A Hunger for the Forbidden (10 page)

But in all that time, at least, no one had forced themselves on her sexually, and considering the kind of company her father kept, it had always seemed kind of an amazing thing.

And then someone had tried to take that from her, too. But Matteo had stopped it.

“Do you understand how much of my life has been decided for me?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said slowly, obviously unwilling to admit to not understanding something.

“I don’t think you do. I spent my days mothering my siblings, and I don’t regret it, because it had to be done, but that meant I didn’t go away to school. It meant I stayed at home when a lot of girls my age would have been moving out, going to university. I went to events my father wanted me to go to, hosted parties in dresses he deemed appropriate. That day … that day on the road, those two men tried to take another choice from me. They tried to choose how I would learn about sex, how I would be introduced
to it. With violence and pain and force. They tried to take something from me, and I don’t just mean virginity, I mean the way I saw myself. The way I saw men. The way I saw people. And you stopped them. So I’m sorry if you don’t want to have been my hero, but you were. You let me hold on to some of my innocence. You let me keep some parts of life a fantasy. I know about how harsh life can be. I know about reality, but I don’t need to have every horrible thing happen to me. And it was going to.” Her voice was rough, raw with tears she needed to shed.

She turned away from him, trying to catch her breath.

“And then my father told me that I was going to marry Alessandro. And I could see more choices being taken from me but this time I didn’t see a way out. Then my friend Carolina said she would host a bachelorette party for me. And for once my father didn’t deny me. I didn’t know you would be there. And Carolina suggested we go to your hotel and I … well, then I hoped you’d be there. And you were. And I saw another chance to make a choice. So don’t ask me to regret it.”

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.

“As long as there are no double standards,” she said, keeping her words smooth and calm.

“If I release my hold on you, then I release it. We’ll have to be discreet in public, naturally, but what happens behind closed doors is no one’s business but our own.”

“Ours and the elevator security cameras,” she said.

“That will not happen again.”

“It won’t?”

“An unforgivable loss of control on my part.”

“You’ve had a few of those recently.”

She’d meant to spark an angry reply, to keep the fight going, because as long as they were fighting, she didn’t ache for him. Wasn’t so conscious of the tender emotions he made her feel. And she wasn’t so overwhelmed by the need to be skin to skin to him when they were fighting. But she didn’t get anger. Instead,
she got a bleak kind of pain that echoed in her soul, a hopelessness in his dark eyes that shocked her.

“Yes,” he said. “I have. Always with you.”

“I don’t know how you are in other areas of your life. I only know how you are with me,” she said.

His eyes grew darker. “A pity for you. I’m much more pleasant than this, usually.”

“I make you misbehave.”

He chuckled, no humor in the sound. “You could say that. We should go home.”

She nodded. “Yes, we should.”

They were in an empty ballroom, and she really would have loved a romantic moment with him here. The chance to dance as the only two people in the room. To go up to his suite and make love. To share a moment with each other that was out of time, apart from reality.

But they’d had their fantasy. Reality was here now, well and truly.

She still didn’t want to leave.

Matteo picked up his phone and dialed. “Yes, you can send in the crew now.”

She swallowed hard, feeling like they’d missed a key moment. Feeling like she’d missed one.

“Let’s go,” he said. There was no press now, no one watching to see if he would put his arm around her.
So he didn’t. He turned and walked ahead, and she followed behind him, her heart sinking.

Matteo didn’t know what he wanted. And she didn’t, either.

No, that was a lie, she knew what she wanted. But it would require her to start dealing with Matteo as he was, and at some point, it would require him to meet her in the middle, it would require him to drop his guard.

She wasn’t sure if either of them could do what needed to be done. Wasn’t sure if they ever had a hope of fixing the tangled mess that they’d created.

She wasn’t even sure if Matteo wanted to.

M
ATTEO WAS TEMPTED
to drink again. He hated the temptation. He hated the feeling of temptation full stop. Before Alessia there had been no temptation.

No, that was a lie. The first temptation had been to break the rules and see what the Battaglias were really like. And so he had looked.

And from there, every temptation, every failing, had been tied to Alessia. She was his own personal road to ruin and there were some days he wondered why he bothered to stay off it.

At least he might go up in flames in her arms. At least then heat and fire might be connected with her, instead of that night his father had died.

Yes, he should just embrace it. He should just follow to road to hell and be done with it.

And bring her with you. Bring the baby with you
.

Porca miseria
. The baby.

He could scarcely think of the baby. He’d hardly had a moment. He felt a little like he was going crazy sometimes, in all honesty. There was everything that was happening with Corretti Enterprises, and he had to handle it. He should go in and try to wrench the reins back from Angelo, should kick Luca out of his position and expose whatever lie he’d told to get there because he was sure the feckless playboy hadn’t gotten there on merit alone.

Instead, Matteo was tied up in knots over his wife. Bewitched by a dark-haired vixen who seemed to have him in a death grip.

She was the reason he’d left, the reason he’d gone up to a remote house he owned in Germany that no one knew about. The reason he hadn’t answered calls or returned emails. The reason he hadn’t known or cared he was being usurped in his position as head of his branch of the family business.

He had to get a handle on it, and he had no idea how. Not when he felt like he was breaking apart from the inside out.

The business stuff, the Corretti stuff, he could handle that. But he found he didn’t care to, and that was the thing that got to him.

He didn’t even want to think about the baby. But he had to. Didn’t want to try to figure out what to
do with Alessia, who was still sleeping in the guest bedroom in the palazzo, for heaven’s sake.

Something had to be done. Action had to be taken, and for the first time in his life, he felt frozen.

He set his shot glass down on the counter and tilted it to the side before pushing the bottom back down onto the tile, the sound of glass on ceramic loud and decisive. He stalked out of the bar and into the corridor, taking a breath, trying to clear his head.

Alcohol was not the answer. A loss of control was not the answer.

He had to get a grip. On his thoughts. On his actions. He had a business to try to fix, deals to cement. And all he could think about was Alessia.

He turned and faced the window that looked out on the courtyard. Moonlight was spilling over the grass, a pale shade of gray in the darkness of night.

And then he saw a shadow step into the light. The brightness of the moon illuminated the figure’s hair, wild and curling in the breeze. A diaphanous gown, so sheer the light penetrated it, showed the body beneath, swirled around her legs as she turned in a slow circle.

An angel.

And then he was walking, without even thinking, he was heading outside, out to the courtyard, out to the woman who woke something deep in his soul.
Something he hadn’t known existed before she’d come into his life.

Something he wished he’d never discovered.

But it was too late now.

He opened the back door and stepped out onto the terrace, walking to the balustrade and grasping the stone with his hands, leaning forward, his attention fixed on the beauty before him.

On Alessia.

She was in his system, beneath his skin. So deep he wondered if he could ever be free of her. It would be harder now, all things considered. She was his wife, the mother of his child.

He could send her to live in the
palazzolo
with his mother. Perhaps his mother would enjoy a grandchild.

He sighed and dismissed that idea almost the moment it hit. A grandchild would only make his mother feel old. And would quite possibly give her worry lines thanks to all the crying.

And you would send your child to live somewhere else?

Yes. He was considering it, in all honesty.

What did he know about children? What did he know about love? Giving it. Receiving it. The kind of nurturing, the father-son bond fostered by his father was one he would just as soon forget.

A bond forged, and ended, by fire.

He threw off the memories and started down the steps that led to the grass. His feet were bare and in that moment he realized he never went outside without his shoes. A strange realization, but he became conscious of the fact when he felt the grass beneath his feet.

Alessia turned sharply, her dark hair cascading over her shoulder in waves. “Matteo.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“I needed some air.”

“You like being outdoors.”

She nodded. “I always have. I hated being cooped up inside my father’s house. I liked to take long walks in the sun, away from the … staleness of the estate.”

“You used to walk by yourself a lot.”

“I still do.”

“Even after the attack?” The words escaped without his permission, but he found he couldn’t be sorry he’d spoken them.

“Even then.”

“How?” he asked, his voice rough. “How did you keep doing that? How did you go on as if nothing had changed?”

“Life is hard, Matteo. People you love die, I know you know about that. People who should love you don’t treat you any better than they’d treat a piece of property they were trying to sell for a profit. I’ve
just always tried to see the good parts of life, because what else could I do? I could sit and feel sorry for myself, but it wouldn’t change anything. And I’ve made the choice to stay, so that would be silly. I made the choice to stay and be there for my brothers and sisters, and I can’t regret it. That means I have to find happiness in it. And that means I can’t cut out my walks just because a couple of horrible men tried to steal them from me.”

“And it’s that simple?”

“It’s not simple at all, but I do it. Because I have to find a way to live my life. My life. It’s the only one I have. And I’ve just learned to try to love it as it is.”

“And do you?” he asked. “Do you love it?”

She shook her head. “No.” Her voice was a whisper. “But I’m not unhappy all the time. And I think that’s something. I mean, it has to count for something.”

“What about now? With this?”

“Are you happy?”

“Happiness has never been one of my primary goals. I don’t know that I’ve ever thought about it too closely.”

“Everybody wants to be happy,” she said.

Matteo put his hands into his pockets and looked over the big stone wall that partitioned his estate from the rest of the world, looked up at the moon. “I want
to make something different out of my family. I want to do something more than threaten and terrorize the people in Palermo. Beyond that … does it matter?”

“It does matter. Your happiness matters.”

“I haven’t been unhappy,” he said, and then he wondered if he was lying. “What about you, Alessia?”

“I made a decision, Matteo, and it landed me in a situation that hasn’t been entirely comfortable. It was my first big mistake. My first big fallout. And no, not all of it has been happy. But I can’t really regret it, either.”

“I’m glad you don’t regret me.”

“Do you regret me?”

“I should. I should regret my loss of control more than I do—” a theme in his life, it seemed “—but I find I cannot.”

“What about tonight? In the elevator? Why did you just walk away?”

“I don’t know what to do with us,” he said, telling the truth, the honest, raw truth.

“Why do we have to know what we’re doing?”

“Because this isn’t some casual affair, and it never can be.” Because of how she made him feel, how she challenged him. But he wouldn’t say that. His honesty had limits, and that was a truth he disliked admitting even to himself. “You’re my wife. We’re going to have a child.”

“And if we don’t try, then we’re going to spend years sniping at each other and growing more and more bitter, is that better?”

“Better than hurting you? I think so.”

“You’ve hurt me already.”

“I did?”

“You won’t promise to be faithful to me, you clearly hate admitting that you want me, even though as soon as we touch … Matteo, we catch fire, and you can’t deny that. You know I don’t have a lot of experience with men, but I know this isn’t just normal. I know people don’t just feel this way.”

“And that’s exactly why we have to be careful.”

“So we’ll be careful. But we’re husband and wife, and I think we should try … try for the sake of our child, for our families, to make this marriage work. And I think we owe it to each other to not be unhappy.”

“Alessia …”

“Let’s keep taking walks, Matteo,” she said, her voice husky. She took a step toward him, her hair shimmering in the dim light.

He caught her arm and pulled her in close, his heart pounding hard and fast. “I can’t love you.”

“You keep saying.”

“You need to understand. There is a limit to what
we can share. I’ll have you in my bed, but that’s as far as it goes. This wasn’t my choice.”

“I wasn’t your choice?”

Her words hit him hard, and they hurt. Because no, he hadn’t chosen to marry her without being forced into it. But it wasn’t for lack of wanting her. If there was no family history. If he had not been the son of one of Sicily’s most notorious crime bosses, if there was nothing but him and Alessia and every other woman on earth, he would choose her every time.

But he couldn’t discount those things. He couldn’t erase what was. He couldn’t make his heart anything but cold, not just toward her, but toward anyone. And he couldn’t afford to allow a change.

Alessia had no idea. Not of the real reasons why. Not the depth he was truly capable of sinking to. The man underneath the iron control was the very devil, as she had once accused him of being. There was no hero beneath his armor. Only ugliness and death. Only anger, rage, and the ability and willingness to mete out destruction and pain to those who got in his way.

If he had to choose between a life without feeling or embracing the darkness, he would take the blessed numbness every time.

“You know it wasn’t.”

She thrust her chin into the air. “And that’s how
you want to start? By reminding me you didn’t choose me?”

“It isn’t to hurt you, or even to say that I don’t want you. But I would never have tied you to me if it wasn’t a necessity, and that is not a commentary on you, but on me, and what I’m able to give. There are reasons I never intended to take a wife. I know who I am, but you don’t.”

“Show me,” she said. And he could tell she meant it, with utter conviction. But she didn’t know what she was asking. She had no way of knowing. He had given her a window into his soul, a glimpse of the monster that lurked beneath his skin, but she didn’t know the half of it.

Didn’t know what he was truly capable of. What his father had trained him for.

And what it had all led to seven years ago during the fire that had taken Benito’s and Carlo’s lives.

That was when he discovered that he truly was the man his father had set out to make him. That was when he’d discovered just how deep the chill went.

He was cold all the way down. And it was only control that held it all in check.

There was only one place he had heat. Only one way he could get warm. But it was a fine line, because he needed the cold. Needed his control, even with it … even with it he was capable of things most
men would never entertain thoughts of. But without it he knew the monster would truly be unleashed. That it would consume him.

“I know what I’d like to show you,” he said, taking a step toward her, putting his hand on her cheek. She warmed his palm. The heat, the life, that came from her, pouring into him. She shivered beneath his hand, as though his touch had frozen her, and he found it oddly appropriate.

If he kissed her, if he moved nearer to her now, he was making the choice to drag her into the darkness with him. To take what he wanted and use her to his own selfish ends.

He could walk away from her now and he could do the right thing. Protect her, protect their child. Give them both his name and a home, his money. Everything they would need.

She didn’t need him in his bed, taking his pleasure in her body, using her to feel warm.

To court the fire and passion that could burn down every last shred of his control. It would be a tightrope walk. Trying to keep the lusts of his body from turning into a desire that overwhelmed his heart.

If he wanted Alessia, there was no other choice.

It was easy with her, to focus on his body. What he wanted from her. Because she called to him, reached him, made him burn in a way no other woman ever had.

With her, though, there was always something else. Something more.

He shut it down. Severed the link. Focused on his body. The burn in his chest, his gut. Everywhere. He was so hard it hurt. Hard with the need for her. To be in her. To taste her.

He could embrace that, and that only. And consign her to a life with a man who would never give her what she deserved.

In this case, he would embrace the coldness in him. Only an utter bastard would do this to her. So it was a good thing that was what he was.

He bent his head and pressed his lips to hers. It wasn’t a deep kiss, it was a test. A test for him. To see if he could touch her without losing his mind.

She was soft. So soft. So alive. A taste of pure beauty in a world so filled with ugliness and filth. She reached into him and shone a light on him. On the darkest places in him.

No. He could not allow that. This was only about sex. Only about lust.

“Only me,” she said when they parted.

“What?”

“You either have only me, or every other woman you might want, but before you kiss me again, Matteo, you have to make that decision.”