***
Shortly after midnight, Dante and I excused ourselves. The hotel had offered us their biggest suite for the night, but Dante preferred to return home and I was actually glad. I was eager to finally move into Dante’s house. Although, I was also worried since he’d shared it with deceased wife. It was probably filled with many memories. Bibiana crossed her fingers as I walked past her and I couldn’t help but smile.
CHAPTER FOUR
I was glad it was time for our wedding night. My first real wedding night. I’d waited too long.
On the drive to Dante’s mansion at Chicago’s Goldcoast, neither of us spoke. It seemed to become a loathsome tradition for us. I busied myself watching traffic through the passenger window while I desperately tried to hide my rising nervousness. Was it possible to feel excitement and dread at the same time?
Dante slowed as we approached a huge light-brown three-story mansion. Wrought iron gates swung open when Dante pressed a button in the dashboard and we drove through, then headed for the double garage. My family’s mansion wasn’t too far away. It was smaller than Dante’s home, as was to be expected. The Underboss couldn’t have a bigger house than his Capo.
After Dante had parked next to a Mercedes SUV, he got out. He walked around the car and opened my door for me, then held out his hand and helped me out of the car, which was difficult with my dress. His hand was warm and steady. I was always surprised not to find his skin ice-cold as his persona. He released me the moment I stood, and I almost reached for his hand but stopped myself. I didn’t want to push him. Maybe he could only ever let loose behind closed doors.
He led me through a side door into the lobby of the mansion. The floor and the staircase were dark hardwood and a chandelier cast a soft glow down on us. It was strangely quiet. I knew Dante had a maid and a cook, who handled the household for him.
“I gave Zita and Gaby the day off,” he said off-handedly. Could he read me that easily?
“That’s good,” I said, then cringed at how that might have sounded. It wasn’t as if I thought we’d entertain the entire house with our bedroom noises, but I preferred to have total privacy for our first night together.
Dante headed straight for the staircase, then stopped with a hand on the banister to look back at me. I’d halted in the middle of the lobby but quickly rushed toward him and followed him upstairs. My stomach fluttered with nerves.
This was my second wedding night, but I was almost as inexperienced as I’d been all those years ago, something I really hoped would change tonight. Antonio and I had kissed occasionally at the beginning of our marriage, and he’d even touched my breasts through my nightgown a few times, but when it became clear to me that he wasn’t into it, we abandoned those futile attempts at intimacy.
I wanted to become a real wife, a real woman, and unlike Antonio, I knew Dante was perfectly capable of consuming our marriage. But that was also my problem. What if Dante noticed I was a virgin? Could I hide it from him? Maybe if I asked him to extinguish the lights, I could hide my discomfort or blame it on nerves over being with someone other than Antonio. But what if he felt my hymen? What would I tell him then? I should have used a vibrator to get rid of it, but the romantic part didn’t want to lose my virginity to a device. It was ridiculous.
My thoughts were interrupted when Dante opened the door to the master bedroom and made an inviting gesture for me to go in. I walked past him, my wedding dress swooshing gently with the movement. I flashed him a quick glance in passing to gauge his mood, but as usual his expression was unreadable. The king sized bed was black wood with black satin covers. For a moment I wondered if he’d kept it black since his wife’s death. And then a worse thought took its place: was it the same bed he’d shared with his first wife?