by Jennie Lucas
“I don’t blame you for trying. You thought that angle might work. But it will take more than that to manipulate me.”
Her beautiful face was pale. “You think that’s what I was trying to do? Manipulate you?”
“Of course it is.” Leaning down, he confided, “You’re wasting your time. That emotional stuff doesn’t work on me, but—” reaching down, he twisted a tendril of her hair “—you’re welcome to try to convince me in bed. Not that it will work, but we’ll both enjoy it.”
Angrily she pulled her head away. “I’m telling you the truth!”
“Fine.” He rolled his eyes. She seemed determined to stick with her story. “But there will be no more complaining. We will never stop traveling. We will never settle in just one place. And if you ever speak to Bennato again—” he looked at her evenly “—I will divorce you.”
Her brown eyes were cold. “You would divorce me? Just for talking to someone?”
Cristiano would have thought it obvious. “For talking to my enemy.”
Men in tuxedos and women in bright, sparkling gowns continued to dance around them, in a ballroom lit by gilded chandeliers and flooded with silvery moonlight.
“That’s how the world is to you, isn’t it?” Hallie said slowly. “Either a person is your enemy or your slave.” Her eyes were huge as she whispered, “You’re never going to change, are you?”
His expression hardened. “Hallie—”
“No!”
She ripped her arm away, leaving him alone on the ballroom floor. His illustrious guests were now staring at him with big eyes and rising glee. Of course. The only thing people liked better than heroes with enviable lives was seeing those lives fall apart spectacularly.
Turning, he followed his wife out of the hotel.
She was already halfway up the twisting street, climbing the hill. She meant to walk the mile back to the villa, he realized. Even in that impractical red ball gown and high heels. Most of the paparazzi had gone, but a scruffy-looking photographer was following a few feet behind her, peppering her with questions.
Cristiano’s whole body felt tight as he turned to the valet. “My Ferrari.”
The young valet got his car back in thirty seconds. Jumping into the sports car, Cristiano roared along the street and quickly caught up with her. He rolled down the window.
“Get in the car,” he barked. “Now.”
Hallie didn’t even look in his direction. She just kept climbing up the steep road in her high heels and red ball gown.
By now, the photographer had backed off and was simply taking pictures of them both. Cristiano ground his teeth. He had no doubt that the celebrity gossip sites would be full of stories about “Trouble in Paradise” tomorrow.
“Now,” he ordered.
She tripped on a rock, nearly twisting her ankle. Muttering under his breath, he pulled over, blocking her path with his car. Still not looking at him, she climbed in, slamming the door behind her. Without a word, he pressed on the gas, and the powerful engine leaped forward with a roar.
Everything seemed to have changed between them. She remained silent, seeming fragile, brittle. A side of her he’d never seen before.
The pleasurable night, which had seemed so bright and delicious, was suddenly lost. Entering the security code at the gate, he drove up the sweeping drive. The villa was frosted by the opalescent moon in the dark, velvety sky.
After pulling the car into the separate six-car garage, he turned off the engine. They both sat for a moment in silence. Then Hallie turned to him with sudden desperation.
“Could you ever love me? Could you?”
It was a serious question. He looked at her across the car. She hadn’t been trying to manipulate him, after all. She actually believed she loved him.
The thought chilled him to the bone. He had the sudden memory of himself as a boy, hungry and cold and pathetically desperate for love. Crying for it.
He’d never feel that way again.
“No,” he said quietly. “I will never love you. Or anyone.”
Her face became a sickly green. She turned to open her door. Stumbling out of the car, she rushed from the garage and onto the driveway, red skirts flying behind her.
“Hallie, wait,” he said tersely, slamming the car door behind him.
She didn’t slow down. She fled toward the villa’s gardens overlooking the sea, the skirt of her red dress flying behind her, a slash of scarlet in the moonlight.
He followed, reaching her at the hedge maze, with the eight-foot-tall, sharply cut hedges towering above them, luring them into the shadows of the green labyrinth.
“Hallie, damn you! Stop!”
Grasping her arm, he twisted her around, pressing her back against the hedge.
“Let me go,” she panted, struggling. “You—are a liar!”
Her breath came in hot, quick gasps. His lips parted to argue, but as he looked from the fury in her eyes to the quick pant of her full breasts, pushing up against the strapless bodice of her dress, desire overwhelmed him. He tried to kiss her.
For the first time, Hallie turned her head away so he could not.
Cristiano stared down at her with narrowed eyes, his own heart suddenly pounding with anger at her rejection.
“I never asked for your love,” he ground out. “I never wanted it.”
She lifted her chin, and her eyes glittered in the moonlight. “No. You just want to possess me. You want my body. Not my heart.”
Silence fell, with the only sound the angry pant of her breath. His gaze again fell to her sweetly seductive mouth. Her pink tongue licked the corners of her red lips.
“Love me if you want. I don’t care.” He looked down at her. “But you will obey me.”
“Obey you?” She gave a harsh laugh. “This isn’t the Middle Ages. I am not your property. And I never will be.”
“Aren’t you?” He breathed in the scent of her, like vanilla and summer flowers. Her skin beneath his grasp felt hot to the touch. Her dark eyes sucked him into fury and despair, all tangled up in wanton, desperate desire.
Gripping her wrists against the hedge, Cristiano lowered his head roughly to hers.
He did it to prove a point. To master her. But as he kissed her, as her struggles ended and he felt her surrender, when he felt her desire rise against him like a tide, he too was suddenly lost.
I love you, she’d said. I am not your property.
Kissing her, he was dizzy with need. He wanted to take her right here, right now, in the moonlight and shadows of the labyrinth.
Hallie wrenched away. “Don’t touch me,” she whispered harshly.
He stared down at her in shock. Without her in his arms, he felt suddenly bereft. Rejected. Vulnerable.
The one feeling he’d vowed he’d never feel again.
Rage exploded inside him. He let it build until it was all encompassing, blocking out any other emotion.
Looking down at his wife, he narrowed his eyes and spoke the words he knew would hurt her more than any others.
“You want me to tell you I love you, Hallie? Fine,” Cristiano said coldly. “I love you.”
* * *
Hallie stared up at him, her heart in her throat.
He loved her?
Trembling, she stumbled back a step into the shadows of the hedge maze. She whispered, “You do?”
“Want me to be more convincing?” Coming closer, he kissed her cheek, her lips, her throat. “I love you, cara mia,” he whispered. “I love you. Ti amo.”
And she heard the mockery behind his words.
Tearfully she said, “I didn’t know you had such cruelty in you!”
“Did you not?” he said, looking devastatingly handsome and cold as marble in his perfectly cut tuxedo. “Then you chose to be blind.”
Hallie felt
like crying. The way he’d looked at her at the gala had made her bold. It had made her brave. All her instincts had told her that if she took the risk, if she told him she loved him, she could rescue him from his dark past.
Her instincts had been wrong.
Now, standing in her red dress in the shadowy hedge maze, she felt like she was in a Gothic Victorian nightmare. Knowing he didn’t love her back was heartbreaking, but she might have been able to endure it as long as she had hope that, someday, perhaps he could.
Cristiano had taken even that hope away from her, and then used her own words of love to mock her. He’d made it clear that their marriage would be on his terms alone.
She was to fill his bed and raise his child, and he would give her nothing in return. Not his heart. Not his love.
Not even a home.
She wiped her eyes. “You heartless bastard,” she whispered. “What have you done to me?”
“Now it’s my fault, because I cannot return the love I never asked you to feel?” He looked down at her icily. “I do not have the ability to produce feelings on command. What you want from me, I cannot give.”
Pain ripped through her and, along with it, the humiliating realization that for all his coldness and cruelty, she loved him. Still.
“What will we do?” she whispered.
“Our marriage will continue as always.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
“Nothing has changed between us. We leave for Tokyo in the morning.”
Hallie didn’t realize her knees had buckled beneath her until he was beside her, supporting her arm.
“It’s late, Hallie,” he said quietly. “You’re tired. Come inside.”
She looked up at him wordlessly as he half carried her into the villa. Inside, it was dark and quiet. The rooms were elegant and empty. They seemed to go on forever.
On the second floor, they found Agata sitting outside the nursery, knitting. The older woman looked between them, then said only, “The baby had a good night. He just fell asleep.”
In the darkened nursery, Hallie looked down at her sleeping baby. Jack’s fat arms stretched back above his head. His chubby cheeks moved as his mouth pursed in his sleep.
Coming behind her, Cristiano put his hands heavily on her shoulders, his voice firm. “Let’s put our quarrel behind us, Hallie. This is what’s important.” He looked down at the crib. “Our son. Our family.”
A lump rose in Hallie’s throat.
He was right. Family was the most important thing to her. For years, all she’d tried to do was recapture what she’d lost. To have a family again. A home.
How had it all gone so wrong? A lifetime in a loveless marriage stretched ahead of her. Instead of having a home, surrounded by friends, at her husband’s command she would be forced to travel from hotel to hotel.
Her hands tightened at her sides. And her son would be raised to think this was normal. He’d see the cold relationship between his parents and think it was what marriage was. What family was. He’d never know what a family was meant to be—a rowdy, chaotic life of give and take, of arguing and joking and kisses, filled with love.
Her tiny baby’s soul would be warped by this, just as Cristiano’s had once been.
With an intake of breath, Hallie looked up.
Cristiano frowned when he saw her expression. “What is it?”
She’d thought commitment made a home. That was why she’d married him. She’d thought, if she took his name, if they lived under the same roof, under his protection, they’d be a family.
But there was a reason that, in spite of all his money and lavish gifts, Hallie hadn’t felt as happy and secure as she had as a child. A reason, even in this amazing, luxurious villa, she’d never truly felt at home.
“Love makes a family,” she breathed. “Love makes a home.”
Certainty rushed through her, clanging like a bell. Her husband had said he would never love her. He would never take that risk. He would never give up anything he couldn’t afford to lose. He would never give himself.
Hallie’s heart tightened. Her back snapped straight.
Turning on her heel, she went to the enormous master bedroom. She took a suitcase from the shelf of the walk-in closet.
Cristiano’s voice came from the doorway. “What do you think you’re doing?”
There wasn’t much to take. She didn’t need all the expensive designer clothes, not anymore. And she’d left her family treasures back in New York. Along with her friends.
She looked at him.
“I’m going home.”
“Home,” he scoffed.
“New York.” Saying the name aloud made her realize how desperate she was to return. “I’m going home to the people who love me.”
She turned back to the closet, then stopped. He’d bought her so much, but what did she actually need? Nothing. She didn’t want anything he’d bought her. Because he hadn’t been buying her clothes. He’d been buying her soul. Telling her how she had to behave and where she would live and who she would be.
Looking down at herself, she couldn’t bear for the beautiful red ball gown to be touching her skin. It reminded her of how naive she’d been, to believe she could just tell him she loved him and magically change him, like some fairy tale!
Reaching back, she savagely yanked on the zipper, pulling off the dress and kicking it away from her body. She stood in front of him, wearing only a white lace bra and panties and the cold diamond necklace on her throat.
“Hallie, don’t do anything foolish.”
“You don’t believe in love. You don’t believe in home.” Reaching up, she pulled off the glittering diamond necklace and held it out, a hard heap of metal and stone. “Take it back.”
When he didn’t move, she opened her hand, letting it drop heavily to the floor. Turning away, she dug through the closet until she found one of her old cotton sundresses. Pulling it over her body, she left the closet, carrying the empty suitcase.
“Go, then,” he growled.
Stopping by the enormous bed where he’d once given her such joy, she whirled to face him. His eyes were black.
“Go off in search of this imaginary man who will feel whatever you want him to feel, whenever you want it, trained on your command like a barking dog.”
She took a deep breath, her heart full of anguish. “That’s not what I—”
“You can go,” he interrupted. He paused. “My son stays.”
Hallie’s mouth went dry.
“What?” she croaked.
Her husband’s dark eyes glittered as his cruel, sensual lips curved. “You heard me.”
“You would take him from me?” she whispered. “From his own mother?”
“You are the one abandoning him, if you leave. And, as I warned you from the beginning, he is my priority. Not you.”
His words stabbed her in the heart. “But—but you’re hardly ever home! You spend all your time working. You’d rather see Jack raised by some paid nanny?” She lifted her chin. “I don’t care what you say, no judge would agree to that!”
Cristiano tilted his head. “It seems you didn’t read our prenuptial agreement carefully, cara. In the event of a divorce, unless I am in breach of our agreement, primary custody goes to me.” He smiled. “You are, of course, welcome to visit Jack whenever you wish.”
His voice was silky, as if he knew he’d just beaten her. And he had. She staggered back, unable to believe that the man she loved could be so cold and unforgiving.
“You bastard,” she whispered.
“Me?” His eyes suddenly blazed. “I’ve done everything for you, Hallie,” he ground out. “Everything. I’ve given you everything any woman could possibly desire. I bought you this house—”
“Because you wanted revenge against your father! Nothing to do with m
e!”
“This house was for you. Hurting Bennato was just a bonus. And yet you still decided to go behind my back and try to help him infiltrate our family.”
“He never meant to abandon you! Why won’t you even talk to him?”
“Because he would say anything to try to hurt me. And, at the moment, so would you.”
That made Hallie gasp. “Do you really believe that?”
“You’re either with me or against me.”
Searching his gaze, she choked out, “Are you trying to make me hate you?”
“Perhaps. At least hate,” Cristiano said softly, tucking back a tendril of her hair, “is an emotion I believe in.”
They were so close, facing each other in the luxurious bedroom, next to the enormous four-poster bed. Beyond that, the French doors opened to the terrace on the edge of the sea.
Hallie looked up at her husband. The powerful, sexy billionaire that every other woman wanted. To the outside world, she knew it seemed as if she had everything any woman could ever want.
But he was so damaged inside, the truth was she had nothing at all.
She said, “I won’t let you take my baby away.”
“I won’t have to.” He gave her a hard smile. “Because you’re not going anywhere. We will remain one big happy family. You will remain at my side. In my bed. Bearing my children.”
“Children?” Her voice was strangled.
He lifted an eyebrow. “We will have other children,” he said mildly. “Surely you would not want Jack to be alone?”
It was the final straw. Closing her eyes, Hallie took a deep breath.
She knew what she had to do. The thought turned her heart to ice. It wasn’t what she wanted.
But he’d left her no choice.
“I’m done arguing about this,” Cristiano said. “You will be happy, as you were before. You will appreciate what I can give you and ignore what I cannot.” Reaching out, he cupped her cheek.
Opening her eyes, she spoke, her voice clear and unflinching. “You missed dinner with us this week.”
He frowned. “What?”
“Twice. You were gone from dawn till midnight. You didn’t share a single meal with us on those days, as Agata and other staff members can attest.”