The Don's Contract Bride

Chapter 1 - Claimed Before The First Course

The moment Luca Romano stepped into the private dining room of Il Toscano, every head turned. At six-foot-four and built like a weapon, the don of Chicago’s most ruthless family didn’t need to speak to own the room. I was afraid of him. But when those ink black eyes locked on me across the candlelit table, everything else disappeared.

Luca moved like a predator who already knew the outcome of the hunt. He had a thick head of dark hair and dark stubble on his jaw. He wore a black suit with black shirt open at the throat and the faintest shadow of ink peeking above the collar. He had the look of a man mothers warned their daughters about and daughters dreamed of anyway.

My father, who I’d met for the first time only a few days ago, stood to greet him, all fake smiles and clasped forearms. “Luca. You’re early.”

“I’m never early, Marco,” Luca answered, voice low and rough like whiskey over ice. “Everyone else is simply late.”

Then those dark eyes slid back to me.

I forced myself to stay seated, my spine straight, my chin held high. Bella Harlow, eighteen years old. A week ago I had a mother and a last name that meant nothing. I had been raised to believe my father died before I was born. Now she was gone, and the man standing up to greet Luca had told me to call him Father.

Luca pulled out the chair beside me - my father’s chair - and sat without asking. Too close. Heat rolled off him, along with the scent of cedar and gunpowder that made my pulse stutter.

“Leave us,” he told the room without raising his voice.

Chairs scraped. My father hesitated half a second, humiliation flickering across his face, then followed his men out. The door clicked shut. Candlelight flickered. Suddenly the private dining room felt the size of a confessional.

Luca leaned back, studying me the way a wolf studies a deer it’s already decided to chase.

“So you’re the price,” he said.

I lifted my chin. “And you’re the monster I’m being fed to. We’re both disappointed.”

One corner of his mouth curved - not quite a smile, more like a warning. “Careful, princess. Monsters bite.”

He’d called me princess, and the word rolled over my skin like a caress I didn’t ask for.

“I’m not afraid of you,” I lied.

His gaze dropped to my mouth, lingered, then came back up. “Good. Fear is boring.”

He reached for the bottle of Barolo in the center of the table, poured two glasses, and slid one toward me. Our fingers brushed. A spark shot straight between my thighs and I hated myself for it.

“Drink,” he ordered.

I took the glass if only to have something to do with my hands. The wine was rich, expensive, and did nothing to cool the heat pooling low in my belly.

He watched me swallow, throat working, then leaned in until his lips almost grazed my ear. “Tell me, Bella. Did your father mention the clause he signed?”

My heart slammed against my ribs. “There is no clause. If I marry you, the war ends. That’s the deal.”

Luca’s hand settled on my bare knee under the tablecloth - big, warm, impossible to ignore. His thumb traced a slow circle that made me clench every muscle I had.

“There’s always a clause,” he murmured. “Page seven. Until our first child is born, you belong to me completely. Body, mouth, every pretty little sound you make when I’m inside you. No separate bedrooms. No birth control. No escape.”

The glass trembled in my fingers. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?” His hand slid an inch higher, calloused fingertips brushing the hem of my dress. “Ask yourself why your father looked so relieved when he left.”

I should have slapped him. Should have thrown the wine in his face and run away. Instead my thighs parted a fraction of their own traitorous accord.

Luca noticed - of course he did - and made a low, approving sound that turned my n*****s to aching points against silk.

“See?” he whispered. “Your body already knows who it belongs to.”

His mouth hovered a breath away from mine. I could taste the wine on his exhale, feel the scrape of his stubble if I leaned forward even a centimeter.

“Say yes, Bella,” he coaxed, voice velvet and steel. “Say yes and I’ll have you on this table before the second course arrives. Say no… and I’ll still have you. Just slower.”

My lips parted. I was mortified by his forwardness but, God help me, I wanted to say yes. Wanted those brutal hands tearing my dress, wanted him to erase my virginity before I could say no.

The door swung open.

"Boss," one of his soldiers barked, eyes averted, "we've got a problem. Moretti soldiers outside. They're armed."

Luca didn't move his hand from my thigh. If anything, his grip tightened — possessive, branding.

"Whose crew," he said. It wasn’t a question. More like a demand.

The soldier hesitated. "Don't recognize the plates. Not Marco's usual men. Nobody called them in. They're not on the list."

Something shifted behind Luca's eyes — brief, gone before I could name it. Not fear. Something colder.

“Tell them,” he said without looking away from me, “if a single one of them steps foot in this restaurant before I’ve finished with my bride, I’ll burn their entire territory to the ground.”

The soldier swallowed hard and disappeared.

The door shut again.

Luca’s forehead rested against mine. “Clock’s ticking, princess. You want to come on my tongue before or after we say I do?”

I was shaking now, furious and soaked and utterly lost.

For half a second - so brief I almost thought I'd imagined it - his hand at my thigh went still. Not gentle. Just still, the way a man goes still when he's caught himself wanting something he hadn't planned on wanting. His fingers curled once, slow, into a fist, then opened again, deliberate, like he was putting something back where it belonged. Then it was gone, and the corner of his mouth curved back into the look of someone who knew exactly what it was doing.

He brushed his lips over mine - just once, soft as sin - then pulled back.

“The wedding’s tonight,” he said, standing and buttoning his jacket like he hadn’t just unraveled me with a touch. “Run if you want. But know this: I always catch what’s mine.”

He walked out, leaving me alone with the taste of him on my lips and the echo of his promise burning between my legs.

I had exactly thirty seconds to decide whether to flee… or follow the man who’d just put his mouth on mine.

I tried to remember how I even got here. And how much my life had changed in the last few days.