by Maisey Yates
“In what way?” she asked, leaning back in her chair, her dark eyes unflinching.
“Physically.”
“No.”
The wave of relief that washed over him was profound, strong. “I’m pleased to hear it.”
“Emotionally, on the other hand, I’m not sure I faired so well.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, let’s see, my husband got drunk on our wedding night instead of coming to bed with me. What do you think?”
“I’m sorry if I wounded your pride,” he said, “that wasn’t my intention.” What he’d been after was oblivion, which he should have known wasn’t a safe pursuit.
“Wouldn’t your pride have been wounded if I’d done the same?”
“I would have ripped the bottle out of your hand. You’re pregnant.”
There hadn’t been a lot of time for him to really pause and think through the implications of that. It had all been about securing the marriage. Staying a step ahead of the press at all times. Making sure Alessia was legally bound to him.
“Hence the herbal tea,” she said, raising her cup to him. “And the pregnancy wasn’t really my point.”
“Alessia … this can’t be a normal marriage.”
“Why not?” she asked, sitting up straighter.
“Because it simply can’t be. I’m a busy man, I travel a lot. I was never going to marry … I never would have married.”
“I don’t see why we can’t have a normal marriage anyway. A lot of men and women travel for business, it doesn’t mean they don’t get married.”
“I don’t love you.”
Alessia felt like he’d slapped her. His words were so bald, so true and unflinching. And they cut a swath of devastation through her. “I didn’t ask you to,” she said, because it was the only truth she could bring herself to speak.
“Perhaps not, but a wife expects it from her husband.”
“I doubt my father loved my mother, and if he did, it wasn’t the kind of love I would like to submit to. What about yours?”
“Obsession, perhaps, was a better word. My father loved Lia’s mother, I’m sure of that. I’m not certain he loved mine. At least, not enough to stay away from other women. And my mother was—is, for that matter—very good at escaping unpleasant truths by way of drugs and alcohol.” His headache mocked him, a reminder that he’d used alcohol for the very same reason last night.
“Perhaps it was their marriages that weren’t normal. Perhaps—”
“Alessia, don’t. I think you saw last night that I’m not exactly a brilliant candidate for husband or father of the year.”
“So try to be. Don’t just tell me you can’t, Matteo, or that you don’t want to. Be better. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to be stronger, to do the right thing.”
“Yes, because that’s what you do,” he said, his tone dry. “You make things better, because it makes you feel better, and as long as you feel good you assume all is right with your world. You trust your moral compass.”
“Well, yes, I suppose that’s true.”
“I don’t trust mine. I want things I shouldn’t want. I have already taken what I didn’t have the right to take.”
“If you mean my virginity, I will throw this herbal tea in your face,” she said, pregnancy hormones coming to the rescue, bringing an intense surge of anger.
“I’m not so crass, but yes. Your body, you, you aren’t for me.”
“For Alessandro? That’s who I was for?”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“The hell it’s not, Matteo!” she shouted, not caring if she hurt his head. Him and his head could go to hell. “You’re just like him. You think I can’t make my own decisions? That I don’t know my own mind? My body belongs to me, not to you, not to my father, not to Alessandro. I didn’t give myself to you, I took you. I made you tremble beneath my hands, and I could do it again. Don’t treat me like some fragile thing. Don’t treat me like you have to protect me from myself.”
He stayed calm, maddeningly so, his focus on his cup of coffee. “It’s not you I’m protecting you from.”
“It’s you?”
A smile, void of humor, curved his lips. “I don’t trust me, Alessia, why should you?”
“Well, let me put you at ease, Matteo. I don’t trust anyone. Just because I jumped into bed with you doesn’t mean you’re the exception. I just think you’re hot.” She was minimizing it. Minimizing what she felt. And she hated that. But she was powerless to do anything to stop the words from coming out. She wanted to protect herself, to push him back from her vulnerable places. To keep him from hurting her.
Because the loss of Matteo in her fantasies … it was almost too much to bear. As he became her reality, she was losing her escape, and she was angry at him for taking it. For not being the ideal she had made him out to be.
“I’m flattered,” he said, taking another drink of his coffee.
“How do you see this marriage going, then?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Assume it’s too late. Where do we go from here?”
He leaned forward, his dark eyes shuttered. “When exactly are you due?”
“November 22. It was easy for them to figure out since I knew the exact date I conceived.”
“I will make sure you get the best care, whatever you need. And we’ll make a room for the baby.”
“Well, all things considered, I suppose our child should have a room in his own house.”
“I’m trying,” he bit out. “I’m not made for this. I don’t know how to handle it.”
“Well, I do. I know exactly how much work babies are. I know exactly what it’s like to raise children. I was thirteen when my mother died. Thirteen when my baby sister and the rest of my siblings became my responsibility. Babies are hard work. But you love them, so much. And at the same time, they take everything from you. I know that, I know it so well. And I’m terrified,” she said, the last word breaking. It was a horrible confession, but it was true.
She’d essentially raised four children, one of them from infancy, and as much as she adored them, with every piece of herself, she also knew the cost of it. Knew just how much you poured into children. How much you gave, how much they took.
And she was doing it again. Without ever finding a place for herself in the world. Without having the fantasies she’d craved. True love. A man who would take care of her.
You’ve had some of the fantasies.
Oh, yes, she had. But one night of passion wasn’t the sum total of her life’s desires.
“All of this,” he said. “And still you want this child?”
“Yes, Matteo. I do. Because babies are a lot of work. But the love you feel for them … it’s stronger than anything, than any fear. It doesn’t mean I’m not afraid, only that I know in the end the love will win.”
“Well, we can be terrified together,” he said.
“You’re terrified?”
“Babies are tiny. They look very easily broken.”
“I’ll teach you how to hold one.”
Their eyes met, heat arching between them, and this time her pregnancy hormones were making her feel something other than anger.
She looked back down at her breakfast. “How’s your head?”
“I feel like someone put a woodpecker in my skull.”
“It’s no less than you deserve.”
“I will treat you better than I did last night. That I promise you. I’m not sure what other promises I can make, but that one … that one I will keep.”
She thought of him last night. Broken. Passionate. Needy. She wondered how much of that was the real Matteo. How much he kept hidden beneath a facade.
How much he kept from escaping. And she knew just how he felt in some ways. Knew what it was like to hide everything behind a mask. It was just that her mask was smiling, and his hardly made an expression at all.
“Will you be faithful to me?” she
asked, the words catching in her throat.
Matteo looked down into his coffee for a moment, then stood, his cup in his hand. “I have some work to see to this morning, and my head is killing me. We can talk more later.”
Alessia’s heart squeezed tight, nausea rolling through her. “Later?”
“My head, Alessia.”
My heart, you jackass. “Great. Well, perhaps we can have a meeting tonight, or something.”
“We’re busy tonight.”
“Oh. Doing what?”
“Celebrating our marriage, quite publicly, at a charity event.”
“What?” She felt far too raw to be in public.
“After what happened with Alessandro, we have to present a united front. Your not-quite wedding to him was very public, as was your announcement of your pregnancy. The entire world is very likely scratching their heads over the spectacle we’ve created, and now it’s time to show a little bit of normal.”
“But we don’t have a normal marriage—I mean, so I’ve been told.”
“As far as the media is concerned we do.”
“Why? Afraid of a little scandal? You’re a Corretti.”
“What do you want our child to grow up and read? Because thanks to the internet, this stuff doesn’t die. It’s going to linger, scandal following him wherever he goes. You and I both know what that’s like. To have all the other kids whisper about your parents. For our part, we aren’t criminals, but we’ve hardly given our child a clean start.”
“So we go out and look pretty and sparkly and together, and what? The press just forgets about what happened?”
“No, but perhaps they will continue on in the vein that they’ve started in.”
“What’s that?” She’d, frankly, spent a lot of energy avoiding the stories that the media had written about the wedding.
“That we were forbidden lovers, who risked it all to be together.”
It wasn’t far from the truth, although Matteo hadn’t truly known the risk they’d been taking their night together. But she had. And she’d risked it all for the chance to be with him.
Looking at him now, dealing with all the bruises he’d inflicted on her heart, she knew she would make the same choice now. Because at least it had been her choice. Her mistake. Her very first big one. It was like a rite of passage in a way.
“Well, then, I suppose we had better get ready to put on a show. I’m not sure I have the appropriate costume, though.”
“I’m sure I can come up with something.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“SOMETHING” TURNED OUT to be an evening gown from the Corretti fashion line. It was gorgeous, and it was very slinky, with silky gold fabric that molded to her curves and showed the emerging baby bump that she almost hadn’t noticed until she’d put on the formfitting garment.
Of course, there was no point in hiding her pregnancy. She’d announced it on television, for heaven’s sake. But even so, since she hadn’t really dealt with it yet, she felt nervous about sharing it with the public like this.
She put her hand on her stomach, smoothing her palm over the small bump. She was going to be a mother. Such a frightening, amazing thing to realize. She’d been tangled up in finding Matteo, and then in the days since—had it really only been days?—she’d been dealing with having him back in her life. With marrying him. She hadn’t had a chance to really think of the baby in concrete terms.
Alessia looked at herself in the mirror one more time, at her stomach, and then back at her face. Her looks had never mattered very much to her. She was comfortable with them, more or less. She was taller than almost every other woman she knew, and a good portion of the men, at an Amazonian six feet, but Matteo was taller.
He managed to make her feel small. Feminine. Beautiful.
That night they were together he’d made her feel especially beautiful. And then last night he’d made her feel especially undesirable. Funny how that worked.
She turned away from the mirror and walked out of the bedroom. Matteo was standing in the hall waiting for her, looking so handsome in his black suit she went a little weak-kneed. He was a man who had a strong effect, that was for sure.
“Don’t you clean up nice,” she said. “You almost look civilized.”
“Appearances can be deceiving,” he said.
“The devil wore Armani?”
“Something like that.” He held his hand out and she hesitated for a moment before taking it and allowing him to lead her down the curved staircase and into the foyer. He opened the door for her, his actions that of a perfectly solicitous husband.
Matteo’s sports car was waiting for them, the keys in the ignition.
Alessia waited until they were on the road before speaking again. “So, what’s the charity?”
He shifted gears, his shoulders bunched up, muscles tense. “It’s one of mine.”
“You have charities?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t realize.”
“I thought you knew me.”
“We’re filled with surprises for each other, aren’t we? It’s a good thing we have a whole lifetime together to look forward to,” she said drily.
“Yes,” he said, his voice rough, unconvincing.
And she was reminded of their earlier conversation in the dining room. She’d asked him point-blank if he would be faithful, and he’d sidestepped her. She had a feeling he was doing it again.
She gritted her teeth to keep from saying anything more. To keep from asking him anything, or pressing the issue. She had some pride. She did. She was sure she did, and she was going to do everything she could to hold on to her last little bit of it.
“Well, what is your charity for, then?”
“This is an education fund. For the schools here.”
“That’s … great,” she said. “I didn’t get to do any higher education.”
“Did you want to?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean … I didn’t really have anything I wanted to be when I grew up.”
“Nothing?”
“There weren’t a lot of options on the table. Though I did always think I would like to be a mother.” A wife and a mother. That she would like to have someone who loved her, cherished her like the men in her much-loved books cherished their heroines. It was a small dream, one that should have been somewhat manageable.
Instead, she’d gone off and traded it in for a night of wild sex.
And darn it, she still didn’t regret it. Mainly. “Mission accomplished.”
“Why, yes, Matteo, I am, as they say, living the dream.”
“There’s no need to be—”
“There is every need to be,” she said. “Don’t act like I should thank you for any of this.”
“I wasn’t going to,” he said, his tone biting.
“You were headed there. This is not my dream.” But it was close. So close that it hurt worse in some ways than not getting anywhere near it at all. Because this was proving that her dream didn’t exist. That it wasn’t possible.
“My apologies, cara, for not being your dream.” His voice was rough, angry, and she wanted to know where he got off being mad after the way he’d been treating her.
“And my apologies for not being yours. I imagine if I had a room number stapled to my forehead and a bag of money in my hand I’d come a little closer.”
“Now you’re being absurd.”
“I don’t think so.”
Matteo maneuvered his car through the narrow city streets, not bothering with nice things like braking before turning, and pulled up to the front of his hotel.
“It’s at your hotel,” she said.
“Naturally.” He threw the car into Park, then got out, rounding to the passenger side and opening the door for her. “Come, my darling wife, we have a public to impress.”
He extended his hand to her and she slowly reached her hand out to accept it. Lighting streaked through her, from her fingertips, spreading to e
very other part of her, the shock and electricity curling her toes in her pumps.
She stood, her eyes level with his thanks to her shoes. “Thank you.”
A member of the hotel staff came to where they were and had a brief exchange with Matteo before getting into the car and driving it off to the parking lot. Alessia wandered to the steps of the hotel, taking two of them before pausing to wait for her husband.
Matteo turned back to her, his dark eyes glittering in the streetlamps. He moved to the stairs, and she advanced up one more, just to keep her height advantage. But Matteo wasn’t having it. He got onto her stair, meeting her eyes straight on.
“There are rules tonight, Alessia, and you will play by them.”
“Will I?” she asked. She wasn’t sure why she was goading him. Maybe because it was the only way in all the world she could feel like she had some power. Or maybe it was because if she wasn’t trying to goad him, she was longing for him. And the longing was just unacceptable.
A smile curved his lips and she couldn’t help but wonder if he needed this, too. This edge of hostility, the bite of anger between them.
Although why Matteo would need anything to hold her at a distance when he’d already made his feelings quite clear was a mystery to her.
“Yes, my darling wife, you will.” He put his hand on her chin, drawing close to her, his heat making her shiver deep inside. It brought her right back to that night.
To the aching, heart-rending desperation she’d felt when his lips had finally touched hers. To the moment they’d closed his hotel room door and he’d pressed her against the wall, devouring, taking, giving.
He drew his thumb across her lower lip and she snapped back to the present. “You must stop looking at me like that,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re frightened of me.” There was an underlying note to his voice that she couldn’t guess at, a frayed edge to his control that made his words gritty.
“I’m not.”
“You look at me like I’m the very devil sometimes.”
“You act like the very devil sometimes.”
“True enough. But there are other times …”
“What other times?”
“You didn’t used to look at me that way.”