Chapter 4 – The Wedding Night
694 Words
The bedroom was too quiet.
Too still.
Aurora sat on the edge of the massive bed, the fabric of her wedding dress pooled around her like spilled milk. Her fingers toyed with the black ring on her finger, twisting it, pulling at it, wishing it would disappear.
But it wouldn’t.
Just like him.
She heard the door open behind her, slow and deliberate. She didn’t turn. She didn’t have to.
She felt him before she saw him.
Dante’s presence filled the room like smoke—dark, choking, inescapable.
“You didn’t run,” he said quietly.
She kept her voice calm. “Wasn’t in the contract.”
He chuckled. “You’re learning already.”
He stepped closer, shedding his jacket, then slowly unbuttoning the cuffs of his black shirt. The silence between them stretched, electric and heavy.
When he finally spoke again, his voice was softer. “You hate me.”
She turned to face him, eyes burning. “Is that a surprise?”
“No. I just wanted to hear you say it.”
She stood, barefoot on cold marble, chin high. “You think this is power, don’t you? Forcing a woman into marriage. Taking what you want.”
His eyes didn’t waver. “This isn’t about power.”
“Then what is it about, Dante? Revenge? Obsession?”
He stepped closer, until only inches remained between them. “You.”
Her breath caught.
Not from fear.
From something far more dangerous.
Because for one horrible second… she believed him.
“You don’t even know me,” she whispered.
“I knew you before you knew me,” he replied. “I’ve watched you laugh. Cry. Fight. I’ve seen what the world does to you. And I’ve seen how you survive it.”
“You don’t love me.”
“No,” he said, voice like velvet and sin. “I don’t love anyone.”
He reached up and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek.
“But I need you.”
She slapped his hand away, suddenly furious. “You don’t get to need me. You don’t get to claim me like some trophy.”
His jaw tensed, and for a moment, something flickered in his gaze—regret, maybe. Or restraint.
“I’m not going to force you,” he said.
She blinked, surprised.
“Not tonight.”
He turned, walking to the balcony, sliding the glass door open. The rain had stopped, but the sky still wore its bruises. The scent of wet stone and roses drifted in.
She followed, almost against her will, barefoot and defiant.
“I expected you to be crueler,” she said quietly.
Dante looked out over the estate, his profile cut sharp against the stormy dawn. “Oh, I can be cruel. I’ve buried men for looking at me wrong. But with you…”
He paused, searching for the words.
“I want more than your body, Aurora.”
Her heart thudded.
“I want your mind. Your fire. Your defiance. And eventually, your surrender.”
She turned to face him fully, arms crossed. “And if you never get it?”
He met her gaze, expression unreadable. “Then I’ll keep trying.”
They stood there, two storms in human skin, breathing the same air but trapped in different wars.
After a long moment, she said, “You want me to sleep in the same bed?”
“I want you wherever you feel safest,” he said. “But know this, Aurora—every part of this house is mine.”
He looked her up and down, eyes lingering on her bare shoulders.
“Even the space between your thoughts.”
Then he left her alone on the balcony, the chill wind biting against her skin.
She didn’t cry.
She didn’t shake.
She just stood there, watching the dawn bleed into the sky, and made herself another silent promise.
She would never belong to him.
Not in body.
Not in heart.
Not even in silence.
But deep down, in the part of her she refused to acknowledge, a question twisted like smoke:
What if a piece of her already did?
- Writer
