Page 108 of Brutal Crown

“We should go home,” Marco says after a while.

I don’t want to leave with him, but a part of me feels guilty. We say our pleasantries before he leads me out of the room.

Silence stretches between us as we get into his car. He’s driving, and I’m seated beside him in front. At one point, he reaches for my hand. I let him take it.

“You looked tired and bored,” he chuckles softly. “I didn’t want to keep you there for too long.”

“Thank you.”

He glances at me as we pull into the estate. “I want us to start sleeping in the same room. We’re engaged. People might start to talk if they notice the woman I got pregnant doesn’t even sleep in the same room as me.”

I don’t say anything.

But when we get inside, I head straight to my room. I kick off my heels the moment I step in and let out the breath I’ve been holding all night. I take off my dress and grab my robe to go shower. I don’t want to think about anything. Not what Marco said to me or the way Francesco looked at me. I just want to take a shower and go to bed.

The shower is long, mostly because I spend over thirty minutes scrubbing my body while my mind wanders to a place I don’t know. When I step out, I tie my robe around my waist and walk to the vanity.

I’m applying lotion to my arms when I hear him come in.

Marco shuts the door behind him before turning to look at me. I gulp as I see him watching me through the mirror.

“You looked beautiful tonight,” he says. “I almost couldn’t control myself.”

I glance up at him through the reflection. “I played my part.”

He walks closer. Slowly, in that calm, confident way of his. Like he owns the room. Like he owns me.

“I know you get uncomfortable at events like that, knowing we have to appear a certain way in front of all those people,” he murmurs, leaning down to press a kiss to my shoulder. “But it’s more than just an appearance now, isn’t it?”

His hands slide down to rest on my hips.

“We’re going to be a family,” he continues, but his voice is like he is trying to convince both of us. “You, me, and the baby. It’s time we started acting like one.”

He turns me gently to face him, fingers trailing up my spine with a kind of reverence that feels more rehearsed than real. A performance dressed up as tenderness.

“Do not even think about rejecting me this time, baby,” he says, his breath brushing my cheek softly, but edged with a clear warning.

I swallow the words that rise to my lips—unforgiving words that would cut through this fragile moment—and instead I say nothing. I let the silence wrap around us. I let it choke the truth down.

Then he leans in.

The kiss is warm. His lips are soft, moving against mine with the kind of ease that only comes from practice, not passion. He knows what to do, how to angle his mouth, how to press just hard enough to make it feel like something it isn’t.

I try. God, I try. I shut everything else out—the noise in my head, the ache in my chest—and kiss him back. Because that’s what I’m supposed to do, isn’t it? This is the script I was handed.

He pulls me up to my feet, hands circling my waist like he’s claiming territory. I bury my fingers in his hair, trying to fake that spark, that flicker of something real beneath the motions.

But it doesn’t feel the same.

As much as I want to fall into the moment, as much as I want to believe this could be enough, my body won’t lie for me. It stays silent. Unmoved.

And all I can think is how easy it is to fake a kiss. How easy it is to mistake possession for love.

He pulls me to the bed beside us, and we collapse on the soft surface together. His kisses get rougher, hotter, and more insistent. His body slides over mine as he grinds into me. All I can think about is how Francesco and I have never had sex on a bed. We’ve never savored each other patiently, knowing that we have all the time in the world. Our undeniable passion is only permitted to happen beneath the shadows. Hidden. Rushed. Secret.

When Marco’s hands slide under my robe, my body stiffens, and I pull back.

“Marco, please, don’t make me do this,” I whisper.