A Hunger for the Forbidden(38)

His eyes were black, endless, unreadable. “I won’t ask you to regret it, because then I would have to regret it, and I don’t. When I found out I was your first … I can’t tell you how that satisfied me, and I don’t care if that’s not the done thing, if I shouldn’t care, because I did. I still care. I’m still glad it was me.”

“I am, too,” she said, her voice a whisper. The honesty cost them both, she knew.

His eyes met hers, so bleak, so filled with need. And she hoped she could fill it. Hoped she could begin to understand the man that he was and not just the man she’d created a fiction about in her head.

She nearly went to him then. Nearly touched him. Asked him to lie her down on the cold marble of the ballroom floor and make love to her again. But then she remembered. Remembered the question he hadn’t answered. The one she’d been determined to get the answer to before she ever let him touch her again.

She’d messed up earlier. She hadn’t been able to think clearly enough to have a conversation with him. But now, she would ask now. Again. And she would get her answer.

“Will you be faithful to me?” she asked.

He pushed his fingers through his hair. “Why do you keep asking me this?”

“Because it’s a simple question and one I deserve the answer to. I’m not sleeping with you if you won’t promise I’m the only woman in your life.”

“I can’t love you,” he said, the words pulled from him. Not I don’t love you, like he’d said earlier, but I can’t.

“I’m not asking you to love me, I’m asking you to not have sex with other women.”

His jaw tightened, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “To answer that question, I would have to know how I planned on conducting our relationship, and I do not know the answer to that yet.”

“Were you planning on asking me?”

He shook his head. “I already told you we won’t have a normal marriage.”

“Why?” She knew she shouldn’t ask, not in such a plaintive, needy tone, but she couldn’t help herself, couldn’t hide the hurt that was tearing through her. How was it she’d managed to get her dream, only to have it turn to ash the moment her fingers touched it?

“Because I cannot be a husband to you. I can’t. I won’t love you. I won’t … I can’t give what a husband is supposed to give. I don’t know where to begin. I have an empire to run, my hotels, plus I have my bastard cousin installed in my offices at the family corporation, with his ass in my chair, sitting at my desk like he’s the one who worked so hard for any of it. I don’t have time to deal with you. If you took me on as a husband you would have me in your bed and nowhere else. And I’m not sure I want to put either of us through that.”

“But you are my husband. Whether or not you want to be doesn’t come into it at this point. You are my husband. You’re the father of my baby.”

“And our baby has the protection of my name, the validity of having married parents. I’m able to strike the deal for the docklands with your father thanks to this marriage and your siblings will be cared for. I’m sending them all to school, I don’t think I told you.”

Her throat closed, her body trembling. “I … No, you didn’t.”

“My point is, regardless of what happens behind closed doors, our marriage was a necessity, but what we choose to do in our own home rests squarely on us. And there are decisions to be made.”

Decisions. She’d imagined that if she married Matteo her time for decision making would be over before it ever started. But he was telling her there was still a chance to make choices. That them legally being husband and wife didn’t mean it was settled.

In some ways, the opportunity to make decisions was a heady rush of power she’d only experienced on a few occasions. In other ways … well, she wanted him to want to be married to her, if she was honest.

You’re still chasing the fantasy when you have reality to contend with.

She had to stop that. She had to put it away now, the haze of fantasy. Had to stop trying to create a happy place where there wasn’t one and simply stand up and face reality.

“So … if I say I don’t want to be in a normal marriage, and if you can’t commit to being faithful to me, does that mean that I have my choice of other lovers, too?”

Red streaked his cheekbones, his fists tightening further, a muscle in his jaw jerking. “Of course,” he said, tight. Bitter.