A Hunger for the Forbidden(60)

She stepped back, her body going numb suddenly. Shock. It must be that. Her body’s defense because if it allowed her to feel the pain, she would collapse at his feet.

“You don’t want me?” she asked.

“No. I never did. Not outside the bedroom. I told you that if you didn’t expect love we would be fine. It was the one thing I told you could never be. I said no love. I promised faithfulness, a place in my home, my bed, what more did you want? I offered everything!”

“You offered me nothing,” she said, her voice quivering, a slow ache starting to break through the numbness, shards of pain pushing through. “None of that means anything if you’re withholding the only thing I really want.”

“My love is so important? When has love ever given you anything but pain, Alessia?”

“I don’t know because I’ve never had it for long enough to see.”

“Then why make it so important?”

“Because I deserve it!” She broke then, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Don’t I deserve it, Matteo?”

Matteo’s face paled, and he took a step back. “Yes.”

She didn’t take it as a sign that she had gotten what she wanted. No, Matteo looked like someone had died.

She didn’t say anything. She just waited.

“You deserve that,” he said finally. “And you won’t get it from me.”

“Can’t you just try?”

He shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Stop being so bloody noble. Stop being so repressed. Fight for us. Fight for this.”

“No. I won’t hold you to me. I won’t hold you to this. That is one thing I will do for you, one thing I’ll do right.”

“You really think removing yourself is the only way to fix something? Keeping yourself distant?” It broke her heart. More than his rejection, it was his view of himself that left her crippled with pain.

“It’s a kindness, Alessia. The best thing I’ve ever done. Trust me.”

He turned and walked out of the room, left her standing there in the massive sitting area by herself. She couldn’t cry. Couldn’t bring herself to make the sound of pain that was building inside her. Endless. Bereft.

She wanted to collapse. But she couldn’t. Because she had to stand strong for her child. Matteo might have walked away, but it didn’t change the fact that they were having a baby. Didn’t change the fact that she would be a mother in under six months.

It didn’t change the fact that, no matter what, she loved Matteo Corretti with everything she had in her.

But she would never go back and demand less. Would never undo what she’d said to him. Because she had a right to ask for more. Had a right to expect more. She was willing to give to Matteo. To love him no matter who he was. No matter what he had done.

But she needed his love in return. Because she wasn’t playing at love, it was real. And she refused to play at happiness, to feign joy.

She sank into one of the plush love seats, the pain from her chest spreading to the rest of her body.

She had a feeling there would be no happiness, fake or genuine, for a very long time.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN


MATTEO DIDN’T BOTHER with alcohol this time. He didn’t deserve to have any of the reality of the past few hours blunted for his own comfort. He deserved for it to cut him open.

He shifted into Fifth and pushed harder on the gas pedal. Driving always helped him sort through things. And it helped him get farther away from his problems while he did it. But Alessia didn’t feel any farther away.

She was with him. In him. Beneath his skin and, he feared, past his defenses.

Those defenses he had just given all to protect.

You aren’t afraid of losing control, you’re afraid that if you feel you’re going to have to face the guilt.

That was just what he was. Afraid. To his very core.

He was scared that if he reached a hand out and asked for redemption it would truly be beyond his reach. He was afraid that if he let the door open on his emotions there would be nothing but pain, and grief, and the unending lash of guilt for all he had done, both under his father’s influence, and the night of the fire.

He was afraid that he would expose himself, let himself feel it all, and he would still fall short for Alessia. That he wouldn’t know how to be a real husband, or a real father.

He was afraid to want it. Afraid to try it.