A Hunger for the Forbidden

She took a deep breath. “Yes.”

CHAPTER TWO

HE’D NEVER EVEN opened the emails she’d been sending him. She knew, because she’d set them up so that they would send her a receipt when the addressee opened her message, but she’d never gotten one.

He didn’t answer her calls, either. Not the calls to his office, not the calls to his mobile phone, not the calls to the Palazzolo Corretti, or to his personal estate outside Palermo.

Matteo Corretti was doing an exceptional job of ignoring her, and he had been for weeks now while she’d been holed up in her friend Carolina’s apartment. Carolina, the friend who had talked her into a New York bachelorette party in the first place. Which, all things considered, meant she sort of owed Alessia since that bachelorette party was the source of both her problems, and her pregnancy.

No, that wasn’t fair. It was her fault. Well, a lot of it was. The rest was Matteo Corretti’s. Master of disguise and phone-call-avoider extraordinaire.

She wished she didn’t need him but she didn’t know what else to do. She was so tired. So sad, all the time. Her father wouldn’t take her calls, either, her siblings, the most precious people in her life were forbidden from speaking to her. That, more than anything, was threatening to burn a hole in her soul. She felt adrift without them around her. They’d kept her going for most of her life, given her a sense of purpose, of strength and responsibility. Without them she just felt like she was floundering.

She’d had one option, of course. To terminate the pregnancy and return home. Beg her father and Alessandro for forgiveness. But she hadn’t been able to face that. She’d lost so much in her life already and as confused as she was about the baby, about what it would mean for her, as terrified as she was, she couldn’t face losing the tiny life inside of her.

But she would run out of money soon. Then she would be alone and penniless while Matteo Corretti spent more of his fortune on sports cars and high-rise hotels.

She wasn’t going to allow it anymore. Not when she’d already decided that if he didn’t want to be a part of their baby’s life he would have to come tell her to her face. He would have to stand before her and denounce their child, verbally, not simply by ignoring emails and messages. He would have to make that denouncement a physical action.

Yes, she’d made the wrong decision to sleep with him without telling him about Alessandro. But it didn’t give him the right to deny their child. Their child had nothing to do with her stupidity. He or she was the only innocent party in the situation.

She looked down at the screen on her phone. She had her Twitter account all set up and ready to help her contact every news outlet in the area.

She took a breath and started typing.

@theobserver @NYTnews @HBpress I’m about to make an important announcement re Matteo Corretti & the wedding scandal. Luxe Hotel on 3rd.

Then she stepped out of the back of the cab and walked up to the front steps of Matteo’s world-renowned hotel, where he was rumored to be in residence, though no one would confirm it, and waited.

The sidewalks were crowded, people pushing past other people, walking with their heads down, no one sparing her a glance. Until the news crews started showing up.

First there was one, then another, and another. Some from outlets she hadn’t personally included in her tweet. The small crowd drew stares, and some passersby started lingering to see what was happening.

There was no denying that she was big news. The assumption had been that she’d run off with Matteo but nothing could be further from the truth. And she was about to give the media a big dose of truth.

It didn’t take long for them to catch the attention of the people inside the hotel, which had been a key part of her plan.

A sharply dressed man walked out of the front of the hotel, his expression wary. “Is there something I can help you with?”

She turned to him. “I’m just making a quick announcement. If you want to go get Matteo, that might help.”

“Mr. Corretti is not in residence.”

“That’s like saying someone isn’t At Home in a Regency novel, isn’t it? He’s here, but he doesn’t want anyone to know it.”

The reporters were watching the exchange with rapt attention, and the flash on one of the cameras started going, followed by the others.

“Mr. Corretti is not—”

She whirled around to face him again. “Fine, then if Mr. Corretti is truly not in residence you can stand out here and listen to what I have to say and relay it to your boss when you deliver dinner to the room he is not in residence in.”

She turned back to the reporters, and suddenly, the official press release she’d spent hours memorizing last night seemed to shatter in her brain, making it impossible to piece back together, impossible to make sense of it.

She swallowed hard, looking at the skyline, her vision filled with concrete, glass and steel. The noise from the cars was deafening, the motion of the traffic in front of her making her head swim. “I know that the wedding has been much talked about. And that Matteo chasing me out of the church has been the headline. Well, there’s more to the story.”

Flashes blinded her, tape recorders shoved into her face, questions started to drown out her voice. She felt weak, shaky, and she wondered, not for the first time, if she was completely insane.

Her life in Sicily had been quiet, domestic, one surrounded by her family, one so insular that she’d been dependent upon imagination to make it bearable, a belief of something bigger looming in her future. And as a result, she had a tendency to romanticize the grand gesture in her mind. To think that somehow, no matter how bleak the situation seemed, she could fix it. That, in the end, she would make it perfect and manage to find her happy ending.

She’d done it on the night of her bachelorette party. New York was so different than the tiny village she’d been raised in. So much bigger, faster. Just being there had seemed like a dream and so when she’d been confronted with Matteo it had seemed an easy, logical thing to approach him, to follow the path their mutual attraction had led them down. It was a prime example of her putting more stock in fantasy, in the belief in happy endings, over her common sense.

This was another.

But no matter how well planned this was, she hadn’t realized how she would feel, standing there with everyone watching her. She wasn’t the kind of woman who was used to having all eyes on her, her aborted wedding being the exception.

“I’m pregnant, and Matteo Corretti is the father of my baby.” It slipped out, bald and true, and not at all what she’d been planning to say. At least she didn’t think it was.

“Mr. Corretti—” the employee was speaking into his phone now, his complexion pallid “—you need to come out here.”

She released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“When is the baby due?”

“Are you certain he’s the father?”

“When did you discover you were pregnant?”

The questions were coming rapid-fire now, but she didn’t need to answer them because this was never about the press. This was about getting his attention. This was about forcing a confrontation that he seemed content to avoid.

“I’ll answer more questions when Matteo comes to make his statement.”

“Did the two of you leave the wedding together, or are you estranged? Has he denied paternity?” one of the reporters asked.

“I …”

“What the hell is going on?”

Alessia turned and her heart caught in her throat, making it impossible to breathe. Matteo. It felt like an eternity since she’d seen him, since he’d kissed her, put his hands on her skin. An eternity.

She ached with the need to run to him, to hold on to him, use him as an anchor. In her fantasies, he had long been her knight in shining armor, a simplistic vision of a man who had saved her from a hideous fate.

But in the years since, things had changed. Become more complex, more real. He was her lover now. The father of her child. The man she had lied to. The man who had left her sitting alone in an airport, crying and clutching a positive pregnancy test.

For a moment, the longing for those simple, sun-drenched days in Sicily, when he had been nothing more than an idealized savior, was so sharp and sweet she ached.

“Mr. Corretti, is this why you broke up the wedding?”

“I didn’t break up anyone’s wedding,” he said, his tone dark.

“No, I ran out of the wedding,” she said.

“And is what why I broke up the wedding?” he asked, addressing the reporter, stormy eyes never once looking at her.

“The baby,” the reporter said.

Matteo froze, his face turning to stone. “The baby.” Color drained from his face, but he remained stoic, only the change in his complexion a clue as to the shock that he felt.

He didn’t know. She felt the impact of that reality like a physical blow. He hadn’t even listened to a single message. Hadn’t opened any emails, even before she’d started tagging them to let her know when he opened them.

“Is there more than one?” This from another reporter.

“Of course not,” Matteo said, his words smooth, his eyes cold like granite. “Only this one.”

He came to stand beside her, his gaze still avoiding hers. He put his arm around her waist, the sudden contact like touching an open flame, heat streaking through her veins. How did he manage to affect her this way still? After all he’d done to her? After the way he’d treated her?

“Do you have a statement?”

“Not at this point,” he bit out. “But when the details for the wedding are finalized, we will be in touch.”

He tightened his hold on her waist and turned them both around, away from the reporters, leading her up the steps and into the hotel. She felt very much like she was being led into the lion’s den.

“What are you doing?” she asked, wishing he would move away from her, wishing he would stop touching her.

“Taking you away from the circus you created. I have no desire to discuss this with an audience.”

If he wasn’t so angry with her, she might think it was a good idea. But Matteo Corretti’s rage was like ice-cold water in a black sea. Fathomless, with the great threat of pulling her beneath the waves.

His hold tightened with each step they took toward the hotel, and her stomach started to feel more and more unsettled until, when they passed through the revolving door and into the hotel lobby, she was afraid she might vomit on the high-gloss marble floors.

A charming photo to go with the headlines.

He released her the moment they were fully inside. “What the hell is the meaning of this?” he asked, rounding on her as his staff milled around very carefully not watching.

“Should we go somewhere more private?” she asked. Suddenly she felt like she’d rather brave his rage than put on a show. She was too tired for that. Too vulnerable. Bringing the press in was never about drawing attention to herself, it was about getting information to Matteo that he couldn’t ignore. Giving the man no excuse to say he didn’t know.

“Says the woman who called a bloody press conference?”

“You didn’t answer my calls. Or return my messages. And I’m pretty sure now that you didn’t even listen to any of them.”

“I have been away,” he said.

“Well, that’s hardly my fault that you chose this moment to go on sabbatical. And I had no way of knowing.”

He was looking at her like she’d grown an extra head. “Take me to your suite,” she said.

“I’m not in the mood, Alessia.”

“Neither am I!” she shot back. “I want to talk.”

“It’s just that last time we were in this hotel, talking was very much not on the agenda.”

Her face heated, searing prickles dotting her skin. “No. That’s very true. Which is how we find ourselves in this current situation.”

“Communication seems to be something we don’t do well with,” he said. “Our lack of talking last time we were here together certainly caused some issues.”

“But I want to talk now,” she said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts.

He cocked his head to the side, dark eyes trained on her now with a focus he’d withheld until that moment. “You aren’t afraid of me.”

“No.”

“A mistake, some might say, cara mia.”

“Is that so?”

“You won’t like me when I’m angry.”

“You turn green and split your pants?”

“Perhaps taking this somewhere private is the best idea,” he said, wrapping his fingers around her arm, just above her elbow, and directing her toward the elevator.

He pushed the up button and they both waited. She felt like she was hovering in a dream, but she dug her fingernails into her palms, and her surroundings didn’t melt away. It was real. All of this.

The elevator doors slid open and they both stepped inside. And as soon as they were closed into the lift, he rounded on her.

“You’re pregnant?” His words were flat in the quiet of the elevator.

“Yes. I tried to tell you in a less public way, but it’s been two months and you’ve been very hard to get ahold of.”

“Not an accident.”

“Oh, no, I know. It was far too purposeful to be accidental. You never even opened my emails.”

“I blocked your address after you sent the first few.”

“Uh,” she said, unable to make a more eloquent sound.

“I see it offends you.”

“Yes. It does offend me. Didn’t it occur to you that I might have something important to tell you?”

“I didn’t care,” he said.

The elevator stopped at the top floor and the doors slid open. “Is there a point in me going any further, then? Or should I just go back to my friend Carolina’s apartment and start a baby registry?”

“You are not leaving.”

“But you just said you didn’t care.”

“I didn’t care until I found out you were carrying my child.”

She was both struck, and pleased, by his certainty that the child was his. She wouldn’t have really blamed him if he’d questioned her at least once. She’d lied about her engagement to Alessandro. By omission, but still. She knew she wasn’t blameless in the whole fiasco.

“What did you think I was trying to contact you for? To beg you to take me back? To beg you for more sex? Because that’s what we shared that night, that’s all we shared.” The lie was an acid burn on her tongue. “I would hardly have burned my pride to the ground for the sake of another orgasm.”

“Is that true? You would hardly be the first person to do it.”

“If you mean you, I’m sure it cost you to take a Battaglia to your bed. Must have been some epic dry spell.”

“And not worth the price in the end, I think.”

His words were designed to peel skin from bone, and they did their job. “I would say the same.”

“I can see now why you ran from the wedding.”

A wave of confusion hit her, and it took her a moment to realize that she hadn’t told him the order in which the events had occurred. Wedding abandonment, then pregnancy test, but before she could correct him he pressed on.

“And how conveniently you’ve played it, too. Alessandro would, of course, know it wasn’t his child as you never slept with him. I hope you’re pleased with the way all of this unfolded because you have managed to ensure that you are still able to marry a Corretti, in spite of our little mistake. Good insurance for your family since, thanks to your abandonment, the deal between our family and yours has gone to hell.”

“You think I planned this? You aren’t even serious about marrying me, are you?”

“There is no other choice. You announced your pregnancy to the whole world.”

“I had to tell you.”

“And if I had chosen not to be a part of the baby’s life?”

“I was going to make you tell me that to my face.” He regarded her closely. “Strange to think I ever imagined you to be soft, Alessia.”

“I’m a Battaglia. I’ve never had the luxury of being soft.”

“Clearly not.” He looked at her, long and hard. “This makes sense, Alessia.” His tone was all business now. Maddeningly sure and decisive. “It will put to rest rumors of bad blood, unite the families.”

“You didn’t seem to care about that before.”

“That was before the baby. The baby changes everything.”

Because he wanted to make a family? The idea, so silly and hopeful, bloomed inside of her. It was her blessing and curse that she always found the kernel of hope in any situation. It was the thing that got her through. The thing that had helped her survive the loss of her mother, the cold detachment from her father, the time spent caring for her siblings when other girls her age were out dating, having lives, fulfilling dreams.

She’d created her own. Locked them inside of her. Nurtured them.

“I … It does?” she asked, the words a whisper.

“Of course,” he said, dark eyes blazing. “My child will be a Corretti. On that, there can be no compromise.”

CHAPTER THREE

MATTEO’S OWN WORDS echoed in his head.

My child will be a Corretti. On that there can be no compromise.

It was true. No child of his would be raised a Battaglia. Their family feud was not simply a business matter. The Battaglias had set out to destroy his grandfather, and had they succeeded they would have wiped out the line entirely.

It was the hurt on her face that surprised him, and more than that, his response to it.

Damn Alessia Battaglia and those dark, soulful eyes. Eyes that had led him to ruin on more than one occasion.

“Because you won’t allow your child to carry my name?” she asked.

“That’s right.”

“And what of my role in raising my child?”

“You will, of course, be present.”

“And what else? Because more than mere presence is required to raise a child.”

“Nannies are also required, in my experience.”

“In your experience raising children, or being raised?”

“Being raised. I’m supremely responsible in my sexual encounters so I’ve never been in this situation before.”

“Supremely responsible?” she asked, cheeks flushing a gorgeous shade of rose that reminded him of the blooms in his Sicilian palazzo. “Is that what you call having sex with your cousin’s fiancée with no condom?”

Her words, so stark and angry, shocked him. Alessia had always seemed fragile to him. Sweet. But tangling with her today was forcing him to recognize that she was also a woman capable of supreme ruthlessness if the situation required it.

Something he had to reluctantly respect.

“I didn’t know you were engaged to be married, as you withheld the information from me. As to the other issue, that has never happened to me before.”

“So you say.”

“It has not,” he said.

“Well, it’s not like you were overly conscious of it at the time.”

Shame cracked over his insides like a whip. He had thought himself immune to shame at this point. He was wrong. “I knew. After.”

“You remembered and you still didn’t think to contact me?”

“I did not think it possible.” The thought hadn’t occurred to him because he’d been too wrapped up in simply trying to avoid her. Alessia was bad for him, a conclusion he’d come to years ago and reaffirmed the day he’d decided not to go after her.

And now he was bound to her. Bound to a woman who dug down far too deep inside of him. Who disturbed his grasp on his control. He could not afford the interruption. Could not afford to take the chance that he might lose his grip.

“Why, because only other people have the kind of sex that makes babies?”

“Do you always say what comes to your mind?”

“No. I never do. I never speak or act impulsively, I only think about it. It’s just you that seems to bring it out.”

“Aren’t I lucky?” Her admission gripped him, held him. That there was something about him that brought about a change in her … that the thing between them didn’t only shatter his well-ordered existence but hers, too, was not a comfort. Not in the least.

“Clearly, neither of us are in possession of much luck, Alessia.”

“Clearly,” she said.

“There is no way I will let my child be a bastard. I’ve seen what happens to bastards. You can ask my cousin Angelo about that.” A cousin who was becoming quite the problem. It was part of why Matteo had come to New York, why he was making his way back into circulation. In his absence, Angelo had gone and bought himself a hefty amount of shares for Corretti Enterprises and at this very moment, he was sitting in Matteo’s office, the new head of Corretti Hotels. He’d been about to go back and make the other man pay. Wrench the power right back from him.

Now, it seemed there was a more pressing matter.

“So, you’re doing this to save face?”

“For what other reason? Do you want our child to be sneered at? Disgraced? The product of an illicit affair between two of Sicily’s great warring families?”

“No.”

Matteo tried not to read the emotion in her dark eyes, tried not to let them pull him in. Always, from the moment he’d seen her, he’d been fascinated. A young girl with flowers tangled in her dark hair, running around the garden of her father’s home, a smile on her lips. He could remember her dancing in the grass in her bare feet, while her siblings played around her.

And he had been transfixed. Amazed by this girl who, from all he had been told, should have been visibly evil in some way. But she was a light. She held a brightness and joy like he had never seen. Watching it, being close enough to touch it, helped him pretend it was something he could feel, too.

She made him not so afraid of feeling.

She’d had a hold on him from day one. She was a sorceress. There was no other explanation. Her grip on him defied logic, defied every defense he’d built inside of himself.

And no matter how hard he tried, he could read her. Easily. She was hurt. He had hurt her.

“What is it?” he asked.

She looked away. “What do you mean?”

“Why are you hurt?”

“You’ve just told me how unlucky we both are that I’m pregnant—was I supposed to look happy?”

“Don’t tell me you’re pleased about this. Unless it was your plan.”

“How could I have … planned this? That doesn’t make any sense.”

He pushed his fingers through his hair and turned away from her. “I know. Che cavolo, Alessia, I know that.” He turned back to her.

“I just wanted to tell you about the baby.”

He felt like he was drowning, like every breath was suffocating him. A baby. She was having his baby. And he was just about the last man on earth who should ever be a father. He should walk away. But he couldn’t.

“And this was the only way?”

Her eyes glittered with rage. “You know damn well it was!”

He did. He’d avoided her every attempt at contacting him. Had let his anger fuel the need for distance between them. Had let the very existence of the emotion serve as a reminder. And he had come back frozen again. So he’d thought. Because now Alessia was here again, pushing against that control.

“Why didn’t you meet me at the airport?” she asked, her words a whisper.

“Why didn’t I meet you?” he asked, his teeth gritted. “You expected me to chase after you like a dog? If you think you can bring me to heel that easily, Alessia, you are a fool.”

“And if you think I’m trying to you’re an idiot, Matteo Corretti. I don’t want you on a leash.”

“Well, you damn well have me on one!” he said, shouting for the first time, his tenuous grip on his control slipping. “What am I to do after your public display? Deny my child? Send you off to raise it on your own? Highly unlikely.”

“How can we marry each other? We don’t love each other. We barely like each other right now!”

“Is that so bad? You were prepared to marry Alessandro, after all. Better the devil you know. And we both know you know me much better than you knew him.”