The Mafia Princess (A What If Novella)
The Mafia Princess (A What If Novella)
All my life, I, Caterina Rossi, have known my life could only go one way. The college degree, the four years of freedom, all of it has led back to this—my re-entrance into the life that was always meant for me, and a ring like a golden shackle on my finger, binding me to a man who will never love or want me, only use me. That’s the fate of every woman in my position, in this mafia life.
And my fate has led me to Luca Romano.
I hold the key to the most powerful criminal seat in Manhattan, and to claim it, Luca needs me--whether he wants to marry me or not.
But there’s someone else waiting in the shadows—someone who covets what Luca has—and everything he’s waiting to claim.
Someone who wants to steal his mafia princess.
The Mafia Princess is the first in the What If? series that imagines a different outcome for our beloved heroines and anti-heroes, with plenty of the action, romance and steam you’ve come to expect from M. James’ mafia universe packaged into novella-length stories for each couple.
The Mafia Princess features Luca and Caterina. It is a dark romance and may contain some material that sensitive readers may find difficult. You do not need to read the others in M. James’ series to read The Mafia Princess.
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Chapter One
Caterina
“Caterina Rossi? You certainly look gorgeous tonight.”
I hear the words coming out of the mouth of the man standing in front of me, but they don’t quite sink in. Because as far as I know, after tonight, he’ll be my fiancé.
Luca Romano. Most of a decade older than me, tall dark and handsome, and a man that I know has long since been on the list of future husbands that my father has considered for me. Whether he knew it, I’m not entirely sure. Because while he’s smiling at me, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes—and by now I know when someone is faking it.
It makes sense. Luca is the son of my father’s closest friend and underboss, I’m my father’s only child. It’s long been lamented that I wasn’t a son, but I’m still prized for my ability to cement the power structure of our family by saying yes to the man who my father chooses for me to marry. And according to my mother, tonight Luca will be asking me that question—and I will do exactly that.
“Thank you,” I manage, taking his gentlemanly proffered arm. That doesn’t-quite-reach-the-eyes smile is still plastered on his face as he squires me through the double doors of the restaurant he’s chosen for dinner. It’s a trendy new Asian fusion restaurant, Michelin starred and not even open to the general public yet. But of course, Luca had no trouble securing one of the early access reservations, despite not being a food blogger or journalist or anything of the sort.
No one wants to get on my father, Vitto Rossi’s, bad side. Which, by extension, means Luca’s father Marco Romano, and Luca himself. If the prince of New York’s premier crime family wants to score an invite to the hottest spot in town to propose to his future bride, he gets it.
It’s not as if I don’t know what’s happening tonight. None of this is a surprise. I’ve known it was coming—but now that it’s actually happening, I’m full of anxious nerves that I thought I was past feeling. There’d been a handful of men that I thought my father might choose, and what it really came down to who he thought ought to inherit his seat—if Luca was worthy of it. The fact that we’re standing here, arm in arm in front of the hostess desk, means that Luca has done something to prove to my father once and for all that he’s worthy to inherit the Rossi seat one day when my father finally passes on.
I don’t want to think of what that might have been, what blood might have stained Luca’s hands to prove his worth. I’ve learned one thing as a mafia daughter and princess over the years—sometimes, often in fact, it’s better not to know.
“Right this way.” The hostess at the front barely looks at me, all of her attention on Luca, and I can hardly blame her. Besides being richer than God in his own right and the heir to a great deal more, Luca is gorgeous. Six foot five or so, dressed in a bespoke charcoal suit, with a forest green tie that brings out the piercing green of his eyes in his sharply handsome, chiseled face. There’s just a hint of stubble on his chin, enough to make him look rakish rather than sloppy, and his thick dark hair is styled in a way that it swoops to one side, making any woman with eyes want to run her fingers through it.
I want to run my fingers through it, and I’ve spent my entire life since puberty trying to avoid having desires. Nothing more than a crush. No furtive kissing, no high school boyfriends, certainly no sloppy makeout sessions at college sorority parties. I got nicknamed the Virgin Mary by every frat on campus, because I was so well known for being “frigid.” But the consequences for even the smallest slipup could have been so much worse.
My father has eyes everywhere, certainly at the college I attended. My innocence was as carefully guarded as the Hope Diamond, and to my father, every bit as valuable. I’m not a masochist—that I’m aware of—so instead of nurturing longings for things I can’t have, I’ve opted to simply…not want them.
Can I want them now? I look at the man next to me as we walk up the steps to the restaurant’s rooftop, his green eyes cool as chips of emerald in his face, and I feel a fluttering in my stomach that’s entirely unfamiliar. This man, this gorgeous, elegant man, is going to be my husband. Some months from now, he will take me upstairs to a lavish bridal suite and take me out of my wedding gown, look at and touch all the places that I’ve been told to keep hidden and secret all these years. And as for him—
His eyes rake over me as he pulls the chair out away from the table, and I try to imagine what he’s seeing.
You certainly look gorgeous tonight.
I’d gone all out with my look for tonight. Chosen with my mother and my best friend Sofia Ferretti, the daughter of my father’s consigliere, the dress is designed to make me shine like the diamond that Luca will slip onto my finger later tonight, showcasing everything about me in the best possible light. It’s made of a silver chiffon, draped and nipped in so that it falls in layers over my slender curves, held up by two thin straps at my shoulders and swooping over my breasts in a way that just ever-so-slightly hints at cleavage. It shimmers in every flicker of light that catches it, slit up to mid-thigh on both sides so that Luca can catch glimpses of my Pilates-toned legs. I paired it with high silver Dior sandals, showing off a perfect garnet-red pedicure, and my mother’s diamonds. A single drop pendant, haloed in smaller diamonds and hovering just above my breasts, and teardrop earrings to match, shining from behind my thick dark hair that was professionally styled this evening, pinned to the side so that the lush curls fall over my shoulder.
I look sophisticated, elegant, refined, luxurious. A princess to be won. And all Luca has to do is ask—because there’s no possibility of my ever saying no. Everything has come down to this moment.
His eyes linger on me as I sit down delicately, and I’m afraid to look at them head-on, afraid of the heat I might see there. I don’t know how to handle desire, how to manage a man’s need. All my mother has told me is that the most important thing I can do for my husband is give him an heir. As to how those heirs are accomplished—everything about that I discovered on my own, from gossip and reading.
From what I’ve gathered, pleasure is not for me. That’s for other women—women who don’t have the weight of familial responsibility on their shoulders. I should be grateful that I’m being married off to someone young and handsome, not one of the older bosses who might have vied for my hand and my inheritance. I’m sure a fair few of them made offers, the widowed ones. But it was Luca who was my father’s choice.
Luca who sinks down across the table from me, looking at me keenly, his emerald eyes now heated as they take in the sight of me.
“So.” He pauses as the waiter approaches, pouring us each a half-glass of the red wine Luca selected. I sit quietly, my hands in my lap as a soft breeze ruffles the tips of my hair—it’s a gorgeous early summer night, and we have the rooftop all to ourselves.
My stomach does a small flip, the butterflies taking flight again as that sinks in. Once the waiter leaves, Luca and I will be alone up here. Just me—and the third most powerful man in New York City, a notorious playboy to boot.
“I’m sure you know why we’re here,” Luca continues as the waiter sets down the first of our courses.
“The first item on the tasting menu, Mr. Romano,” the waiter cuts in. “Marinated escolar tuna on a bed of pickled vegetables.”
“Thank you,” Luca says crisply. “Give us some time before you bring the next, please.”
His voice has a commanding edge to it that startles me. It reminds me how little I actually know him, now. We grew up together, but in the past five years or so, I’ve seen very little of him. He’s been at our house for Family dinners, along with Sofia and her father, but we haven’t spoken hardly at all. The older we got, the less and less he paid attention to me, as my father made an effort to keep me apart from all men. Dinners were hardly intimate, with Luca at the further end of our long formal dining table, and afterwards the men would all go off to my father’s study, to drink and smoke cigars and talk about the things men do.
Now, Luca is very close—across the table, in fact. Within touching distance. He looks at me with that heated gaze, his eyes full of a sudden possessiveness that startles me. I’ve never seen any man look at me that way before. No one would have ever dared.
But Luca is looking at me like he owns me already.
“That dress makes you look like a present on Christmas morning,” Luca says in a low voice, deep and smooth and rich like chocolate dripping over my skin. “You’re absolutely stunning, Caterina.”
When he says that, I know I didn’t misinterpret his expression. He’s looking at me like he can’t wait to unwrap me. Like he wants so much more than just a quick wedding night consummation and routine sex until I’m pregnant. That’s what my mother hinted I should expect, what I’ve been prepped for—but that doesn’t match up with what I see in Luca’s eyes.
“I’m glad you’re pleased.” It’s all I can manage. “After all, I’m going to be your wife.”
Luca laughs, his mouth quirking up in a half-smirk as he lifts a piece of fish to his lips with chopsticks. I can’t tear my eyes away from those lips for a moment. They’re full and perfectly shaped, and at some point—tonight even, they’ll be on mine. I’ve never been kissed before—and Luca will be my first.
My first everything.
“So you are aware of tonight’s purpose.” His mouth might be laughing, but his voice is humorless. “Why we’re on this ‘date’.”
“Is it not a date?” I’m surprised I’m able to talk back at all, but something about the sarcastic way he says it needles me. I take a bite of my own fish, the salty flavor of it exploding on my tongue, and I see Luca’s gaze lingering on my lips, too. “I wouldn’t know, after all.”
There it is again. A flicker of lust that even someone as innocent as I am couldn’t possibly misinterpret. “Indeed. You are very—innocent, aren’t you?”
“I believe that’s part of the deal.” My voice is noticeably cooler than before. “A virgin mafia princess for the man my father deems worthy of me. Which, since we’re here, I assume is you.”
There’s a tension in the air between us that wasn’t there before. My blatant mention of my virginity adds a charge to it, and I feel the butterflies in my stomach turn into a tide of anxiety, forcing me to set down the last bite of my food. Luca’s mouth twitches.
“A date is meant for a couple to get to know one another better, to decide if they’re compatible enough to be together. So no, Caterina. I wouldn’t say this is a date.” He raises an eyebrow. “After all, we’ve been told that we are to marry one another. And I don’t feel the need to get to know you any better than I already do.”
“So you think we’re compatible?” I don’t know where this sudden bravado is coming from, but his tone and the things he’s saying make me feel as if my world is shifting on its axis. It almost seems as if he doesn’t want to marry me—but that doesn’t make sense.
“In all the ways that matter, yes.” Luca’s lips thin, and he falls silent as the waiter sweeps away our first plates, replacing them with delicate crispy shrimp in an orange sauce. “Why? Were you expecting affection? Declarations of love? Surely your mother at the very least raised you with a better sense of expectations than that.”
“I—” I fall silent too, all of my retorts gone. “I don’t know what I expected. For you to be—happy to marry me, at the very least?”
Luca’s mouth twitches again, with what looks like real amusement this time. “I’m happy with my life as it is now, Caterina. Do you know what my life looks like, as it stands?”
I shake my head numbly. “No,” I whisper. “I don’t.”
Luca leans back in his seat, tossing his napkin onto the table. “I live in the tallest residential high-rise in Manhattan, with a penthouse that overlooks the entire city. I fuck any woman I want—as many as I want, sometimes at the same time. I live alone, in peace and quiet, with every luxury I could want at my disposal, until I desire company. I have everything a man could desire. And now?”
He leans forward, his eyes emerald chips again, hard and stony in his face. “In order to keep all of that, to not be thrown down from my perch to become nothing but a capo or a made man when the new heir installs his own underboss and consigliere, I have to marry. Oh, I’ll get to keep my penthouse—maybe we’ll even live there for a while, but when the time comes for me to take up your father’s position, it’ll be time to move into the Rossi mansion and molder there, in a grand old mausoleum. I’ll have to have children, be a husband, raise a family. All things I have no desire to do, in order to keep the one thing about this life that does please me.”
“And what’s that?” My voice is sharp now too, my heart thudding in my chest. His words feel like knife blades, cutting into my flesh. I hadn’t expected love, but this—this disdain is something else. This resentment.
“Power.” Luca’s eyes narrow. “In order to keep my power, I have to marry you. So pardon me if I’m not leaping for joy at the idea of tying myself down.”
He stands up abruptly, before I can say another word. “Let’s get the niceties finished with, then.”
I don’t know if I’m supposed to stay seated or stand. I’m not sure if I could stand. I feel frozen to the spot, stunned at the revelation of how little this man who I’m being handed over to me actually wants me—and hurt, too. Angry, even. I’m the eldest daughter of Vitto Rossi. How dare he speak to me like this? But the words won’t come, even as Luca goes down on one knee, his face expressionless as he opens a Tiffany’s box.
“Caterina Rossi, will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
The words are so at odds with his tone from a moment before that it takes me a second to speak. The ring shimmers in the light in front of me, a three-carat round solitaire in white gold, and for the briefest of moments, I consider what might happen if I said no.
But it’s impossible. Irrational. Even with everything he’s said tonight, I know it’s not an option. I’d have to give up everything, start from scratch. Begin again.
I can’t do that.
“Yes.” The word comes out thickly, from between lips that feel numb. “I’ll marry you, Luca.”
“Good.” He slides the ring onto my finger, a perfect fit. Ironic, considering how I’ve only just learned how ill-suited we really are to each other. “It’s settled then.”
Settled. I’ve never felt more unsettled in my life. I stare at Luca as he retakes his seat across from me, stunned to the point of absolute silence. I hadn’t expected romance tonight—but I hadn’t expected this, either.
He digs back in to his food, as if having the matter over with has renewed his appetite, but I feel like I’ll throw up if I touch a bite. Luca looks up after a moment, his expression confused.
“Is something wrong?”
Everything. Everything’s wrong. I want to blurt it out, insist that he explain to me what it is that he wants, how we’re going to navigate a way forward that’s nothing like what I thought it would be. But instead, with my heart racing in my chest, I just shake my head and pick up my ceramic chopsticks.
“No. Everything’s fine.”
That’s the first lie I tell Luca Romano.
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