A Scandal in the Headlines(54)

Hers.

Alessandro didn’t look away from her as he reached between them and freed himself. He didn’t look away as he ripped open a foil packet with his teeth and rolled protection on with one hand. And he didn’t look away as he thrust hard into her, pulling her knees astride him, gripping her bottom in his hard hands to move her as he liked.

“An annulment is out of the question,” he told her, his voice like fire, roaring through her. “And in case you’re confused, this is called consummation.”

Elena’s head fell back as she met his thrusts, rode him, met his passion with every roll of her hips. She felt taken and glorious and his.

Completely his.

He changed the angle of her hips, moving her against him in a wicked rhythm, and she felt herself start to slip toward that edge. That easily. That quickly. Still fully dressed. Still wearing her wedding shoes and the pearls he’d presented her this morning. Still madly in love with this hard, dangerous man who was deep inside of her and knew exactly how to make her blind with desire. This man who was somehow her husband.

Whatever that meant. However long it lasted. Right then, she didn’t care.

“You are mine, Elena,” he whispered fiercely, his voice dark and sinful, lighting her up like a new blaze. “You are my wife.”

It was that word that hurled her over, sent her flying apart in his arms, forced to muffle her cries with her own hand as he muttered something hot and dark and then followed right behind her.

When she came back to herself, he was watching her face, and she wondered in a surge of panic what he might have seen there. What she might have revealed.

“Don’t talk to me about divorce,” he said in a low voice, his dark green eyes hot. “Not today.”

He shifted forward, setting her on her feet before him. She felt unsteady. Utterly wrecked, yet a glance in the mirror showed he hadn’t disturbed a single hair on her perfectly coiffed head. She smoothed her dress back down into place, her hands trembling slightly. Alessandro tucked himself back into his trousers and then reached down to scoop up the lace panties he’d torn off her.

Because he’d been too desperate, too determined to get inside her, to wait another instant. She didn’t know why that should make her feel more cherished, more precious to him, than all twenty strange minutes of their wedding ceremony.

She held out her hand to take the panties back. His hard mouth curved, his dark eyes a sensual challenge and something far more intense, and then he tucked them in his pocket.

“A memento of our wedding day,” he said, mocking her, she was sure. “I’ll treasure it.”

She smiled back at him, cool and sharp.

“An annulment it is, then,” she said. “This has been such a useful, rational discussion, Alessandro. Thank you.”

He laughed again then, almost beneath his breath, and then he was on his feet and striding for the door, as if he didn’t trust himself to stay locked in this room with her a moment longer. She allowed herself a small, satisfied smile.

“We can argue about this in the car,” he said over his shoulder. “I have a one o’clock meeting I can’t miss.”

Because, of course, the CEO of Corretti Media didn’t stop doing business on his wedding day, not when the wedding meant so little to him. Her smile vanished. It was a brutal reminder of reality. Of her place. It didn’t matter how hot they burned. It didn’t matter how desperate he’d been. Elena clenched her hands into fists and felt the bite of the unfamiliar bands around her finger like one more slap.

And then followed him, anyway.

His mobile beeped again as they walked. He answered it, slowing down as he talked. Elena heard the words docklands, cousin and Battaglia. Alessandro pushed open the glass doors at the entrance of the village hall, and nodded her through, almost as if he had a chivalrous bone in that powerful body of his.

“Wait for me in the car,” he said, and then turned back toward the interior of the hall. Dismissing her.

The door swished shut behind her as she stepped through it, and Elena pulled in a long, deep breath. The morning was still as bright and cheerful as it had been when she’d walked inside. A lovely July day in the rolling hills of Sicily. The perfect day for a wedding.

She had to figure out how to handle this, to enjoy it while it lasted, or she’d never survive it. And she had to do it fast.

Elena kept her eyes on the stairs below her as she climbed down the hall’s steps, her legs still so shaky and the heels she wore no help at all, so she had to hold tight to the bannister as she went. Cracking her head open on the pavement would hardly improve matters.