HIS EMPIRE, HER HEART

Chapter Three – Now His

POV - ISABELLA

The reception is loud in the way expensive things always are curated, choreographed, relentless.

Aurelia has had her hand at my elbow for the past forty minutes, steering me from one cluster of guests to the next like I am something she has just acquired and cannot wait to show. This is Isabella, Dante's wife. She is lovely, isn't she? Every smile I give costs me something. Every nod. Every gracious thank you for the congratulations I didn't ask for.

A woman in a structured cream jacket leans in close, her perfume sharp enough to make my eyes water.

"You look radiant, Mrs. Moretti." She says it like a compliment. Then, without pausing: "Tell me, wasn't this very sudden? The engagement was so quick. Should we be expecting a little announcement soon?"

I blink at her. The smile stays fixed on my face, but something behind it goes very still.

She means a baby. She is standing in the middle of my wedding reception asking me, with a bright and shameless smile, whether I am pregnant.

"How thoughtful of you to ask," I say, because it is the only response that does not involve throwing my champagne glass.

Aurelia laughs, patting my arm. "Isabella is simply glowing, isn't she? Marriage agrees with her already." She pivots the conversation with the ease of someone who has been managing rooms like this her entire life, and I watch her redirect and charm and perform, and I wonder how she does it. How she has done it for years. How she never looks tired.

A hand closes around my wrist.

Not tight. Just certain.

I turn, and Dante is there, close enough that I have to tilt my chin up to meet his eyes. He is looking past me at Aurelia, his expression pleasant and entirely constructed.

"There you are," he says, directing it somewhere between the two of us. "We have to greet the Ferraris. Business." He says the last word the way people say rain is coming.

Aurelia's face lights with understanding. "Of course, of course. Go, go. You mustn’t keep them waiting." She waves us off and turns back to her circle, already laughing at something someone else has said.

He steers me away, his hand moving from my wrist to the small of my back. I wait until we are clear of the nearest group before I say anything.

“The Ferraris.”

“There are no Ferraris.”

I glance at him sideways. “You lied to your mother.”

He doesn’t look at me. “I extracted you from a conversation that was going nowhere. You can call it what you like.”

I face forward, but the tension in my shoulders loosens, just slightly “She was asking if I was pregnant.”

“I know. I was standing there for thirty seconds before you noticed me.”

“And you waited thirty seconds?”

“Yes.”

“To see how I would handle it.”

I look at him then, a humorless laugh on my lips. “That’s very generous of you.”

“And you handled it exactly how I thought you would.”

I glance at him, irritation rising. “And what does that mean?” My voice is low.

“That you didn’t shut it down outright.”

I bristle. “I did shut it down. I answered.”

“You answered,” he says, “but not as if you were denying it. You let it hang just long enough.”

I stare at him. “So you're saying I let her imply I am pregnant?”

He shrugs faintly, impossibly controlled. “You handled it. That’s all.”

I let a pause hang between us. Then I ask carefully, "Do you still think I orchestrated this?"

"I think you knew exactly what my mother wanted and made yourself convenient."

"Convenient." I let the word sit between us. "You think I chose this? That I looked at my life and decided an arranged marriage to a man who doesn't want me was the best available option?"

"You're here," he says simply.

"So are you." I hold his gaze. "Neither of us is here because we wanted to be."

My chest tightens. I want to fight back. The problem is I already know he would win.

Valerio finds us near the edge of the room, a glass in each hand and a look on his face that means he is about to enjoy himself at someone else's expense.

"Mrs. Moretti." He hands me a glass with a small, genuine bow. "You look extraordinary. I want you to know that every man in this room agrees with me, and at least three of them are going to need to be reminded who you belong to before the evening is over."

I laugh before I can catch it. It comes out real and unguarded and I feel Dante go still beside me.

"Valerio." His voice carries exactly one note of warning.

Valerio turns to him with the serene expression of a man who has been provoking Dante Moretti for years and knows exactly how far he can go. "I'm complimenting your wife. This is what people do at weddings."

"You've been complimenting her for eleven seconds."

"I was building to something."

I take a sip of champagne to hide my smile. Dante's hand has returned to my back, and I notice, quietly, that it has moved slightly higher than before. I shift my weight just a fraction, leaning subtly toward Valerio, laughing a touch longer at something he says, and feel him adjust imperceptibly, drawing me back without breaking stride.

Valerio looks between us with something too knowing in his expression. "Vanessa would love this," he says, almost to himself.

Something shifts in Dante's face. Subtle, but it shifts. "Then perhaps you should call and tell her. From somewhere else."

"Vanessa's in Sardinia," Valerio tells me conversationally. "Military. She's been stationed there for four months. I'm not entirely sure she misses me as much as I miss her, but I choose to remain optimistic."

"She definitely doesn't miss you as much as you miss her," Dante says. "She's a woman of extremely good judgment. It's one of her finest qualities."

"He says this," Valerio tells me, "and then he calls her on my behalf when she goes quiet for too long. Three times. I've counted."

Dante says nothing.

Valerio sets down his empty glass and straightens. His eyes flick to Dante, and whatever passes between them is fast and quiet and clearly understood by both. "I'll leave you to it," he says.

"Isabella." He nods to me, genuine warmth in it, and then he is gone, moving into the crowd with the ease of someone who belongs everywhere.

I feel the absence of his lightness immediately.

"You called her," I say.

"I'm not discussing Valerio's relationship with you."

"Three times."

"Isabella."

I face forward, pressing my lips together. There is a version of this man in my head, the one from the prenup table, cold and looking straight through me, and then there is this one, standing beside me with his hand at my back, who apparently calls his best friend's girlfriend when she goes too quiet. I don’t know what to do with the gap between them.

The MC announces our first dance.

He leads me to the floor without asking. His hand comes to my waist, certain, and then his other hand takes mine, and we begin to move.

I keep my eyes level with his collar. The fabric is dark. Like everything about him.

"You're looking at my tie," he says.

"I'm looking straight ahead."

"My tie is not straight ahead. It's slightly left."

I move my gaze to his chin. He turns me in a slow circle, and I feel the weight of everyone watching us, the warmth of the lights, the swell of the music underneath the murmur of voices.

"Better," he says. "Now a little higher."

"I don't take instruction well."

"I've noticed." His grip at my waist firms just slightly, pulling me a fraction closer. "They're still watching. Give them something to believe in."

I lift my eyes to his. Blue to blue.

His hand tightens against my waist at the same moment, and without warning, a different place pulls at me entirely. The altar. The moment Papa let go of my arm. The warmth of Dante's hand closing around mine for the first time, the strange sense of the ground shifting beneath me. I remember thinking: there is no one between us now.

There is still no one between us now.

The music swells, and then fades. Applause rises in fragments around us. I feel the space narrow. His chest is impossibly close. I sense it before I process it.

He becomes aware that I know. I become aware that he knows that I know.

If he lets go, the moment resets. If he doesn’t, it becomes something else entirely.

My eyes drift briefly to his mouth. I hate that I’m looking. His grip at my waist shifts almost imperceptibly, just enough to hold me without holding me back. The room blurs. The lights, the murmurs, the applause, all of it fades to nothing but the distance between us—and it is smaller than I’ve ever known.

I hesitate. A breath too long. Then I say it, low, more recognition than warning: “Isabel.”

The name lands differently. Soft at the front, firm at the end, a steadying hand before a fall.

My mother used to say it like that. She would call me from the kitchen when dinner was ready, or when I’d gone too quiet in my room, or sometimes for no reason at all except that she wanted me near. Isabel. Like the name itself was a small act of love. Nobody has said it that way since she died. Not Papa, who switched to Princess the week after the funeral and never switched back. Not Aurelia. Not anyone.

From Dante’s mouth it sounds nothing like love. It sounds like a claim. And yet something about it reaches down to a place I keep locked and pulls.

I look away from his eyes. I should not have looked in the first place.

"Don't call me that," I say quietly.

He doesn't answer for a moment. When he speaks, his voice has lost its edge, just barely. "Your mother called you that."

It isn't a question. I don't know how he knows, and I don't ask.

"Yes," I say.

He says nothing more. He just turns me once in the last measure of the music, and lets the name settle between us like something neither of us knows what to do with yet.

The song ends.

I prepare to step back. But he doesn’t let me. His arm stays at my waist, drawing me in rather than releasing me. We are suspended in a moment that is neither movement nor stillness. Every heartbeat is measured. Every breath counted. I sense him waiting, feeling if I will stop him....or if I will let him.

I do not.

The applause rises around us. I say his name, low, soft, a thread of recognition, not warning: “Dante—”

He kisses me before I finish, and it isn’t like the kiss at the altar. That one was controlled, even when it ran over. This one starts as something else entirely.

His mouth claims mine, slow, sure, and there is nowhere to retreat. His hand at the small of my back presses me closer, my chest against his, and the room dissolves. Every glance, every laugh, every light becomes irrelevant. I feel him through the suit. His mouth moves against mine deliberately, inviting rather than demanding, which is somehow worse, because my body responds before my mind has the chance to consent.

I let my lips part.

His tongue finds mine, patient, certain, and I feel heat coil low, tight, threading through me. One hand spreads between my shoulder blades; the other at my waist, holding me in place while leaving just enough freedom to make me ache for more. Every movement is deliberate, as if he already knew exactly how far I would let him go and how far he wanted to push.

I can feel him, taste him, feel the pull of him against me. My fingers press into his jacket, restless, testing, needing, wanting. I am aware of everything: the pressure of his hips, the brush of his chest, the slow, teasing insistence of his tongue. My breath catches, my body hums, my skin heats under his touch.

He pulls back just enough to let me gasp, forehead nearly touching mine, breath mingling, and the smallest shiver runs through me.

“Play the part, Isabel,” he says, low, against my lips. “You wouldn’t want to disappoint them.”

The room exists again, applause rising, lights and laughter filtering back in, but I am still tethered to him. My body remembers every press, every deliberate movement, every claim he made. I step back, forcing the distance, but my chest still tightens. I give the smile they expect, and I do not look at him for two full minutes, because I cannot trust what he would see if I did.

Aurelia appears, radiant, her hands briefly on both our arms. “You two are breathtaking. Now, go get ready for your flight,” she says.

We move together through the crowd, Dante’s hand still at my back, guiding me. The corridor narrows, and the doors of the elevator shine ahead.

The elevator feels impossibly small with the two of us inside. The noise of the reception cuts off the moment the doors close.

I find my voice before he does. "You can't just kiss me like that whenever you feel like it."

He watches the numbers above the doors. "I just did. And I can, anytime."

I cross my arms. My pulse is still unsteady, and I know he knows it. "You kissed me like it meant nothing."

His eyes cut to mine. "Did it?"

The question sits between us. I don’t answer because I don’t like what the answer is.

He turns slightly, facing me, and the space contracts. His voice drops, dangerous. "You're angry because it did mean something. Not to me. To you."

"That's not—"

"Your mouth argues.." His gaze drops briefly, returns. "But the rest of you doesn't."

Heat climbs my throat. "You're doing this on purpose, right?"

"Just reminding you." He lifts a hand; the back of his knuckles brushes my collarbone, light enough to be dismissed, deliberate enough not to be. "That your body listens to me even when your mouth argues, Isabel."

My eyes flick to his mouth. One second. Involuntary. I see him catch it, the almost imperceptible darkening behind his eyes. I have told him everything he needed to know without saying a single word.

"Interesting," he says softly.

"Don't."

He steps closer, not crowding, just removing the buffer I’ve been using as armor. His hand moves to the wall beside my head, unhurried, his mouth hovering a breath above mine. Close enough that I feel the warmth. Close enough that my lips tingle, and I hate that they do.

"Should I prove it again?" he murmurs.

The elevator stops. The doors open. He steps back, straightens his jacket with two short movements. There is a ghost of something at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. Worse than a smile.

"Not yet," he says, answering himself.

He walks out.

I stand in the elevator for a moment after he is gone, one hand pressed flat against my chest, waiting for my heartbeat to make sense again.

He won this round.

He knows he won this round.

I will not allow it to happen again.