“It’s true, though, isn’t it, Alessia?” he asked, his entire body tense now. He knew for a fact he was the first man to be with her, and something in him burned to know that he had been the only man. That Alessandro had never touched her as he had. “You were never with him. Not like you were with me.”

The idea of his cousin’s hands on her … A wave of red hazed his vision, the need for violence gripping his throat, shaking him.

He swallowed hard, battled back the rage, fought against images that were always so close to the surface when Alessia was around. A memory he had to hold on to, no matter how much he might wish for it to disappear.

Blood. Streaked up to his elbows, the skin on his knuckles broken. A beast inside of him unleashed. And Alessia’s attackers on the ground, unmoving.

He blinked and banished the memory. It shouldn’t linger as it did. It was but one moment of violence in a lifetime of it. And yet, it had been different. It had been an act born of passion, outside of his control, outside of rational thought.

“Tell me,” he ground out.

“Do you honestly think I would sleep with Alessandro after what happened?”

“You were going to. You were prepared to marry him. To share his bed.”

She nodded wordlessly. “Yes. I was.”

“And then you found out about the baby.”

“No,” she said, her voice a whisper.

“What, then?”

“Then I saw you.”

“Guilt?”

“We were in a church.”

“Understandable.”

“Why didn’t you meet me?” she asked again, her words holding a wealth of pain.

“Because,” he said, visions of blood washing through his brain again, a reminder of what happened when he let his passions have control, “I got everything I wanted from you that night. Sex. That was all I ever wanted from you, darling.”

She drew back as though he’d struck her. “Is that why you’ve always watched me?”

“I’ll admit, I had a bit of an obsession with your body, but you know you had one with mine.”

“I liked you,” she said, her words hard, shaky. “But you never came near me after—”

“There is no need to dredge up the past,” he said, not wanting to hear her speak of that day. He didn’t want to hear her side of it. How horrifying it must have been for a fourteen-year-old girl to see such violence. To see what he was capable of.

Yet, she had never looked at him with the shock, the horror, he’d deserved. There was a way she looked at him, as though she saw something in him no one else did. Something good. And he craved that feeling. It was one reason he’d taken her up on her invitation that night at the hotel bar.

Too late, he realized that he was not in control of their encounter that time, either. No, Alessia stole the control. Always.

No more, he told himself again.

Alessia swallowed back tears. This wasn’t going how she’d thought it would. Now she wasn’t sure what she thought. No, she knew. Part of her, this stupid, girlish, optimistic part of her, had imagined Matteo’s eyes would soften, that he would smile. Touch her stomach. Take joy in the fact that they had created a life together.

And then they would live happily ever after.

She was such a fool. But Matteo had long been the knight in shining armor of her fantasies. And so in her mind he could do no wrong.

She’d always felt like she’d known him. Like she’d understood the serious, dark-eyed young man she’d caught watching her when she was in Palermo. Who had crept up to the wall around her house when he was visiting his grandmother and stood there while she’d played in the garden. Always looking like he wanted to join in, like he wanted to play, but wouldn’t allow himself to.

And then … and then when she’d needed him most, he’d been there. Saved her from … she hardly even knew what horror he’d saved her from. Thank God she hadn’t had to find out exactly what those two men had intended to use her for. Matteo had been there. As always. And he had protected her, shielded her.

That was why, when she’d seen him in New York, it had been easy, natural, to kiss him. To ask him to make love to her.

But after that he hadn’t come to save her.

She looked at him now, at those dark eyes, hollow, his face like stone. And he seemed like a stranger. She wondered how she could have been so wrong all this time.

“I don’t want to dredge up the past. But I want to know that the future won’t be miserable.”

“If you preferred Alessandro, you should have married him while you had him at the altar with a priest standing by. Now you belong to me, the choice has been taken. So you should make the best of it.”

“Stop being such an ass!”

Now he looked shocked, which, she felt, was a bit of an accomplishment. “You want me to tell you how happy I am? You want me to lie?”

“No,” she said, her stomach tightening painfully. “But stop … stop trying to hurt me.”

He swore, an ugly, crude word. “I am sorry, Alessia, it is not my intent.”

The apology was about the most shocking event of the afternoon. “I … I know this is unexpected. Trust me, I know.”

“When did you find out?” he asked.

“At the airport. So … if you had met me, you would have found out when I did.”

“And what did you do after that?”

“I waited for you,” she said. “And then I got on a plane and came to New York. I have a friend here, the friend that hosted my little bachelorette party.”

“Why did you come to New York?”

“Why not?” She made it sound casual, like it was almost accidental. But it wasn’t. It had made her feel close to him, no matter where he might have been in the world, because it was the place she’d finally been with him the way she’d always dreamed of. “Why did you come to New York?”

“Possibly for the same reason you did,” he said, his voice rough. It made her stomach twist, but she didn’t want to ask him for clarification. Didn’t want to hope that it had something to do with her.

She was too raw to take more of Matteo’s insults. And she was even more afraid of his tenderness. That would make her crumble completely. She couldn’t afford it, not now. Now she had to figure out what she was doing. What she wanted.

Could she really marry Matteo?

It was so close to her dearest fantasy. The one that had kept her awake long nights since she was a teenager. Matteo. Hers. Only hers. Such an innocent fantasy at first, and as she’d gotten older, one that had become filled with heat and passion, a longing for things she’d never experienced outside of her dreams.

“And if …” she said, hardly trusting herself to speak “… if we marry, my family will still benefit from the merger?”

“Your father will get his money. His piece of the Corretti empire, as agreed upon.”

“You give it away so easily.”

“Because my family still needs the docklands revitalization. And your father holds the key to that.”

“And it will benefit Alessandro, too.”

“Just as it would have benefitted me had he married you.”

Those words, hearing that it would have benefitted him for her to marry someone else, made her feel ill. “So a win all around for the Correttis, then?”

“I suppose it is,” he said.

There was a ruthless glint in his eyes now. One she had never seen directed at her before. One she’d only seen on one other occasion.

“What if I say no?” she asked, because she had to know. She wasn’t sure why she was exploring her options now. Maybe because she’d already blown everything up. Her father likely hated her.… Her siblings … they must be worried sick. And she wondered if anyone was caring for them properly.

Yes, the youngest, Eva, was fourteen now and the rest of them in their late teens, but still, she was the only person who nurtured them. The only person who ever had.

The life she’d always known, the life she’d clung to for the past twenty-seven years, was changed forever. And now she felt compelled in some ways to see how far she could push it.

“You won’t say no,” he said.

“I won’t?”

“No. Because if you do, the Battaglias are as good as bankrupt. You will be cared for, of course our child will be, too. I’m not the kind of man who would abandon his responsibility in that way. But what of your siblings? Their care will not be my problem.”

“And if I marry you?”

“They’ll be family. And I take care of family.”

A rush of joy and terror filled her in equal parts. Because in some ways, she was getting just what she wanted. Matteo. Forever.

But this wasn’t the Matteo she’d woven fantasies around. This was the real Matteo. Dark. Bitter. Emotionless in a way she’d somehow never realized before.

He’d given her passion on their night together, but for the most part, the lights had been off. She wondered now if, while his hands had moved over her body with such skill and heat, his eyes had been blank and cold. Like they were now.

She knew that what she was about to agree to wasn’t the fantasy. But it was the best choice for her baby, the best choice for her family.

And more fool her, she wanted him. Still. All of those factors combined meant there was only ever one answer for her to give.

“Yes, Matteo. I’ll marry you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

THE HUSH IN the lobby of Matteo’s plush Palermo hotel was thick, the lack of sound more pronounced and obvious than any scream could have been.

It was early in the day and employees were milling around, setting up for a wedding and mobilizing to sort out rooms and guests. As Matteo walked through, a wave of them parted, making room for him, making space. Good. He was in no mood to be confronted today. No mood for questions.

Bleached sunlight filtered through the windows, reflecting off a jewel-bright sea. A view most would find relaxing. For him, it did nothing but increase the knot of tension in his stomach. Homecoming, for him, would never be filled with a sense of comfort and belonging. For him, this setting had been the stage for violence, pain and shame that cut so deep it was a miracle he hadn’t bled to death with it.

He gritted his teeth and pulled together every last ounce of control he could scrape up, cooling the anger that seemed to be on a low simmer in his blood constantly now.

He had a feeling, though, that the shock was due only in part to his presence, with a much larger part due to the woman who was trailing behind him.

He punched the up button for the elevator and the doors slid open. He looked at Alessia, who simply stood there, her hands clasped in front of her, dark eyes looking at everything but him.

“After you, cara mia,” he said, putting his hand between the doors, keeping them from closing.

“You don’t demand that a wife walk three paces behind you at all times?” she asked, her words soft, defiant.

“A woman is of very little use to me when she’s behind me. Bent over in front of me is another matter, as you well know.”

Her cheeks turned dark with color, and not all of it was from embarrassment. He’d made her angry, as he’d intended to do. He didn’t know what it was about her that pushed him so. That made him say things like that.

That made him show anything beyond the unreadable mask he preferred to present to the world.

She was angry, but she didn’t say another word. She simply stepped into the elevator, her eyes fixed to the digital readout on the wall. The doors slid closed behind them, and still she didn’t look at him.

“If you brought me here to abuse me perhaps I should simply go back to my father’s house and take my chances with him.”

“That’s what you call abuse? You didn’t seem to find it so abhorrent the night you let me do it.”

“But you weren’t being a bastard that night. Had you approached me at the bar and used it as a pickup line I would have told you to go to hell.”

“Would you have, Alessia?” he asked, anger, heat, firing in his blood. “Somehow I don’t think that’s true.”

“No?”

“No.” He turned to her, put his hand, palm flat, on the glossy marble wall behind her, drawing closer, drawing in the scent of her. Dio. Like lilac and sun. She was Spring standing before him, new life, new hope.

He pushed away from her, shut down the feeling.

“Shows what you know.”

“I know a great deal about you.”

“Stop with the you-know-me stuff. Just because we slept together—”

“You have a dimple on your right cheek. It doesn’t show every time you smile, only when you’re really, really smiling. You dance by yourself in the sun, you don’t like to wear shoes. You’ve bandaged every scraped knee your brothers and sisters ever had. And whenever you see me, you can’t help yourself, you have to stare. I know you, Alessia Battaglia, don’t tell me otherwise.”

“You knew me, Matteo. You knew a child. I’m not the same person now.”

“Then how is it you ended up in my bed the night of your bachelorette party?”

Her eyes met his for the first time all morning, for the first time since his private plane had touched down in Sicily. “Because I wanted to make a choice, Matteo. Every other choice was being made for me. I wanted to … I wanted to at least make the choice about who my first lover should be.”

“Haven’t you had a lot of time to make that choice?”

“When? With all of my free time? I’ve spent my life making sure my brothers and sisters were cared for, really cared for, not just given the bare necessities by staff. I spent my life making sure they never bore the full brunt of my father’s rage. I’ve spent my life being the perfect daughter, the hostess for his functions, standing and smiling next to him when he got reelected for a position that he abuses.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because of my siblings. Because no matter that my father is a tyrant, he is our father. We’re Battaglias. I hoped … I’ve always hoped I could make that mean something good. That I could make sure my brothers and sisters learned to do the right things, learned to want the right things. If I didn’t make sure, they would only have my father as a guiding influence and I think we both know Antonioni Battaglia shouldn’t be anyone’s guiding influence.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

The elevator doors slid open and they stepped out into the empty hall on the top floor.

“You live your whole life for other people?”

She shook her head. “No. I live my life in the way that lets me sleep at night. Abandoning my brothers and sisters to our father would have hurt me. So it’s not like I’m a martyr. I do it because I love them.”

“But you ran out on the wedding.”

She didn’t say anything, she simply started walking down the hall, her heels clicking on the marble floor. He stood and watched her, his eyes drifting over her curves, over that gorgeous, heart-shaped backside, outlined so perfectly by her pencil skirt.

It looked like something from the Corretti clothing line. One thing he might have to thank his damn brother Luca for. But it was the only thing.

Especially since the rumor was that in his absence the other man was attempting to take Matteo’s share in the Corretti family hotels. A complete mess since that bastard Angelo had his hands in it, as well.

A total mess. And one he should have anticipated. He’d dropped out of the dealings with Corretti Enterprises completely since the day of Alessia and Alessandro’s aborted wedding. And the vultures had moved in. He should try to stop them, he knew that. And he could, frankly. He had his own fortune, his own power, independent of the Corretti machine, but at the moment, the most pressing issue was tied to the tall, willowy brunette who was currently sauntering in the wrong direction.

“The suite is this way,” he said.

She stopped, turned sharply on her heel and started walking back toward him, past him and down the hall.

He nearly laughed at the haughty look on her face. In fact, he found he wanted to, but wasn’t capable of it. It stuck in his throat, his control too tight to let it out.

He walked past her, to the door of the suite, and took a key card out of his wallet, tapping it against the reader. “My key opens all of them.”

“Careful, caro, that sounds like a bad euphemism.” She shot him a deadly look before entering the suite.

“So prickly, Alessia.”

“I told you you didn’t know me.”

“Then help me get to know you.”

“You first, Matteo.”

He straightened. “I’m Matteo Corretti, oldest son of Benito Corretti. I’m sure you know all about him. My criminal father who died in a fire, locked in an endless rivalry with his brother, Carlo. You ought to know about him, too, as you were going to marry Carlo’s son. I run the hotel arm of my family corporation, and I deal with my own privately owned line of boutique hotels, one of which you’re standing in.”

She crossed her arms and cocked her hip out to the side. “I think I read that in your online bio. And it’s nothing I don’t already know.”

“That’s all there is to know.”

She didn’t believe that. Not for a moment. She knew there was more to him than that. Knew it because she’d seen it. Seen his blind rage as he’d done everything in his power to protect her from a fate she didn’t even like to imagine.

But he didn’t speak of it. So neither did she.

“Tell me about you,” he said.

“Alessia Battaglia, Pisces, oldest daughter of Antonioni. My father is a politician who does under-the-table dealings with organized-crime families. It’s the thing that keeps him in power. But it doesn’t make him rich. It’s why he needs the Correttis.” She returned his style of disclosure neatly, tartly.

“The Correttis are no longer in the organized-crime business. In that regard, my cousins, my brothers and I have done well, no matter our personal feelings for each other.”

“You might not be criminals but you are rich. That’s why you’re so attractive. In my father’s estimation at least.”

“Attractive enough to trade us his daughter.”

She nodded. She looked tired suddenly. Defeated. He didn’t like that. He would rather have her spitting venom at him.

“You could walk away, Alessia,” he said. “Even now you could. I cannot keep you here. Your father cannot hold you. You’re twenty-seven. You have the freedom to do whatever you like. Hell, you could do it on my dime since I’ll be supporting my child regardless of what you do.”

He didn’t know why he was saying it, why he was giving her the out. But part of him wished she would take it. Wished she would leave him alone, take her beauty, the temptation, the ache that seemed to lodge in his chest whenever she was around, with her. The danger she presented to the walls of protection he’d built around his life.

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