by Tara Pammi
Dante thought love was poison. A weakness. She felt as if someone had dropped a huge boulder on her chest, crushing the very breath out of her.
She had known he didn’t believe in love. But to think of it as poison...
When he pulled her up, Ali went into his embrace and buried her face in his chest. “She doesn’t deserve your tears, Ali. Or your sympathy.” He seemed to hesitate, his mouth buried in her hair. “You were right. I don’t do well with emotions. I will learn, tesoro, to be a good husband, to communicate with you. Never to hurt you like that again. We’ll have a good marriage based on mutual respect and passion. When the time is right, we’ll have a big family, if that’s what you want. But you should know...” A tremor coated his words. “I will never allow myself to feel like that, never put my faith, my life in the hands of love. I can’t change for you. I can’t be anything other than what you see. Don’t ask it of me.”
Having dealt her that soft but final statement, he left her standing alone in what used to be her papa’s office, her heart breaking softly.
For the young man who’d never had the chance to believe that love wasn’t always a poison, or cancer. For a young man who didn’t understand that even as he wreaked immense hurt on her, she still loved him with every molecule of her being.
That she could no more stop loving him, that she couldn’t stop hurting for him any more than she could stop breathing.
* * *
Dante returned home that night, feeling like the lowest of the low.
His feet automatically took him to the guest room. His mother had left then. He stood in the center of it, the faint scent of gardenias filling his nostrils. For as long as he could remember she’d worn that scent. For as long as he could remember, she’d been a fragile beauty with no spine, letting the world sway her back and forth.
And to think he’d once assumed Ali was a spoiled princess like her and Francesca. He’d called her a pampered princess, once he’d even called her a waste of space.
No, his wife was a lioness with a heart of gold. And he’d hurt her tonight.
Unable and unwilling to face her reaction to his blunt words, he had left her alone in his office.
Dios mio, he couldn’t bear to hurt her any more than he could love her. And the warring instincts constantly ate away at him.
She had come to offer comfort and he’d crushed her heart. But seeing his mother these past few weeks, dealing with the guilt in her eyes, reliving the worst years of his life all over again...he felt as powerless as that sixteen-year-old.
Left with the legacy of his father’s crime and his death.
Left with discovering how, through the weakness they called love, they had fractured their family, his faith in them, his faith in everyone and everything.
For all the billions he’d amassed, for all the stains he’d removed from his reputation, Dante felt like a jerk, a weak man unable to stop wreaking hurt on the one woman who thought him worthy of her adoration, who refused to stop looking at him as if he were a hero.
He’d had Izzy schedule the meeting on a different floor, hiding away like a coward. Not that he’d been able to focus on a single word.
Maledizione! Enough was enough. He didn’t intend to let the past rot his future with its poisonous fingers. He and Ali, against all odds, had made a fresh start and he intended to have a full life with her.
He would spend his life earning that adoration in her eyes. He meant for them to be consumed by the fire between them, again and again. For it was the one place where he could give of himself completely.
A sudden desperation gripping him, he checked the room she’d occupied when she’d moved in. There was no way he was going to let her spend the night in a different bed. She belonged with him. He switched on the lights in that room and found the bed neatly made, bare of any of her things.
Panic like he’d never known unfurled in his belly. Had she left him? Had he broken her heart? By the time he walked to his bedroom, his heart was thudding against his rib cage.
The bedroom door swung open wide and there she was in the middle of his bed, illuminated by a pool of light. Tenderness and relief and desire, a knot of emotions crowded in his throat. There was a rational voice crowing too but he couldn’t even hear it.
She lay on her tummy, her leg splayed, her round buttocks thrust up, her face to the side, taking up most of the bed, as she always did. Moving to her side, he pushed the silky strands from her back and placed his palm on there. Just touching her calmed the wild need inside him. Just breathing in the scent of her, of seeing her in his bed night after night...desire crawled through him, sinuous and hard, as it always did.
He stripped and crawled into bed. Fear beat a tattoo in his head that he was far too deep already. But it didn’t stop him from kissing the smooth skin of her back.
From shifting the thick curtain of her hair to the side until he could kiss the shadows under her eyes. Shadows he knew he had put there.
From inhaling the scent of her deep into his lungs until she was a part of him.
From drawing a wet trail of kisses down to the round globes of her buttocks.
From turning her lithe body to the side until her back was resting against his chest.
From slipping one arm under her heated flesh until he reached the round fullness of her breast.
From rubbing his cheek against hers, against her shoulder, every inch of her he could reach like a starving man.
From whispering a torrent of mindless Italian at her ear, from threats to promises to pleading.
From smiling when she woke up with a soft mewl and when her sleep-mussed eyes alighted on his.
From saying “I’m sorry” a hundred times.
From the hardness in his chest melting when her mouth curved into a soft, welcoming smile.
From rubbing her plump nipple back and forth between his fingers.
From growling when she pressed herself into his touch wantonly.
From kissing the graceful curve of her neck.
From digging his teeth into the soft muscle of her shoulder.
From growling like a Neanderthal when she pressed her bottom into his groin, rubbing against him, until he was rock hard again.
From peeling her panties away from her legs like a man possessed.
From the utterly masculine grunt that escaped his throat when her wetness coated his fingers.
From nudging her upper leg up and away, from opening her wide for him, from pushing into her wet heat and lazily thrusting up into her until the restless beast in him calmed again.
From trailing his other hand down her silky body until it reached her clit.
From whispering, “Yes, again, cara mia,” like a man possessed when she pleaded with him that her sensitive flesh couldn’t clench and fracture again after her first release.
From the desperate need that crawled through his legs toward his spine when she turned and looked into his eyes, and said against his plundering mouth, “You can be selfish, Dante. You can take me once without thinking of my release. I’m more than happy for you to use me for your pleasure. As you want it, whenever, wherever.”
From his chest cracking wide open.
From the cold sweat that claimed his skin as he worked his fingers and himself in tandem, determined that she would fly with him again.
And when she came with his name on her lips, and her muscles clenching and releasing around him like a silken glove, he couldn’t stop himself from pushing her facedown onto the bed, from pulling her up onto all fours and thrusting into her from behind.
He couldn’t stop his heart from aching, his body from shuddering again and again when she turned toward him, an impish smile around her mouth and said, “Harder, Dante. Deeper, please. I want to come again. With you.”
He had no idea how he managed to bring her to climax again
. All he knew was that she fell apart and he lost even the semblance of control. For the first time in his life, nothing mattered but his own release. Nothing mattered but the burn riding up his thighs and pooling in his balls.
Nothing mattered except losing himself inside her. Hands fisted in her hair, teeth sinking into her shoulder, he drove in and out of her, working himself to the edge.
His climax when it came was the most powerful thing he’d ever experienced. The most raw, honest, revelatory moment in all his life. The most he had ever shared of himself, the most he had ever taken of someone.
He flopped onto her body, resting his weight on his elbows, his harsh breaths making her hair fly under him, their sweat-slicked bodies gliding and sliding against each other. Still, he wasn’t satisfied. She was so fragile, so delicate beneath him. “Ali, look at me.”
Hoarse. Raw. Uncivilized. Each word of his felt different. Felt new. He felt different. Somehow less, not enough for her.
She turned, her chin resting against the white sheets. Her hair flew away from her face as she blew at it, and then, after the spine-tingling experience they had just had, after the rough way he had used her, somehow she managed to smile at him. A gloriously warm smile that made her eyes shine and her mouth wide. “Hi.”
A single, weightless word that lit up an incandescent joy in his chest.
When he finally noticed the uneven rhythm of her breath, he tried to move off her.
She shook her head.
“I’ll crush you,” he whispered, undone by the smile, by the warmth. By her.
“Not just yet.”
“I’m sorry for earlier. For...leaving you like that.”
“As long as you find your way back to me, we’re okay, si?”
“Si.”
And then she tugged his head down to her and took his mouth in a wet, open, raw kiss that made him semi-hard between their bodies again. Her smile was pure wickedness. “That was fantastic, mind-blowing. You give good sex, babe. You’re always worth the wait.”
Like a teenage boy, he could feel himself blushing. He rubbed his thumb over her lip. “I didn’t hurt you?”
“No, but it’s your turn to compliment me. I know how fabulous I am but a girl needs compliments now and then.”
He knew she was teasing but he couldn’t laugh. He couldn’t imagine life without her now. He rubbed his fingers over her shoulder and placed a reverent kiss to her damp skin. Emotion was hard for him, and words to express what he felt, even harder. “I’m glad I blackmailed you.”
She flipped herself onto her back under him, and the rasp of her breasts against his chest made them both groan. And then her hands clasped his cheeks, her eyes shining. “I’m glad I caved.”
With that simple statement, she rolled over to her side, pulled his arm over to kiss his palm and nestled into him as if she belonged there.
His wife was the bravest woman he’d ever met. And he, a powerful, arrogant thirty-six-year-old who ruled his life with precise ruthlessness, was terrified of what else she would unleash on him.
Of what else she would ask of him that he couldn’t, wouldn’t be able to give. Of what he’d do the day she realized that finding his way back to her simply wasn’t enough.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ALISHA STARED AT her reflection in the mirror, her eyes wide at the outrageously sexy outfit she’d chosen for the party tonight.
And this dress she’d had specially commissioned from an up-and-coming British-Indian designer was it. It was an extravaganza for a woman who’d lived in jeans and T-shirts for a decade but Ali wanted to make her parents proud tonight.
She wanted the world to know of her happiness.
She wanted to share it with these people who’d been part of Matta Steel for generations.
She wanted to embrace her part in her papa’s legacy.
She wanted Dante to be proud to call her his wife.
The wide, ruffled skirt of her mauve lehenga had layers upon layers of ruffles, giving her the fairy-tale princess look that was all the vogue on the runway this year. But the true genius of the outfit was in the choli and the dupatta.
When the designer, Maya, had showed the sketch to Ali, her first impulse had been a resounding no. It bared too much, it was too risqué. As far as she knew, a traditional choli lehenga was a wide, full skirt with a blouse that bared her midriff, yes, but covered everything up front with a silky dupatta to trail from her shoulder.
But since Ali had asked for a modern take on it, for something that was traditional and yet looked sensual, Maya insisted she give it a chance. And when Ali had tried it on, it had looked simply stunning.
The blouse was strapless with gossamer mauve sleeves hanging low on her arms leaving her entire neck and shoulders bare. But the silky blouse cupped her breasts from beneath, like a lover’s hands, leaving the upper curves bare. Since she didn’t have big boobs, it wasn’t so much the cleavage that was outrageous but the way it covered only the lower half.
The dupatta, which was a silky shawl in the same mauve, shimmered with intricate silver thread work, hung from one shoulder.
At Ali’s insistence, Maya had hitched it across her chest and pinned it to the skirt. So the effect was the mirage of the dupatta covering her torso on one side while her breasts played peekaboo on the other.
Big chandelier earrings hung from her ears while she left her hair down to show off the new haircut. She had made her eyes up into a subtly smoky kohl look and had dusted dark blush onto her cheeks. A light pink shimmering gloss on her lips and she was done.
She was ready to meet the world.
And she was ready to meet her husband whom she hadn’t seen in three weeks.
She had so much news to share with him, so many plans to make, so many things to look forward to that she felt as if she was bubbling over with happiness.
* * *
Ali had wanted to shock and surprise Dante but she was the one who got the surprise of the century as she stepped out of the chauffeured Mercedes that evening.
Matta Mansion glittered like a new bride on the night of the Diwali party, decorated with hanging lights everywhere. Focus lights from the grounds made the white marble facade glitter like an Indian palace of old. The gardens beyond had been decorated with fairy lights, every brass and copper artwork that had been the highlight of her mom’s art collection polished to a sheen.
Ali walked into the ballroom and gasped. Thousands of red, earthenware diyas with cotton wicks had already been lit and cast shadows on walls. She had no idea how Dante’s staff had managed to lay their hands on so many of them. No idea how he’d found out all the lovely Hindu traditions that surrounded the festival of Diwali and had them implemented. Especially when he’d been in Tokyo for three weeks.
A small trio of players were seated on a divan behind the main dais, decorated with flowing silks, playing shehnai and tabla. The scent of fresh flowers filled every nook and cranny. Just the delicious aroma of all the sweets the chefs had laid out on the massive buffet table had her mouth watering.
Ali stood on the second-floor balcony and looked out over the gardens. In another hour, every inch of space would be crammed with guests Dante had insisted they invite. Dusk was just an hour away. Once everyone was here, Dante would welcome them all.
They would light some sparklers and then there would be a feast.
Tears filled her eyes as unbidden, a memory came to her, drowning her.
Of her mama decorating the house just like this when Ali had been maybe four. Of throwing open the doors to every member of staff and employee of Matta Mansion. Of dressing Ali and Vikram in traditional clothes while she herself had worn a bright red sari and the diamond necklace that Alisha now owned. Of her papa picking her up and then kissing her mama on the forehead.
“Ali?”
Ali turned so fast that she al
most tripped on the hem of her lehenga.
Dressed in a conservative black suit with a white shirt underneath, Dante looked suave and powerful and utterly masculine. Air left her lungs in a hurried rush. The platinum cuff links she had left for him on his study table glimmered at his cuffs. That unruly hair was combed back, highlighting the harsh features, rendering him absolutely magnificent.
“You look...incredible.”
The husky, rough tone of his words made butterflies flutter in her belly. Suddenly, she was glad she’d gone with Maya’s outrageous creation.
His hands landed on her shoulders, the rough pads of them slithering against her bare skin. Dark eyes studied her with lingering intensity. His gaze moved from her hair to her shoulders, lingering for just a few seconds on the way the choli cupped her breasts. Her nipples tightened, her blood thick as honey in her veins.
“I should have believed you when you said I’d be floored, Alisha.” The way he said her full name made her smile. Exasperation coated his words. “Asking me to foot the bill for that dress is tricking me. It bares too much, Ali.”
“It’s called a lehenga,” she said swishing the wide skirt in her hands with a brazen smile. “I told the designer to make it the most spectacularly sexy outfit London has seen in a while. I told her it should befit the wife of a gorgeous, arrogant, wonderful husband. I told her the world should remember the night when Alisha Matta—”
“Vittori.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Alisha Vittori. You’re Alisha Vittori. Not Matta anymore.”
Alisha Vittori.
It was just a name, and yet her heart thudded against her rib cage.
She scrunched her nose and his jaw tightened. “Nobody really changes their name these days.”
“Mrs. Puri, in all her omniscience, it seems, was right. I find I’m a traditionalist at heart. I want my wife to take my name. I want the entire world to know that, while you have me wrapped around your finger, I have a claim on you too. I never want there to be a doubt about why I want you as my wife.”