His Ruthless Claim

Chapter Two-The wedding night

CHAPTER TWO

The silk robe the housekeeper had left for her, brushed softly against her skin, far too luxurious for someone who felt like a prisoner.

Three days ago, she was a daughter. Tonight she is a wife, a wife to a man she barely knew.

Standing before him in that study and just realizing why he had married her, she wasn’t sure what to feel.

Anger, betrayal, calmness. She was lost in her emotions.

While he stared at her, she realized how hot he looked that night.

His white shirt partially buttoned, sleeves rolled to his forearms, the shapes and lines of his face were softened by the moonlight, and then there was this intensity in his dark eyes that made her want to kiss him.

Now she gets why the women rushed after him, the kind of man old Sicilian legends warned women about.

Danger wrapped in beauty.

.

This is not the man she would be giving her virginity to. Or so she thought.

“You are not afraid of me?” he asked, bringing her back to reality.

Kathryn tilted her head slightly.

“Should I be?” Alessandro moved closer.

Each step felt deliberate, like a predator moving towards its prey.

“Most people are”

The wind lifted a strand of hair across her face.

Without thinking, Alessandro reached out and brushed it away.

The touch was gentle, unexpectedly so.

The kind that sends shivers down your thighs.

His fingers lingered for half a second longer than necessary.

Kathryn caught her breath.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

The sea roared softly below them, as if the entire Mediterranean was holding its breath.

“You married me to protect me,” she said.

“I married you because you were already caught up in a war you didn’t know existed.”

“And now?”

He looked at her. Now there was something deeper in his eyes. Something dangerous.

“Now you belong to me”

The words should have sounded like a threat. But they carried a strange warmth.

Kathryn searched his face, trying to understand the man standing before her. The ruthless billionaire. The feared heir of the Valenti’s Empire.

Yet right now, under the silver moonlight, he looked almost… human.

“You talk about me like I am a possession,” she murmured.

Alessandro stepped closer.

So close she could feel the heat of his body against the cool night air.

“In Sicily," he said softly, “a man protects what belongs to him.”

Kathryn’s heart thudded against her ribs. “What if I don’t want to belong to anyone?”

A faint smile appeared on his lips.

“Then you married the worst possible man ever.”

Kathryn shivered and he noticed almost immediately. He wrapped her in his arms. Soft and Gentle.

She looked up at him.

“I thought mafia bosses weren’t known for kindness.”

His eyes darkened slightly.

“We’re not.”

He gently pushed her against the table, trapping her between him and the table.

“Don’t confuse kindness for interest.”

Her pulse quickened.

“And what exactly interests you about me?”

For a long moment, he studied her. The moonlight danced in her eyes. There was a defiance there, Fire.

A spirit that refused to bend.

Finally, Alessandro spoke.

“Everyone else in my world wants something from me.”

His voice dropped lower. “But you…” His gaze slid down his face slowly. “….look at me like you’re still deciding whether I’m worth trusting.”

Whether you made the right choice or you could have just fallen off that cliff.

Kathryn swallowed. “Maybe I am.”

Something electric passed between them. A tension neither of them had expected.

Alessandro lifted his hand and gently tilted her chin upward.

The gesture was slow… Careful, almost reverent.

“You shouldn’t trust me, Kat.”

His voice was barely beyond a whisper.

“Men like me don’t build empires by being good.”

Her breath brushed his lips.

“And yet,” she whispered back, “you saved me and my father.”

Alessandro didn’t answer. Because at that moment, the distance between them had vanished completely.

The kiss happened slowly. Like the tide creeping towards the shore. His lips met hers with surprising softness, as if testing whether she would pull away.

She didn’t.

The world narrowed to the warmth of his hands on her waist as he grabbed her and placed her on the table, slowly sliding his hands up her thighs.

For the first time since the wedding, Kathryn forgot she was trapped in a dangerous marriage as she was willing to give herself to him.

And as Alessandro took off his clothes while staring at her lovely face, he forgot that love was weakness.

But he had only one job that night, to give his virgin bride the best wedding night she could ever imagine.

But somewhere beyond the cliffs, far out in the dark of the Mediterranean…

A black car was already driving away from the Valenti’s estate. And inside it sat a man holding a photograph of Kathryn DE SANTIS.

A slow cruel smile spread across his face.

“Soon” he murmured. Because in Sicily, love stories rarely began with peace.

And the war Alessandro had tried to protect his new wife from…had already begun.