A Scandal in the Headlines(58)

But Elena was like light, and he wanted her more.

“Don’t let me see you again, Falco. Don’t even cross into my line of sight. You won’t like what happens.” He leaned closer then, pleased in a purely primitive way that he was bigger. Taller. That there was that flicker of fear in the other man’s eyes. “And stay the hell away from my wife. That goes for you and your entire pathetic family. You do not want to go to war with me, I promise you.”

Niccolo recoiled, the angry flush on his face and neck bleeding into something darker. Nastier.

“Don’t worry,” he said, ugly and flat. “Once I’m finished with a whore—”

Alessandro shut him up. With his fist.

He felt the crunch of bone that told him he’d broken Niccolo’s nose, heard the other man’s bellow of pain as he crumpled to the ground. Where he lay in a cowardly heap, clutching at his face.

And Alessandro wasn’t his father, he would never be his father, but he was still Corretti enough to enjoy it.

“Next time,” he promised, “I won’t be so kind.”

And then he walked away and left Niccolo Falco bleeding into the ground.

But alive.


“I’m sorry I let him touch you,” Alessandro said gruffly when he swung into the car. Elena sat there so primly in the passenger seat, looking perfect. Untouchable. Her face smooth and her eyes hidden away behind dark glasses. “It won’t happen again.”

“He didn’t hurt me,” she said. Far too politely. When he only frowned at her, searching her face for some sign, she shifted slightly in her seat. “Don’t you have a meeting?”

He reminded himself that he had her torn panties in his pocket. That if he reached over and touched her, he could have her moaning out his name in moments. But he started the car instead, and pulled out onto the small country road that led away from the village and back toward Palermo.

He’d told her Niccolo wouldn’t come for her, and he had. She had every right to be afraid, even angry. To blame him.

He could handle that. He could handle anything—because she’d married him, and they had nothing now but time. The rest of their lives, rolling out before them. There was nowhere to hide. Not for long.

They drove in silence, the warm summer day rushing all around them, sunshine and wind dancing in and around the car. The hills were green and pretty and off in the distance the sea beckoned. She was his wife, and he wasn’t his father.

It might not be perfect, Alessandro thought. It might take some work yet. But it was good.

“Why did you hit him?” she asked as they started to make their way into the city sprawl, and the wind no longer prohibited conversation.

“I should have killed him,” Alessandro replied shortly. “I wanted to kill him.”

But he hadn’t.

He hadn’t.

“I didn’t say he didn’t deserve it,” she replied in that cool way that he still hated, even now. “I only wondered what horrible thing he might have said to tip you over that edge.”

Alessandro eyed her as he stopped at a traffic light. He considered telling her about real edges, and what lay on the other side of them, but refrained. There would be time enough to introduce her to all the poison and pain that was his birthright, to tell her what had happened back there and what he’d finally rejected once and for all.

“He called you a whore.”

“Ah,” she said. She sat there so elegantly. So calmly. Her hands folded in her lap, her legs neatly crossed. She smiled, and it scraped at him. “So it’s only okay when you do it?”

Alessandro pulled in a breath through his teeth.

“Damn it, Elena,” he began, but she turned to face the front again, and nodded toward the road with every appearance of serenity.

“The light’s changed.”

He swore in Sicilian as well as Italian, and then he drove with more fury than skill through the city, screeching to a halt at the valet in front of the Corretti Media tower.

Elena let herself out of the car before he had the chance to come around and get her, starting toward the building’s entrance as if she didn’t care one way or the other if he followed her. Gritting his teeth, he did.

She said nothing as they walked through the marble lobby. She only slid her dark glasses onto the top of her head and let him guide her into the elevator when it arrived.

“Is there anything else you plan to throw at me today?” he asked, tamping down on his temper as the doors slid shut. “Do we need to have another discussion like the one we had about divorce?”