A Dark Sicilian Secret(26)

Katie flashed to mind.

Had Katie thought the same thing about her new boyfriend, Marco, the handsome law student she’d wanted to bring home to meet Mom and Dad? Had Marco made her believe that she was safe? That he could be trusted? Had she opened up and shared everything, thinking she’d finally found someone who would protect her?

Her eyes burned gritty and pain rolled through Jillian, hard, heavy, sharp, obliterating everything but a desperate determination to survive. To survive at all costs. And to make sure her son did, too.

So even if Vittorio wouldn’t hurt her, Jillian knew there could be no confessing, no pleading of innocence or begging for protection. Instead she’d play the role she’d agreed to play.

She gave Vittorio a calm, steady look, maintaining the steely façade she’d so carefully cultivated over the past year and a half. “Feeling guilty for treating me so callously earlier?” she asked, taking the offered chair.

He gazed down at her, black eyebrow arching slightly. “You practically wept with pleasure. I’m glad I could still satisfy you.”

She crossed her legs, feeling the tenderness between. “Is this how our relationship is going to be? You take what you want, when you want, and I comply?”

“But of course. You’re my wife.”

“Yet you make me feel like your whore.”

The moment the words left her mouth she knew she’d said the wrong thing. She didn’t even need Vittorio to speak to know she’d blundered. The ugly words hung there, suspended, between them.

Did she really feel like a whore?

Or had he merely possessed her the way he knew best—thoroughly and totally?

She opened her mouth to retract the words but was cut short by the appearance of the flight attendant who’d arrived with a small bottle of Perrier, a glass and a plate of crackers balanced on a silver tray. The attendant was pretty and professional and until now had been extremely poised, but her expression faltered as she sensed the mood.

The mood wasn’t good.

The mood would be even worse when she left.

The pretty brunette placed the silver tray on the table near Jillian’s elbow and then Vittorio transferred Joe into her arms. “Have Maria feed him dinner,” he said, giving his son a comforting pat on the back. “Tell Maria we’ll be sure to see him before he goes to bed.”

And then they were alone again, and in the silence and stillness Jillian felt panic. She’d said too much, perhaps pushed him too far.

With a shaking hand she poured the bubbling water into her short crystal glass. The water tumbled and splashed.

“Whore? ” Vittorio repeated softly.

She couldn’t speak. She didn’t know where to look. The atmosphere weighed heavily on her, thick and tense.

“That’s a horrendous thing to say,” he said.

She bent her head.

“Do not ever use that word again,” he added furiously. “You’re my son’s mother and my wife and I will not have you demean yourself—or our relationship—in that manner.”

Her stomach churned and Jillian swallowed compulsively, fighting the nausea. Relationship? What relationship? There was no relationship. He was the dictator, the emperor, the ruler. She was his prisoner, his captive, his slave. He had utter and complete control and she would be lucky to survive the next week, much less a month with him.

Jillian drew another breath, gulping fresh air into her lungs. “We do not have much of a relationship.”

“Then we’ll build one.”

She averted her head, bit her lip, holding back the hot retort that burned within her.

“We’ll start over,” he added. “Tonight. Now. Let’s begin again.”

She looked at him swiftly, and the intensity in his expression burned her. She flashed back to their lovemaking earlier and she shivered at the flood of erotic memories. It’d been so hot between them. Scorching.

She felt scorched all over again by the heat and desire in his dark eyes. Her whole body responded, breasts aching, nipples tightening.

“Easier said than done,” she answered huskily, mesmerized by the chemistry between them. That sizzling physical connection was always there, and it’d been that way from the beginning.

He smiled at her, a lazy, sexy, smoldering smile. “Why didn’t you wear this to the ceremony?” he asked, reaching out to touch her silver top. “This would have been far more suitable,” he added, letting his finger slip down, stroking from her shoulder over one peaked breast.