A Hunger for the Forbidden(13)

A rush of joy and terror filled her in equal parts. Because in some ways, she was getting just what she wanted. Matteo. Forever.

But this wasn’t the Matteo she’d woven fantasies around. This was the real Matteo. Dark. Bitter. Emotionless in a way she’d somehow never realized before.

He’d given her passion on their night together, but for the most part, the lights had been off. She wondered now if, while his hands had moved over her body with such skill and heat, his eyes had been blank and cold. Like they were now.

She knew that what she was about to agree to wasn’t the fantasy. But it was the best choice for her baby, the best choice for her family.

And more fool her, she wanted him. Still. All of those factors combined meant there was only ever one answer for her to give.

“Yes, Matteo. I’ll marry you.”





CHAPTER FOUR


THE HUSH IN the lobby of Matteo’s plush Palermo hotel was thick, the lack of sound more pronounced and obvious than any scream could have been.

It was early in the day and employees were milling around, setting up for a wedding and mobilizing to sort out rooms and guests. As Matteo walked through, a wave of them parted, making room for him, making space. Good. He was in no mood to be confronted today. No mood for questions.

Bleached sunlight filtered through the windows, reflecting off a jewel-bright sea. A view most would find relaxing. For him, it did nothing but increase the knot of tension in his stomach. Homecoming, for him, would never be filled with a sense of comfort and belonging. For him, this setting had been the stage for violence, pain and shame that cut so deep it was a miracle he hadn’t bled to death with it.

He gritted his teeth and pulled together every last ounce of control he could scrape up, cooling the anger that seemed to be on a low simmer in his blood constantly now.

He had a feeling, though, that the shock was due only in part to his presence, with a much larger part due to the woman who was trailing behind him.

He punched the up button for the elevator and the doors slid open. He looked at Alessia, who simply stood there, her hands clasped in front of her, dark eyes looking at everything but him.

“After you, cara mia,” he said, putting his hand between the doors, keeping them from closing.

“You don’t demand that a wife walk three paces behind you at all times?” she asked, her words soft, defiant.

“A woman is of very little use to me when she’s behind me. Bent over in front of me is another matter, as you well know.”

Her cheeks turned dark with color, and not all of it was from embarrassment. He’d made her angry, as he’d intended to do. He didn’t know what it was about her that pushed him so. That made him say things like that.

That made him show anything beyond the unreadable mask he preferred to present to the world.

She was angry, but she didn’t say another word. She simply stepped into the elevator, her eyes fixed to the digital readout on the wall. The doors slid closed behind them, and still she didn’t look at him.

“If you brought me here to abuse me perhaps I should simply go back to my father’s house and take my chances with him.”

“That’s what you call abuse? You didn’t seem to find it so abhorrent the night you let me do it.”

“But you weren’t being a bastard that night. Had you approached me at the bar and used it as a pickup line I would have told you to go to hell.”

“Would you have, Alessia?” he asked, anger, heat, firing in his blood. “Somehow I don’t think that’s true.”

“No?”

“No.” He turned to her, put his hand, palm flat, on the glossy marble wall behind her, drawing closer, drawing in the scent of her. Dio. Like lilac and sun. She was Spring standing before him, new life, new hope.

He pushed away from her, shut down the feeling.

“Shows what you know.”

“I know a great deal about you.”

“Stop with the you-know-me stuff. Just because we slept together—”

“You have a dimple on your right cheek. It doesn’t show every time you smile, only when you’re really, really smiling. You dance by yourself in the sun, you don’t like to wear shoes. You’ve bandaged every scraped knee your brothers and sisters ever had. And whenever you see me, you can’t help yourself, you have to stare. I know you, Alessia Battaglia, don’t tell me otherwise.”

“You knew me, Matteo. You knew a child. I’m not the same person now.”