A Scandal in the Headlines(33)
This is what success feels like, she told herself now. You should be happy. But instead, she pictured them dancing, around and around in that ballroom, all of that wonder and delight between them. It glowed in her still, even here. Even now.
What they could have been. What they should have been.
She shouldn’t let herself dream about such things, because it only hurt her. She shouldn’t let herself imagine what it would be like if none of what had happened on this island had that darker undertone, if this wasn’t one more game they played. If it really meant something when he kissed her face and smiled at her, when she held him close and whispered his name.
If it meant what she’d seen back then, glimmering between them, just out of reach—
Snap out of the daydream, she ordered herself now, annoyed at herself and that gnawing ache in her chest that made her feel so hollow. You’re here to be the whore he thinks you are. Nothing more.
It turned out, she was good at that.
She shut off the water and reached for her towel, and he was there when she opened her eyes. Her stomach still clenched. Her heart still jumped. He was still so impossibly beautiful, fierce and male, standing in the open door between his suite and the open shower area, his arms crossed over his bare chest.
“How long have you been there?” she asked. She had to fight to make her voice smooth, and she didn’t know why. It should have been easy after all this practice. It should have been second nature by now.
“Not long.”
“Weren’t you going for a run?”
“I was.” He smiled. “I did.”
“I must have spent more time in the shower than I realized.”
She wanted to sound light. Easy. She couldn’t understand why that raw, hollow place inside of her still bled into everything. As if it mattered how close this all was to what it should have been, yet wasn’t.
And won’t ever be, she reminded herself.
“Do you think you’re pregnant?” he’d asked one afternoon, the sun pouring in through the windows, bathing them both in white light as they moved together on his bed. He’d run his hands over her belly, his gentle touch at distinct odds with his gruff voice. It had been too much. There’d been that look in his eyes, so close to a kind of yearning. It had torn her up inside.
She’d been straddling him, and she’d twisted her hips to take him deep inside of her. Sex was better than emotion. Easier. He’d hissed out a breath, his dark eyes narrowing.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” she’d said, reminding him who they were, moving against him to make her point. “And then we can stop pretending there’s anything more to this than sex.”
He’d reached up to pull her mouth down to his, and he’d whispered something against her lips. It had only been later, when they’d collapsed again, breathless and destroyed, that she’d realized what he’d said. Damn you.
She walked toward him now, wrapping the towel around her, and he stepped back to let her pass. She made her way into his bedroom and over toward the massive bed that dominated the far wall, angled for the best view out of the many windows.
None of this was what she’d thought it would be. He wasn’t the man she’d believed he was. He was nothing like Niccolo, and she didn’t know how to process that. She’d expected the fire to dissipate the more she indulged herself in him, showing her what horrors lay beneath. But Alessandro wasn’t made of Niccolo’s brand of bright surface charm to hide the bully within, or if he was, he was better at concealing it. He was gruff and hard, ruthless and demanding—but he was also surprisingly thoughtful. Caring in ways that made it hard for her to breathe, much less throw out the next, necessary barb. As likely to take the hairbrush from her hand and brush her hair, making her tremble with something far different from lust when he met her eyes in the mirror, as he was to throw her up against the nearest wall and let the raging fire consume them.
He’s like Niccolo. He’s worse than Niccolo. She chanted it at herself. You might not be able to see it, but it’s there. It has to be there.
Because if he wasn’t like Niccolo, if she’d been that terribly wrong about him, then she had no reason not to trust him the way she wished she could. She might feel oddly safe with him, still. He might thrill her in ways she was afraid to admit to herself. But she’d been running for too long, and there was as much to lose now as there had been when she’d started.
More, perhaps, if she counted her foolish heart, and the way it beat for him.