In Your Clutches

Part 22: Red Everywhere

AMELIA

I slipped around the corner and immediately steadied myself against the wall. It was only a matter of seconds before I crumbled in front of him while he stared at me with those silver eyes which searched for my every secret.

He had towered over me, instantly turning up the summer heat just by being so damn close. I'd be lying if I said he didn't intimidate me. With every step that man took, he left footprints of complete dominion, the air around him burning with the authority he exuded.

But I'd be damned if I showed just an ounce of how he unnerved me. Plus, it seemed my new husband was a liar too, lying about having an early night when I saw his late-night visitor aka Delancy walk into the house with her five-inched high heels.

I had asked Asher about his night and just look at his response: "I had an early night."

I hated that it bugged me, that I had this pressing need to know who she was, but more importantly who she was to my husband. A husband you loathed. A husband you hardly knew.

That morning I had woken up with a renewed determination to show Asher that I wasn't just a fragile Princess who would be bent and moulded to his will.

For years I had the backbone to stand up against people, and the talent to not keep my mouth shut whenever I had something to say... until he played the one card I couldn't trump. Dad.

Well, Asher had that to his fair advantage, but I didn't care who he was. I would not allow him to suppress me. In the public eye and in front of family, I'd play my part, but I'd bring it like a fucking house on fire within these walls.

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It had been exactly two months since Asher and I had been married and the entire time had been filled with awkward short conversations, ignoring, avoiding and arguing. Considering our so-well-get-along, we hardly looked each others ways to even blurt a good morning.

He worked as long as he wanted sometimes never coming home at the end of the night and I feared he was sleeping around to make up for the lack of love in our relationship. I shouldn't be jealous though, right?

When asking Marco how much Asher worked, it didn't compare to the number I presumed he worked. There were a handful of times when I mentioned to Rufina how Asher was working and not being at home, she informed me he wasn't. So where exactly was my husband going if not at work? A bar? A strip club? Delancy? His mistress' apartment? If she had any?

All the endless possibilities of where the most powerful man in Chicago could go-could do. My mind conjured up all these scenarios and ultimately I had a doubt I was being made crazy. I knew I should be as aloof as he is, but I couldn't and I hated how much I'd grown to want something from him.

He had something in him which left me drooling. I always wanted to have the relationship my parents had, but they couldn't continue it for long. I always dreamed of a relationship-since dating was prohibited by my dad-and dreamed of someone to cuddle with, to kiss, to love.

I was not saying my life was perfect, yes—I lived in a huge mansion, Asher and his family had loads of money, thus making us a powerful family, but as the wife of a Mafia ruler I had no freedom. I only had one person whom I could always talk to. She treated me as her daughter she never had. But Rufina, too, was a part of the same lifestyle.

She tried her best to comfort me from Asher's honest bluntness but I personally couldn't handle him. He and his awkward mood swings were just terrible.

I had graduated from the most renowned catholic school. My virtue, according to tradition and my dad, needed protection at all cost. No boys or men except Jason were allowed near me without an escort present.