculations, evaporated. All that was left was the man who’d seen her in a green dress and wanted to burn the world down to have her. The want was a physical pain.
I walked to her, drawn like a magnet. She watched me in the mirror. I reached out, needing to touch, to see if she was real. My fingers brushed the lace at her throat.
"Tomorrow," I managed to say, the words clawing out. "You will become my wife." It was suddenly, overwhelmingly real. Not a strategy. A destiny.
My hand moved on its own, resting over her heart. I could feel its frantic beat. She’s afraid. She’s alive. The possessiveness that rose in me was a tidal wave. "And tomorrow night," I promised, the vow torn from a place deeper than strategy, "this dress will not be removed gently."
I wanted her to know. To lie awake thinking of it. To dread it and, God help me, to crave it.
In the mirror, I saw her eyes darken. Saw the flush bloom on her skin. Her body understood what her mind still fought. The victory was sweeter than any deal.
I left before I did something stupid, like kiss her. Like beg.
The dress was a masterpiece. But she was the art. And tomorrow, I would finally own what had already owned me from the first moment I saw her.