Chapter 64 64

Chapter 64 64
VIVIAN'S POV

I was on my knees before him, humiliated and furious and at the same time aroused. The carpet cut into my knees, abrasive on my skin. I hated that my body reacted to his authority, Hated that some twisted part of me craved the same treatment. His control. His demands. His cruelty disguised as possession.

He was harsh with me, unyielding, not taking no for an answer. He wound his fingers into my hair, pulling me with bruising strength. There was something so unkind here; it didn’t even seem as if he cared for my comfort, or for the dignity of me. It was simply him taking what he wanted, using me to teach us both who held the power in this relationship.

My jaw ached. My eyes watered. But I didn't fight him.

When he was done, he put himself away in much the same businesslike manner. Like nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t just deflated me in his office.

"Dress!" he said already far off. "We're going out tonight."

I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand, searching for something to say. "Where?"

"A fundraiser. Political event. Important people."

"I don't—"

"You don't have a choice. You're my wife. You go where I go."

Dressing myself fast, my hands trembling when I put them back on. Each swatch of cloth was somehow like armor that I was building, attempting to reclaim a shred of dignity. But Dominic was already back at it, back at his desk flipping through papers as if I wasn’t still sitting there.

As if he hadn't just forced me to my knees.

"Dominic—"

"What?" He didn’t raise his eyes from the paperwork.

“Why you do keep me so Henny Penny crazy?”
Now he lifted his head, and his unreadable grey eyes met hers. Cold metal not reflecting anything back at me. "Like what?"

"Like I'm nothing. Like I don't matter."

He gazed intently at me for a long moment, and I caught something flicker within that depth. If he had been able to do so, that is perhaps what would have passed for emotion.

"Because you're not nothing. You're mine. There's a difference." And he returned to his papers, dismissing me. "Be ready by seven. Wear the red dress. The one that shows everything. I want every man on the place to see what is mine."

That night I stood in my closet and stared at the red dress. It was obscene, really. Low cut enough to showcase the curve of my breasts, a slit high enough to flash most of my thigh with every step. I appeared as a mistress, not a wife. Exactly what Dominic wanted.

I dressed with precise care, my hands surer than they were hours before. A little bit of make up to cover the evidence of tears. Hair styled to perfection. The mask is firmly on again.

Dominic’s chauffeur picked us up at seven on the dot. He said nothing to me in the car, simply looked at his phone and did business by machine-gunning text messages. I was furniture to him. Decoration. Something uncritically to take up space, although it isn't really worth conversation.

A fundraiser at the Palmer House, one of Chicago’s most historic luxury hotels. The ballroom sparkled with crystal chandeliers and the kind of wealth that did not have to announce itself. There were powerful people and there was wealth, hand in hand as everyone who is anyone in this city found themselves under one conceited ceiling.

Dominic’s hand claimed my waist the second we stepped inside. He led me around the room, flaunting me as if I were some trophy he had bagged. Men looked openly, their focus running the length of the cleavage between my breasts to the stretch of bare leg. Women looked them over with pursed lips and knowing glances.

I felt exposed even though I was in a dress.

“Smile,” Dominic whispered in my ear. “You look like you’re going to a funeral.”

I made my lips smile, smearing on the affect I perfected after months of rehearsal. Another mask. Another lie. Just another act in the relentless play of being Mrs. DeLaurentis.

We worked the room, Dominic schmoozing politicos the way he chewed his food. Donations were promised with handshakes. Favours were exchanged in complicity. This was how actual power operated, I was beginning to understand.
Not through violence, though violence was always there, below. Through influence. Through money. By figuring out exactly which strings to pull.

“Mr. DeLaurentis,” a well-dressed man with graying hair came towards us. His face had been on news broadcasts.

"Senator Crawford. Good to see you."

"And who might this beautiful thing be?"

The tone of his voice gave me the creeps when he said that. As if I was something to look at, not someone to see.

"My wife, Vivian.”

The senator’s eyes moved up and down my body slowly, pausing at my cleavage in a way that felt greasy. Dominic noticed. His hand squeezed my waist, his fingers digging into my hip bone until bruises appeared.

Possessive.

“Boy, your wife is the looker,” Senator Crawford said, still gawping at me. "You're a lucky man."

"I know." But Dominic wasn’t smiling, though his lips were: His eyes were as lifeless as marbles. "And I protect what's mine. Very carefully."

The threat was subtle, but unequivocal. The senator chuckled, but his smile had faltered a little when he turned to go, blending into the crowd of powerful men and their expensive suits.

As he walked out, I surveyed the room, and my heart stopped.

Morrison. The FBI agent. Here. By the bar, gazing at us with those keen eyes that did not miss a thing.

“He is here,” I whispered frantically to Dominic.

"I know. Ignore him."

"He's staring at us—"

"Let him. He has no power here."

But I didn’t know about that so much. At coffee, Morrison had been extremely self-assured; he acted as if he held cards that I didn’t know about. And there he was now, in Dominic’s world, watching us like a predator observing its prey.

Morrison began walking toward us, parting the crowd in purposeful swaths.

Dominic saw it too. His body went stiff next to me, a compact spring ready to strike despite his lax posture.

“Mr. DeLaurentis,” Morrison said, as he approached us, a smile on his friendly-acceptable-handsome face that seemed dangerous in the best way. “You?” “Didn’t think I’d find you here.”

"Agent Morrison. No way I thought I’d see you either.”

"Crime doesn't take nights off. Neither do I."

“This is a political fundraiser, not a crime scene.

"Sometimes they're the same thing."

Morrison gave me a hard stare and I was the mouse caught between two cats. "Mrs. DeLaurentis. Good to see you again."

Dominic snapped his eyes to mine and then to Morrison. I'm sure I felt the temperature drop ten degrees.

"Again?" Dominic's voice was deceptively soft.

"Your wife and I caught up over coffee recently. Didn't she mention it?"

The air was tight with stress, and it pressed in upon all three of us. I couldn't breathe properly.

"She did. Briefly."

Lie. But what else could he say?

“We had a good discussion,” he added in the same, conversational tone. "About family. About choices."

His smile was insinuative, as if he knew secrets I’d not told.
"I hope I wasn't too forward. Sometimes these investigations get personal."

"My wife is not a part of your investigation," Dominic said simply.

"Doesn't she? Marriage is a partnership. Shared assets. Shared liability."

"My lawyer would disagree."

"I'm sure. You have excellent lawyers."

Morrison took a card from his outside pocket and extended it. “If you would like to speak again. Anytime.”

Dominic's hand flew out, snatching the card before I could get to it. "She won't need it."

"We'll see."

Morrison walked off, wading back into the throng of donors and politicians. Dominic stared at the card in his hand, then at me. His expression was murderous.

"We're leaving. Now."

He had a bruising grip on my arm as he dragged me towards the door, so quick I stumbled in my heels to match his pace.