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I was tired of being the sheep, and it was past time for me to become the wolf.

Ironically, perhaps, though I didn’t see my husband for almost three weeks after that, it was the next day that I woke to the sharp sound of a canine barking in my ear and found Bonnie and Gertie clustered around my bed beaming at the Doberman puppy sitting on my belly.

The little beast was a gorgeous black and caramel, its ears undocked, tail a little stump that nonetheless wagged back and forth as intelligent brown eyes stared at me.

“A gift,” Bonnie said, “from your husband.”

She handed me a small envelope, which I opened with one hand to read the card so I could scoop the puppy close with the other.

Wife,

If you want to protect yourself, by all means, go mad. But I will not leave you without a weapon. The dog goes where you do. His training begins tomorrow, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Perhaps this is one male you’ll allow close to you.

D

I stared at the card for too long, reading it three times before I crumpled it in my palm and tossed it on the nightstand. I hauled the puppy up onto my chest and grinned as he licked avidly at my cheek.

“Well, Cerberus,” I said, naming my new and improved guard dog after the one in Roman mythology that protected the gates of hell. “You are the first and last gift I will accept from my husband.”

As if in total agreement, Cerberus barked in my face and then nibbled on my chin.

Already, I liked him more than my previous keeper.

Chapter Fourteen

Fiammetta

Two years later

It was a rare occasion that I went out on the town anymore with my husband. I had meant what I said the day after I rescued myself from my own kidnapping: I would not play his arm candy if he was going to offer me so little in return.

But tonight, I had my own reasons for agreeing to go out with Dario that had nothing to do with playing the role of his pretty little wife.

North River Casino was the only legal gambling establishment in Chicago, and it was, of course, owned by the Ferretti Corp. I had no interest in gambling, but Dario liked to be seen with me on his arm walking the floor so we could greet some of the high rollers and be seen by society. I hadn’t seen my husband in over a week, but Dario’s long absences and frequent mood swings were nothing unusual to me after all this time.

Tonight, he was his typical cold, ruthless self, greeting me in the foyer of the house with a curt nod before sweeping me down the stairs to the garage, where he commandeered his gleaming black Ferrari to take us to the casino. I was dressed in my favorite Saint Aubyn black dress and a huge black diamond I’d bought myself for my last birthday nestled in the hollow of my throat. Gertie had done my hair in big rollers, so it slithered in silky, voluminous curls over my shoulders and back.

I looked beautiful—even I could admit it—but I could have been a shrub for all that my husband admired me.

So it felt good to get praise from some of the men on the floor of North River, their eyes twinkling as they paid me compliments. Dario was unmoved, which infuriated me because sometimes, in the right mood, he could be passionately jealous, dragging me down a hallway to claim my lips in a brutal kiss or suck a hickey into my neck so that everyone could see his mark.

I tried not to let it haunt me, these wild swings from jealous, possessive lover with an occasional sweet streak—moments of rare shared laughter, a handful of meals together where we actually spoke, random looks from those glacial eyes filled with something that could be easily mistaken for yearning—to days like this when my husband was a veritable stranger.

“I have some business with Emmett,” Dario informed me after we’d done our round of the floor, pressing a hand into my lower back so he could curl me into his side to whisper intimately in my ear.

I suppressed my involuntary shudder because I knew it was all for show.

Though I valiantly tended to the flames of hatred for my husband on a twenty-four seven rotation, there were still moments that I found his animal magnetism more than I could handle. Celibacy made me taciturn and irrational, so I indulged in the not-infrequent times my husband woke me up in the middle of the night with his cock thrusting deep inside my wet pussy, or the moments he allowed me to lock his office door and fuck him like a toy while he spoke on the phone or pretended to be preoccupied with business on his computer. Apparently, I had a kink for somnophilia a mile wide and a need to be used sexually that was a direct contrast to my fierce need for freedom and independence in every other aspect of my life.

It seemed I was capable of hating Dario Ferretti mind and soul, but never for long with my body.

Truthfully, I’d stopped even trying.

So I skated my hand back through the thick hair at the base of his neck to press his mouth deeper into my neck, until his lips were at my throat. I could feel something of his smile against me before he nipped my skin with his teeth and pulled back, face once again implacable.

“Fine, I’ll stay down here and play some poker,” I said mildly. “I’m sure Tony has a game going in the back I could take part in.”

Dario’s mouth thinned because playing poker wasn’t something a good society wife should do, but I didn’t give a fuck. The one time he had suggested it was inappropriate, I had suggested that infidelity was inappropriate, too, and he should be grateful I had chosen the lesser of two sins.