“Reheating,” he reminded her.
“Reheating,” she amended.
“Pasta.”
“Did you enjoy the Coliseum?” He asked as he ran water into a large saucepan.
“I did, it was strangely eerie being in a place of such death and barbaric fights though.”
He nodded. “We are lucky it is so well preserved. A reminder to us all to be kind.”
“In preference to forcing our enemies to pit their strengths against tigers?” She teased.
“That too has some appeal.” He said thoughtfully, pouring a glass of wine for himself. He held the bottle to her and she nodded, feeling that she might enjoy a sip tonight. He glugged some into a glass for her and handed it across the bar top.
Dinner was delicious. A piquant tomato sauce with goats cheese, olives and torn basil added at the last moment. They ate in the kitchen at the bench, and it was a nice casual contrast to their dinner on the terrace two nights before.
“I think you secretly enjoy cooking,” she observed after they’d finished and Meghan had loaded their plates into the dishwasher.
“Ah! You’ve got me. My secret is out.” He said, deadpan.
She grinned. “I mean it. It was delicious.”
“I thought we could both use the sustenance for the night ahead.” His eyes glinted speculatively. She froze, turning to face him.
“What do you have in mind, Signore Maratelli?”
He circled the bench and lifted her in one swift movement, carrying her over his shoulder easily. “Showing you would be so much easier than telling you...” He drawled, patting her bottom as they moved upstairs.
Two can play at that game, she thought, and slipped her hands down his back, into the waistband of his pants, so that she could feel his naked skin at the top of his butt cheeks. He grunted and increased his speed. When he reached their room, he tossed her unceremoniously onto the bed, and started to strip his clothes in one swift movement. She watched, enthralled, as he very quickly became totally naked. He was already aroused.
He followed her entranced stare and bent forward, pulling at her underwear so that she was naked between the floating green dress. “Watching you eat is an aphrodisiac. Hell, watching you do anything is enough to send my blood pressure through the roof,” he muttered. “I need you.” He seemed to be apologising, but his immediate need thrilled her.
She was ready for him. “I need you, too,” she said simply, and grabbed his hips, pulling him lower so that he was suspended above her.
“What do you do to me, you witch...” he cried hoarsely as he drove into her. Every time they made love, it was different, and this was the kind of lovemaking that arose out of pure necessity. It was no frills, just an animalistic coming together of two people in desperate hunger. And Meghan had never come harder. She screamed so loudly that the whole of Rome must have heard her.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured afterwards, stroking a hand through her hair. “I lost control. Did I hurt you?”
“Hurt me?” She stared at him, confused.
“I was rough...”
She swallowed, nervous suddenly. “I ... I’m fine.”
He kissed her hard on the lips, and ran his hands down her body, feeling for the hemline of the dress. He slid it up over her flat stomach, the swell of her breasts, and over her arms, so that she was naked beneath him.
“I want to savour you, but sometimes, it’s impossible.” He explained thickly, staring at her in a wave of desire and something else that terrified him with its strength and intensity.
He leaned forward and kissed the column of her neck slowly, felt her shiver beneath him. She was too beautiful. God, he wished circumstances were different. As it was, they could never be more than this – a week of unforgettable sex. If it weren’t for Pete, and the fact he’d possessed her before him, then he suspected he would offer this woman the world to keep her by his side. Hell, sometimes, he was terrified he would do it despite her history with his brother.
He was ashamed of himself for the feelings he had but he was powerless to ignore them.
Determinedly pushing those thoughts from his mind, he ran his mouth down her body, pausing at each breast and lovingly taking their delicate tips into his mouth, first one and then the other, until she was making sweet little whimpering sounds beneath him. As she writhed under his weight, he dipped lower, nipping at the soft flesh of her stomach, gliding his hands across her sides.
After they’d again delved into the full pleasure one could give the other, she stretched languidly and propped her head up with her hand. “I don’t understand how I can want you so much, all the time.” She mused, tracing the fine hairs on his chest with her finger.
He turned to look at her. “I am in the same predicament.”
She was careful not to show how his choice of words upset her. He had been open from the beginning about using this week to get her out of his system. She laid her head back on the pillow and fell into a troubled sleep. Even her dreams were filled with their inevitable parting, and she worried all night about what else she could do to show Matteo that what they had was love, not simply lust.
When she woke early the next morning, she instinctively reached out for him, but his side of the bed was already empty. She frowned, and ran her hand along the indent that was still warmed from his naked flesh. Her fingers connected with a rumpled piece of paper and she lifted it curiously in front of her face.
“Back in one hour. Get dressed. Or don’t. Your choice.”
She couldn’t help the smile that spread from ear to ear. As tempted as she was to stay naked in bed, the point of this exercise was to connect on a level beyond the bedroom, and she was curious to see what he had meant.
Meghan pulled on a casual pair of low slung jeans and a white shirt then padded downstairs.
“Cafe, signorina?” Bernadette offered, her apple-like cheeks dimpling as she held a coffee pot aloft.
“Grazie,” Meghan nodded and gratefully sipped the hot, black liquid.
“I didn’t think doctors approved of caffeine,” Matteo drawled from the doorway, amused at the expression on her face, like the devout worshipping at their alter.
Meghan pulled a face. “I don’t know where you heard that. I practically live on the stuff. My roster is a nightmare. Two coffees qualifies as lunch, most days.”
“Hmm. That is a sinful waste of an opportunity for a delicious meal,” He chided lightly, coming to wrap his arms around her.
She rolled her eyes. “You Italians and your food.” She spun around in his arms to look up at him. “What are you doing here? It’s a Thursday. You should be at work.”
“Your flight leaves tomorrow. I thought we would spend the day together.”
He had no concept of how those words wounded her, of course. She lowered her gaze, took a deep breath, then flashed him a care-free grin.
“Sounds great. Let’s go.”
They spent the day exploring the city, like any young couple in love. As the warmth of the day slowly faded, they continued their walk, down twisting laneway and paved alley. Meghan would never forget the sights and sounds of that day. The geranium window boxes hanging from almost every house, the thousands of cats they passed as they walked. The tourists, taking photographs to remember, where she, Meghan, had no such need. The memories of that day would forever be burned in her brain.
As they came near to the nightclub that they’d met at, Meghan felt her heart start to race. They were having such a beautiful time, she didn’t want to ruin it with reminders of what he perceived to be her loose moral compass.
She stiffened almost imperceptibly, but he felt it.
His eyes looked from her to the bar and his face tightened.
“Reminiscing?” He asked sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“About my brother?”
She squeezed the hand that still held hers. “Don’t ruin it, please, Teo.”
“Ruin what? This is an illusion, Megh
an, don’t you see that?”
She shook her head. “I don’t. I don’t see that.”
“Then you’re blind. Or naive. Or both.” He muttered.
He resumed his walk and she fell into step beside him, but the mood was broken.
“Let’s take a taxi.” She held her hand up and one quickly came to a stop.
Matteo slid in beside her and gave the driver his address.
Once back at the townhouse, Meghan set about packing her suitcase. Her heart was filled with sadness as she realised that he was going to let her go, and there was nothing she could do about it. Despite the day they’d shared, bitterness still ruled his heart.
Matteo strode in as she stuffed the last item into the case.
“I did not mean to end things on that note,” he said crisply, once again, all business, as though she were an unwanted company he was in the process of selling off.
Finally, all the anger that had been building in her since she’d first met him started to flare. How unfair it was that they had met in this manner! She had been deprived of love all of her life, and now, the first man she ever met who inspired such a response in her, hated her, and had good reason to.
“Matteo, do you really think you can say goodbye to me? To this?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw, but he shrugged nonchalantly. “It is our arrangement.”
“Damn it, don’t you feel anything?” She demanded hotly, spreading her hands wide in appeal.
“What should I feel for you? The woman who slept with me whilst dating – no, living with – my brother? Then continued to live with him having promised to leave him for me? I feel many things for you, Meghan, but none of them would please you to hear.”
She would not cry. She would not let herself.
“You are thinking too much. Listen to what’s in here.” She pointed at his chest. “What does it tell you?”
He groaned. “It’s telling me I’d be dead if I trusted a woman like you for more than a fling.”
“A fling..” She mumbled, turning away from him. “This was a fling for you?”
He nodded his head in assent. “What was it for you? Some great romance?”
“Yes, damn you. I fell in love with you the minute I saw you, and if you’d listen to your heart, you’d know you love me too.”
Matteo’s heart soared at her words, but his brain shot it down to earth. She was a master manipulator, nothing else. He could not let her drag him into her net. He’d seen what she was capable of. Holding those memories, that knowledge, like a talisman, he regarded her with distaste.
“I could no more love you than someone who robbed me,” he said darkly. “You forget I know all about your tricks, Meghan. I’ll admit, I’m baffled by the way our bodies dance to the same song, so perfectly in harmony. But I am not going to confuse love with sex, and nor should you.”
“Great sex, great love, do they have to be mutually exclusive?” She implored him emotionally.
“With you and me, absolutely. What future do you possibly imagine for us? My family would never welcome you. You have never known love and now you’re imagining it where it doesn’t exist,” he bit out scathingly.
“I’ve known love,” she retorted angrily. “But never like this. Why do you think I accepted your insulting offer this week? To be your mistress?”
“I can only think of one reason...” he muttered, turning away from her. Truthfully, he was also at a loss.
“No matter how good the sex is between us, I have more pride than to let that guide my actions. I came here because I knew I loved you. I wanted you to see it, too, to admit to yourself and to me how you really feel.”
“That plan is riddled with problems.” He condemned.
“Such as?” She crossed her arms across her chest, her eyes wild with barely contained fury.
“For a start, I don’t love you. I have always held women with your lax morals in the highest disdain.” He saw the way she recoiled from his harsh words but in that moment, he didn’t care.
“You’re a fine one to talk! You’re no virgin.”
He slashed his hand through the air. “I don’t mean sex. Sex between two consenting adults is not a problem to me at all. You were in a committed relationship with my brother.” He spread his hands wide. “How can you not see it? How impossible it is for me to be with a woman who I know to be a cheat, who I know to have cheated on my brother?”
“So it’s okay to sleep with me, but anything else offends you?” She whispered, grabbing the bed for support.
He dragged his hands through his hair, holding his hands on his head as he breathed deeply, trying to get a grip on his temper. “If my brother knew what we had done, he would be devastated. With no basis whatsoever, he has always thought me capable of something like this, and now I’ve gone and proved him right.” He shook his head. “He can never know. Which means nothing more can happen between us.”
“Pete already knows about us. I’ve told him.” She shouted, then bit her lip, as he looked to be suckerpunched.
Matteo froze. “You’ve what?”
“He had to know.” She sighed, her heart heavy with all of the lying.
“To hell he did! When did you tell him?” He raged, his voice like a whip in the still night air.
“At the funeral.”
“At the funeral,” Teo repeated, his eyes squeezed shut as he imagined how it must have pained his brother. “You had no business to do that.”
“I beg your pardon. You are my lover, and he is my friend, I think I had every business...”
“Your friend and ex-lover,” he snapped. “Have you conveniently forgotten that you and I only met because you came to Italy as his girlfriend?”
“Of course I haven’t forgotten. Don’t be obtuse.”
“How did he react?” He asked stonily.
She flushed. “He was a little upset.” She admitted. “But I know Pete. I’m surprised he hasn’t called you to clear the air by now.” In fact, she was murderously enraged with her friend for continuing to dodge her calls and entreaties to smooth things out with Matteo. Until Pete consented, she felt she was honour bound to maintain their secret, but how it was ruining everything for her! She had to get through to Matteo. She had to.
Meghan walked across the floor, unconsciously graceful and placed her hands on his cheeks. She held his face so that it angled down to hers. “Feel me. Feel what you feel like when we’re together. Are you ready for this to end?”
Matteo felt the ache in his gut supersize as he stared down at the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Hell, he didn’t want to let her go, but that was a compelling reason to immediately get away from her. She was like quicksand. Every minute he spent with her took him further and further away from sanity.
He’d had the wrong idea all together. Over-exposure to her wasn’t the way to get her out of his system. He had to starve himself of her seductive perfection completely.
Stepping back to create a space between them, he tried to look at her dispassionately.
“I am. In fact, I will say goodbye now. A driver will convey you to the airport in the morning. Thank you for this week, Meghan. It was most... instructive.”
He turned and walked out of his own bedroom without a backwards glance.
Meghan didn’t sleep all night. She cried, she wept and then she fumed. Then she cried some more. When morning came, she finally realised that he wasn’t coming back. It was time to leave Rome, and Matteo, behind altogether.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Matteo took the steps out of his villa with a heart that felt heavier and heavier as his distance from Meghan increased. It was ludicrous to mourn a woman whom he had always known was going to be a temporary fixture in his life.
To have claimed that she loved him showed what a nasty piece of work she was. The promise of love was not something that should be thrown about for selfish purposes, he thought, shaking his head with disapproval.
He walked across the courtyard to
the garage. Paolo was in the chauffeur’s office.
“Good evening, Signore Maratelli,” He greeted him politely. “Can I take you somewhere?”
Matteo stared at him blankly. Where should he go? He couldn’t stay here. The temptation would be too great to go to her. He had to get some real distance from her sweet self.
“Yes. The Villa.” His tone was unfairly harsh, but at that moment, he didn’t care about offending the driver.
“Very good, sir.” Paolo obliged, folding his newspaper up and putting it aside.
As they cleared the built up city streets of Rome and the Autostrada opened out into the countryside, Matteo became aware that Paolo was glancing back at him every now and again.
Finally, Teo sighed exasperatedly. “Is something the matter, Paolo?”
“No, sir.” Then, “It’s just that I understood Signorina Meghan was to leave tomorrow...”
“She is, Paolo. And not a moment too soon.”
Paolo frowned but was too wise to defend his pretty friend, no matter how sorely he was tempted. He could see that Matteo was a man with a bad case of unrequited love. He would earn no favours with his boss if he intervened.
He drove on in silence but Matteo was restless. “She said she loved me,” he confessed as they approached the Villa.
“Of course she loved you. Any idiot could see that,” Paolo agreed with a laugh.
Matteo shook his head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think she’s capable of love.”
“Not capable of love!” Paolo scoffed. “What a preposterous notion.”
Matteo’s smile was humourless. “Easy for you to say, my friend. You are a man very much in love with his wife and children, and that love is returned three fold. Of course you cannot understand that for some people, love is a hollow notion, a meaningless word used to curry affection when they think it is to their advantage.”
Paolo shook his head. “What could Signorina stand to gain by lying to you about it?” He said, reasonably.
Matteo stared out the window, silent again. He had no idea, but he didn’t dare analyse it too deeply.
The villa was shrouded in darkness when he arrived, as he’d expected it would be at this late hour. He let himself in and went straight up to his room.
The Italian Billionaire's Betrayal: What if you fell in love with the one person you couldn't have? A story of forbidden love and overpowering need. Page 12