Like Father, Like Son

Chapter 8

The bleach burns my nostrils as I scrub the bathroom floor for the third time today.

The housekeeper offered to do this, but cleaning is the only thing that keeps my hands busy enough to stop my mind from wandering to places it shouldn't go.

Not that it works. Every stroke of the brush counts another day of this hollow arrangement—a month of marriage that exists only on paper.

A month of Marco stumbling home at dawn, reeking of other women's perfume.

A month of watching Salvatore from doorways and windows, cataloging the precise way loneliness carves itself into the lines around his eyes.

I attack the grout with renewed violence, as if I can scrub away the memory of that morning outside his study, the way he held that photograph like it contained his entire soul. The jealousy still burns, irrational and consuming.

Who was she?

The cleaning gives my hands purpose while my mind betrays me, replaying every glimpse I've caught of him.

I move to the bedroom, stripping sheets. The laundry basket fills with evidence of a marriage that never was—his pillowcase that hasn't held his head in weeks, the silk nightgowns I wear for no one.

Salvatore passes in the hallway as I'm carrying the basket to the laundry room. He doesn't acknowledge me, but I catch the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his breathing changes when we occupy the same space.

Or maybe I'm imagining it.

Maybe I'm so desperate for connection that I'm inventing chemistry where none exists.

"Mr. Caruso," I say, because the silence feels heavier than words.

He stops but doesn't turn. "Lucia."

Just my name, nothing more, but the way he says it—controlled, careful, like he's handling explosives—makes a heat pool in my stomach. He continues walking, and I'm left holding dirty laundry and the weight of my own pitiful desires.

The day dissolves into more cleaning, more avoiding the truth that I'm losing my mind in this marble mausoleum.

By evening, the bedroom sparkles like a magazine spread.

Marco doesn't come home for dinner. He doesn't call. The housekeeper serves me soup in the kitchen while somewhere in the city my husband is probably between someone else's thighs.

Comparing them favorably to ‘his frigid wife.’

Night falls like a curtain on another wasted day and I lie in bed, counting the crown molding details for the hundredth time as sleep refuses to come. The mansion settles into silence so complete I can hear my own heartbeat, loud and insistent.

The clock reads 2:47 when I give up pretending.

My feet find the floor, and I don't let myself think about where they're taking me. Through dark hallways I've memorized, past paintings of dead Carusos who judge me with oil-paint eyes, up the stairs to the wing I have no business entering.

His door stands before me, solid mahogany that probably cost more than my father's annual salary back when he had one.

No light leaks from beneath. He must be asleep.

The handle turns silently and I slip inside as moonlight through tall windows reveals him.

Salvatore sleeps on his back, one arm thrown above his head, the other resting on his chest. The controlled facade he wears during daylight has melted away, leaving something almost boyish in the curve of his mouth, the way his hair falls across his forehead.

I move closer, testing floorboards for creaks that never come. The bed is massive, built for two but holding only one, and the emptiness on the other side calls to me like gravity.

The mattress barely shifts as I lie down beside him, careful to maintain distance, to not disturb this stolen moment. Up close, I can see the silver threading through his hair more clearly, the faint lines that bracket his mouth.

"Joana…" The name escapes his lips, barely a whisper, but it lands like thunder in my chest.

Before I can think better of it, before logic can stop me, I lean close enough that my breath touches his ear.

"It's only me," I whisper, the lie sliding out smooth as silk.

He shifts, still caught between sleeping and waking, and his hand reaches out with the unconscious certainty of muscle memory. His fingers find my face, warm and impossibly gentle, and the tenderness in that touch unravels me.

This is how he touched her.

I lean forward and press my lips to his, soft and careful, tasting the mint he must have brushed his teeth with, the faint hint of the wine from dinner.

For one perfect second, he kisses me back with sleepy sweetness, his hand sliding to cup my jaw with heartbreaking reverence.

Then his eyes open.

Recognition hits like a blade sliding between ribs. The softness doesn't just vanish—it dies, murdered by the cold precision of a man who's killed things far more precious than moments.

He moves with lethal grace, standing from the bed in one fluid motion, but his eyes—God, his eyes drag down my body before he catches himself. And that split second of hunger makes my pulse spike with equal parts fear and sick arousal.

"What are you doing here?" His voice drops to that register that I am sure makes grown men piss themselves.

But his gaze keeps betraying him, flickering to where my nightgown has ridden up my thighs. "I couldn't sleep, and I thought maybe…"

"You thought?" He steps closer, and suddenly the spacious bedroom feels like a coffin. "You came into my bed, and you thought what?"

The air between us turns electric. His jaw clenches like he's fighting himself, and when moonlight catches his face, I see it—the war between what he should do and what he wants to do.

"Salvatore, I just wanted…"

His hand moves so fast I don't see it until his fingers are around my throat.

"Don Caruso," he corrects, but his voice catches slightly when I unconsciously arch into his touch. "You seem to have forgotten who I am. Men have died for less disrespect than what you've shown tonight."

"Marco's with someone else right now…"

My voice comes out breathless, and I see his eyes darken at the sound.

"Marco is an idiot child." His grip tightens just enough to make breathing require effort, but his other hand, the one that should stay at his side, hovers near my hip like it's magnetized. "But you? You know exactly what you're doing. Coming here in this thin nightgown, lying beside me, putting that mouth on mine..."

He trails off, his gaze dropping to my lips, and for three heartbeats we're suspended in terrible possibility.

Then he jerks back, releasing my throat like I've burned him.

"You're playing a game you can't win, little girl." He towers over me now, but I catch him looking—at the curve of my neck where his hand was, at the way my chest rises and falls. "I've made examples of people who thought proximity to me meant permission."

"Then why are you shaking?"

The question escapes before I can stop it, soft and genuinely confused.

I stand, and the movement makes my nightgown shift, baring more skin. His eyes track the motion helplessly before snapping back to my face.

"Enough."

The word comes out rough, strained and he turns away, but I can see his hands shaking slightly as he pours himself water from the bedside carafe.

"You think because I'm a man, because you're..." He sets the glass down too hard, water sloshing. When he turns back, his control is fraying at the edges. "Go to your room, Lucia. Now."

"You felt something. I know you did."

"What I felt…" He stops, jaw working, and for one impossible moment I think he might admit it. Then his face hardens into marble. "What I felt was a moment's confusion. Nothing more. You're my son's wife. That's all you are."

But even as he says it, he takes a step closer. His body betrays every word—eyes dropping to my mouth, pupils dilated in the moonlight, chest rising with breaths that come too fast for a man claiming indifference.

"Then why are you getting closer?"

His jaw clenches as he crosses the remaining space between us in two strides, backing me against the door.

"Get out." The words emerge torn from somewhere deep, but his body blocks the door, trapping me between wood and flesh. "Get out before I do something we'll both regret."

The threat should terrify me, but he's leaning down now, his forehead almost touching mine, his hands braced on either side of my head like he needs the door to keep him standing.

"You keep telling me to leave," I whisper, "but you're the one blocking the door."

"Lucia." His whole body shudders when my name comes out broken, desperate. "If you don't leave right now, I won't be responsible for what happens. And afterward, I'll hate us both for it."

The admission that there's an "afterward" in his mind, that he's thought about it, makes my breath catch.

His mouth is so close I can taste his exhale, feel the war raging in the minimal space between us.

"You need to go," he says, but his hand drops from the door to hover near my hip, fingers flexing like they're fighting not to grab me. "Now."

I reach behind me for the door handle, and the movement brings our bodies flush for just a second. He makes a sound, pain or want or both, and finally, finally steps back.

As I open the door, something makes me turn. His face in the moonlight is devastated, beautiful in its wreckage. "I'm sorry you lost her," I whisper.

He flinches like I've shot him, his whole body going rigid. For a moment, I think he might grab me, pull me back.

"Get out." The words are barely audible.

I stumble into the dark hallway, and the door closes between us. My throat is bearing the ghost of his fingers, my body trembling with need and fear so twisted together I can't separate them.

He wants me.

His mouth said no but his body screamed yes, and that contradiction is more dangerous than any threat he could make.