Page 84 of I Would Beg For You

A sudden fit of anger surges through me, and I’m tempted to send the basket and all its contents crashing onto the tiledfloor. I don’t need any of this. The very idea of champagne or any alcohol at all makes my stomach sour. The imagined reek of caviar makes me want to throw up. The chocolate, well maybe that I can get on board with. But what I really need? I need Valentino. I need my anchor, my rock.

I need my husband.

This has been going on for far too long! I won’t let anything control me, take away my agency anymore, so this means I need to take matters into my own hands. Something has to give, and it won’t be me.

Rage surging through me, I stalk the house for Marco. I find him in a sitting room next to Valentino’s study. Twilight is falling outside, though the lamps aren’t yet on inside.

“I am arming the alarm system on these two floors in five minutes,” I tell him. “You better make it below before I do.”

The basement is a self-contained apartment where he and his family have been staying while here. Tonight, I need our privacy.

Marco chuckles as he gets up. “He’s in a lot of trouble.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

He brushes past me, then stops and comes back.

“Give him hell…but not too much, okay?” he says with a mischievous smile and a wink.

I have to stifle my own smile coming up because of his light teasing.

Marco drops a soft kiss on my cheek. “You’re good for him. Never forget that.”

His words fuel the fire in me even more, and after making sure he’s headed below, I go around the house arming the alarm system. There, we’ll be safe this way.

Next, I stalk to Valentino’s study and knock, pushing the door open before he can answer me.

“Naomi,” he says, looking up from a document in his hand and blinking at me.

“Put that away.”

“What?”

I nod at his desk. “This. Whatever it is you’re doing.”

He huffs, which just serves to enrage me even further.

“I’ve got work—”

“No,” I cut him off.

Fire is raging inside me now. I can’t bear to be with him and be so close yet so far, to have him be mine yet anything but. All of these emotions are gathering, storming, burning inside me, and I don’t want to cull them, to tell them to calm down, to sit tight and…what? Behave?

“Naomi—”

The slight hint of impatience in his tone rips the top off, the storm blowing out of me and tumbling away, obliterating every bit of sense that might’ve been left in me.

“No, you don’t have work,” I bite out. “What you have is me. Here, with you, but then again not. What you have now is a wife, and I won’t be one of those discarded things who suddenly turns into a sainted virgin once vows have been spoken so you can then go to your slutty mistress who will fulfill all your depraved fantasies while your wife waits patiently for you at home!”

A part of me is aware I’m not making sense. I must’ve watched too many Mafia movies and TV shows when I was younger, to be spewing such outdated and frankly ridiculous claims right now.

“What is it you want from me, Naomi?”

If I hadn’t still been lost in my spiel, which was still rolling itself out in my mind, I would’ve paid heed to the quiet in his tone.

“It’s Mrs. Andretti now, you asshole. I’m your wife, and as such, I have rights.”

In a flash, he’s out of his chair and rushing to my side. His hands close on the curve of my shoulders, and he’s whipped me around and pressed my ass into his desk. One knee slips betweenmy legs as he braces his hands on either side of me, his big body looming over me as his narrowed eyes bore into mine.

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