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But I also felt a bit less shaky and a lot less of a wuss. Because I hadn’t called Mia to get me out of the mess. And I was now determined to handle it on my own.

I probably should have alerted the staff to my whereabouts and had the bodyguards accompany me to the park for my run—because Dante was liable to freak out big time when he found me gone and go into full He-Who-Shall-Always-Be-Obeyed mode again.

But I was Dante Malvini’s wife now, not his captive. And the first order of business was to find my own power in this relationship, to start standing up for myself—not just in the bedroom. And to stop letting him call all the shots, like I’d assured Mia I would when I’d been so sure about this marriage.

I hadn’t realised at the time exactly how important that was. But I did now. Because finding my backbone wasn’t just about unlocking lots of hot make-up sex any more—it was also about not allowing myself to become an emotional punch bag while I figured out who Dante really was… And who I was, too. And if our two-day-old marriage had ever had a chance… And, if it did, whether or not Dante—as well as myself—were capable of doing the work to save it.

‘No biggie then, Evie,’ I whispered to myself as I ran over the crossing and headed into Central Park.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Dante

‘Where the fuck is my wife?’ I yelled at the top of my voice as I raced down the internal stairs into the downstairs annexe where the staff and my bodyguards lived.

I had barely slept, the memory of Eva’s face—pale and worn—the sadness and devastation in her eyes during the evening event that had never seemed to end, coming back to haunt me as I struggled to fall asleep without her in my bed. But when I had drifted into dreams, all I had been able to see was my mother’s ravaged face and my father’s anger and disgust. Their faces had blended into nightmares of that terrible day, the puppy’s blood soaking my hands, my mother’s wails of distress, my father’s hand snapping my head back again and again as pain radiated across my cheek and into my heart.

I hadn’t slept for long. Only to wake with the hollow pain under my ribs I remembered from so long ago. The result of a rejection that had nearly destroyed me…and had certainly destroyed my mother. A horror Eva had brought back with her melodramatic reaction last night.

Resentment and defiance charged through me as I marched through the dressing salon towards the adjoining room Eva had run off to the night before.

I would not give her the twenty-four hours I had promised her, why should I? She was my wife. I wanted her, I needed her. How dare she reject me?

She belonged in my bed, in my arms. I would fuck her until she begged me for release and make her want me again the only way I knew how.

I forced down the prickle of guilt. Because I knew my angry reaction last night to that insignificant man’s flirting had not been about him. I had been jealous, yes, but I had also felt insecure in an environment I did not like or understand—while Eva had been confident and at ease, and stunningly beautiful. My desperation to reassert my control over her—and make every man there aware that she belonged to me in the most basic way possible had been instant and unstoppable, but now it made me feel inadequate, and like that rejected, discarded boy again—wanting to feel worthy of a man who had never valued me.

But when I slammed open the door of the guest bedroom and found it empty, the ice-blue gown strewn on a chair, panic had ricocheted through me.

Had she run away? Had she left me? Had she rejected me, too?

I ground my teeth, desperately trying to control the tumultuous emotions making my heart beat out of my chest, sweat dampen my palms and my jaw ache with the remembered pain of that day—when my father had hit me repeatedly with loathing in his eyes. And the devastating memory of Eva’s face when she had fisted her fingers to control the urge to slap me, too. But I had seen her anger with me in her eyes.

Had she hated me in that moment…? The way he had?

‘Capo, what is wrong?’ one of the bodyguards asked as they both lurched up from the table where they had been eating breakfast.

‘My wife is not in the house.’ I ground out the words.

‘Are you sure?’ the other one asked.

‘Of course I’m fucking sure, I have searched every room,’ I said, not caring if I sounded deranged. Not even caring that these men would now know my wife had not slept in my bed, as she should have. ‘We must find her. She is not to leave the house without my permission.’

They both nodded and went to grab their gun holsters.

I turned, ready to head upstairs and put on shoes and a shirt to join the search, while cursing my stupidity. Why the hell had I not added a tracker to her phone? Forbidden her to leave the house. Tied her to the damn bed if necessary.

But just as I was about to race up the stairs, I spotted movement in the townhouse’s garden. The panic strangling me let go its death grip on my throat.

Eva… In her running clothing, she was walking through the iron gate in the garden wall.

I watched, transfixed, as she closed the gate, locked it and then tugged out earbuds to stuff into a pocket in her leggings, before walking to a tree to do some stretches.

Her lithe, toned legs and lush backside were perfectly displayed in the tight sweat-stained yoga pants, while a fitted T-shirt cupped the high curve of her breasts. Her wild hair had been tied back in a knot, accentuating her heart-shaped face, while her soft skin, devoid of make-up, glowed in the early spring sunlight, flushed with exertion.

My heart slowed to thump my ribs. I had never seen anything more beautiful in my entire life.

The longing for her hit me hard, swelling my cock, and radiated out through my tired body—focusing my exhausted mind, while turning the terrifying panic to desperate need.