Once Matteo had pulled her up to stand beside him, Grace turned to see that the two of them were the only couple left on the dance floor. That somewhere in the middle of their dance, everyone else had stepped back to watch them. The rest of the wedding party now stood at the edge of the dance floor applauding their performance.
“Well, this isn’t the least embarrassing,” she murmured ruefully once she and Matteo had walked through the congratulations and back-patting to stand near the bar.
Matteo had never danced with any woman who was as graceful and sensual as Grace. He’d been right about her having a dancer’s body rather than that of a model.
He kept his arm tightly about her waist. “Come to my hotel suite with me.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re really staying here? Atticus mentioned it,” she explained as Matteo frowned.
“In what context?”
“In the context that if we didn’t want to go to the bother of going to your hotel suite, there are plenty of empty rooms down the hallway with locks on the door.”
“That sounds like Atticus,” he drawled.
Grace smiled. “I like him.”
“All of Bryce’s brothers are likeable. They are also all married or about to be,” Matteo added harshly.
Grace looked at him searchingly. “Are you jealous?”
Matteo’s jaw tightened. “You are here as my guest, not theirs.”
“You are jealous,” she murmured incredulously.
He looked down the length of his nose at her. “I don’t share.”
“I didn’t for a moment think that you did,” she derided. “But what’s with the staying at the hotel?”
Matteo continued to frown for several long seconds before accepting that Grace was attempting to change the subject. As he was currently behaving like a jealous idiot over a woman he had known only a matter of days, Matteo decided to go along with it. “Bella had the idea she wants all the family to stay here overnight and then have breakfast together in the morning before she and Bryce fly off on their honeymoon in the early afternoon.” And Matteo was Bella’s only family.
“That sounds nice.”
Was that a wistful note Matteo detected in Grace’s voice? “Do you have family? Parents? Brothers and sisters?”
Her expression became closed and her gaze distant. “I think it’s time for me to leave after that very public display.”
His arm tightened about her waist. “You’ve only been here for an hour or so.” Nor had he missed the fact Grace hadn’t answer his questions about her family.
She grimaced. “I think it was a mistake for me to have come here at all. I…I don’t know why I did.” Her frown was pained.
“Don’t you?” Matteo drew her closer so that their bodies were once again molded together, his arousal long and hard against her abdomen. “Don’t you, Grace?”
Color warmed her cheeks, her gaze avoiding meeting his. “I don’t understand what’s happening between us.”
“Neither do I,” he acknowledged ruefully. “But I’m not willing to let it go, whatever it is.” Not yet, at least.
Because that choice would be taken out of his hands when Leonardo Brunelli and his daughter, Natalia, arrived in London in two days’ time.
“Matteo?” Grace cut in on the darkness of his thoughts.
He forced a smile. “I’m not willing to let you go, Grace.”
“Maybe long enough for me to go to the powder room and tidy up after all that exertion?”
Matteo wanted to say no, to keep Grace pinned to his side and never let her out of his sight again.
And that really isn’t obsessive or stalkerish, Matteo, he mocked himself.
He released her, his arms falling back to his side. “I’ll be waiting right here for you.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
Matteo watched the gentle sway of her hips as she walked toward the double doors opening out into the hallway, a sigh leaving his lips once she had moved out of his sight.
“We are all entitled to change our minds.”
Matteo swung round to face Gregori Markovic, the dark-haired Russian every bit as tall and imposing as Matteo. “Change my mind about what?”
“Whom, not what,” the older man drawled. “You and Miss Morrissey dance well together. As if you have done so dozens of times before?”
“We haven’t,” he clipped.
Gregori shrugged. “The tango is making love to music.”
Matteo glared. “We haven’t done that either.” He straightened. “We might have a business agreement, Gregori, but that doesn’t give you the right to speak to me this way or Nikolai the right to question Grace.”
“She is a very beautiful woman.”
“And you and Nikolai are both very happily married men and totally faithful to your beautiful wives, so don’t try to imply Nikolai’s conversation with Grace was anything other than an attempt on his part to warn her off.”
Gregori gave a hard smile. “If that was his intention, then he obviously failed.” He sobered. “It is not me you should be wary of, Matteo.”
No, he knew that honor went solely to Leonardo Brunelli.
Matteo released a heavy breath. “I apologize for snapping at you, Gregori.” Something he seemed to be doing far too much of recently. “I know all the arguments against getting involved with Grace.” He should do. He had been tormenting himself with them since the moment he met her. “But I can’t seem to stay away from her.”
“I believe she came to you this evening, so obviously, the feeling is mutual.”
“Do you think so?” Matteo immediately winced at how needy he sounded. “Sorry,” he muttered self-disgustedly.
“Our alliance will stand whatever you do, because you are now Bryce’s brother-in-law and his friendship with Nikolai makes him family,” the Russian reassured him. “Just be aware Brunelli might not be quite so understanding where a slight to his daughter’s honor is concerned.”
Matteo was aware of that, but it made no difference to how much he wanted to see and be with Grace.
Speaking of which, she had been gone much longer than he would have expected. She already looked perfect to him, so he couldn’t imagine what was taking her so long.
Unless…
Chapter Ten
“So you see, Mr. Darcy, I really had no choice but to leave.” Grace sat in one of the armchairs in the lounge of her apartment, stroking her purring ginger tabby cat behind his ears. She had changed out of the green dress she’d worn to the wedding reception earlier, and into loose gray sweats and a white vest top, leaving her feet bare. “I just wish it didn’t hurt so much,” she added forlornly.
If she was expecting any other response from her cat other than his loud purr, which certainly wasn’t in tune with her feelings of melancholy, then she was out of luck.
How could she have fallen for Matteo so quickly and so deeply?
So much so that she had put the life she’d carved for herself in jeopardy just to see and be with him again.
It didn’t make sense to Grace. None of it did. This magnetic pull he seemed to hold for her. The way she melted the moment she was close enough to breathe in his unique scent of aftershave and musk. How, it seemed, he had only to touch her for parts of her body to either swell or grow wet in arousal.
As she had when they danced the tango together.
God.
She had never experienced anything like the physical oneness as the two of them danced together in such total accord. She could have come just from the heat blazing between them.
She sighed heavily as, bored by her distraction, Mr. Darcy stood up and jumped lightly to the floor before walking away, tail haughtily high in disgust at her lack of attention. She—
Grace tensed, every part of her on high alert, as the intercom bell rang in her apartment. Then rang again. And again. Before it rang continuously as someone obviously kept their finger on the button downstairs.
And Grace had a feeling she knew e
xactly who that someone was.
Who it had to be, because she didn’t tell people where she lived, let alone have a group of friends, or even a single friend who might call round to her apartment, invited or uninvited.
But she had allowed Matteo to drive her home from the store on Friday evening so she could feed Mr. Darcy before they went out to dinner.
Which meant it now had to be him standing downstairs with his finger on the intercom button to her apartment.
What should she do?
If she didn’t answer, would he, in time, just go away?
Did she want him to do that?
A sob caught in her throat as she hurried over to the intercom system in the kitchen to press the reply button. “Yes?”
“Open this fucking door, Grace, before I kick the damn thing— Good choice,” Matteo muttered when she pressed the button to unlock the door into the building. “I really hope you have a good excuse for—”
Grace cut him off by taking her finger off the receive button.
She stepped back, her heart pounding as she gripped her hands tightly together in an attempt to stop them from shaking. Matteo had sounded…furious. She remembered how her father, also Italian, usually vented such depth of anger in a physical way, usually against her mother. What if Matteo possessed that same need for violence? She was alone here, except for Mr. Darcy—and he had already shown how eager he was to comfort or protect her.
She shouldn’t have let Matteo in—
Grace had no doubt he would have kicked in the front door of the building if she’d continued to keep him locked out.
But what was he doing here? It was only nine o’clock in the evening, and if everyone was staying the night at the hotel, then surely his sister’s wedding reception was still going strong? As the bride’s brother, Matteo—
—was now loudly banging his fist on the door of her apartment!
Except, Grace now realized, she hadn’t ever told him the number of her apartment. Nor was her name listed beside the number on the apartments and tenants panel downstairs.
Which meant—
Grace grasped the door handle before throwing the door open. “You’ve had me investigated,” she accused, standing her ground in the doorway as she glared at him furiously, realizing by his formal attire that he must have come here straight from the wedding reception.
This wasn’t quite the greeting Matteo had been expecting, not when Grace must be fully aware by now of his own anger at her having left the hotel without telling him.
But perhaps it should have been?
After all, this was Grace, and she never did or said what he expected her to.
Her clothes, loose sweats hanging low on her hip bones and a fitted white vest top that revealed she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath, were also much less formal than anything he’d previously seen her in. She looked good. Too good for Matteo’s already shaky self-control.
“My security is such that everyone I come into contact with is investigated as a matter of course,” Matteo managed to answer her evenly.
“Really?” she challenged.
“Yes, really.”
“How did I do?” she sneered.
“It isn’t a pass or fail.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.”
The information Matteo had read on Grace had been sparse, to say the least. There was just a single sheet of paper in her file, listing her movements from when she’d arrived in England five years ago. Nothing of where she was—or who she’d been—before that time.
A fact that had aroused Antonio’s and Luca’s suspicions
Matteo had been more pragmatic on the subject. That decision was based on the woman he knew rather than random facts printed—or not printed—on a sheet of paper. He could have had Grace’s past looked into more deeply. Bryce’s brother, Haydn, was one of the top hackers in the world. But Matteo hadn’t wanted to do that.
Perhaps, considering what he had suffered the past nine years, that wasn’t a sensible decision on his part, but he truly didn’t believe Grace represented any danger to him. Not physically, at least.
Antonio and Luca disagreed. Strongly. So much so that they had insisted on accompanying him here and even now were sitting outside the building in their black SUV.
“Invite me in, Grace,” Matteo prompted huskily.
“Are you a vampire? They’re supposed to need an invitation to enter a human’s home.” Her cheeks were red as she answered his puzzled frown.
“No, I’m not a vampire,” he drawled. “You still haven’t invited me in,” he prompted seconds later.
Her shoulders tensed. “I’m not sure I should.”
“If you don’t, I’m going to make love to you out here in the hallway, where any of your neighbors could walk by and— Thank you.” He stepped forward into the apartment once Grace had moved to one side in invitation.
Matteo looked around him curiously. The sitting space and adjoining kitchen weren’t what he’d been expecting either. Grace looked so buttoned-up at work in her dark business clothes, but her apartment was a riot of colors: scatter cushions on the bright blue sofa and armchairs, several rag rugs in different shades on the wooden floor, the art on the walls portraying colorful beaches and towns. The kitchen was also warm, almost homely, with its rustic wooden cabinets against terracotta tiles and copper pots and bunches of herbs hanging from hooks in the cream-painted ceiling.
It looked very much like his Nonna’s home had, situated in the Italian countryside, where he and Bella used to visit her when they were children. Like his parents, his Nonna was gone now, but Matteo still remembered those visits to Italy and the warmth and welcome of his grandmother’s arms and home.
Grace’s apartment possessed that same welcome.
“Why did you leave the hotel without telling me?” Matteo demanded
“I should never have gone there in the first place.”
“I invited you.”
“And I refused.”
“Then you changed your mind.”
“And now I’ve changed it back again.”
“Grace…” His frown was pained.
She sighed. “I didn’t belong there, Matteo.”
“I was there, and you belong with me!”
She shook her head. “From the way so many people kept staring at the two of us together, and one or two people actually commented on it, I had the feeling you don’t usually take women to family events. Or perhaps that I was the wrong woman?” she added speculatively.
How the hell—!
Matteo could feel a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched cheek. “I decide who is the right or wrong woman for me.”
She laughed softly. “Others obviously disagree.”
“Volkov!” He coldly spat out the other man’s name. “I currently have a business arrangement with the Russians, but I have now warned both Nikolai and Gregori not to attempt to interfere in my private life again.”
Grace grimaced. “I’m sure that went down well.”
He gave a humorless laugh. “They will respect that warning or pay the consequences.”
She looked worried. “Please don’t make enemies of two such powerful men on my account.”
Matteo stepped forward to cup his hands either side of her face. “I would burn the whole fucking world down if it’s the only way I could get to you.”
Grace couldn’t look away from the intensity of Matteo’s gaze and the fire burning in those deep-blue depths. Nor was she immune to the power surging just beneath the surface of his emotions. A power he was keeping under control. Barely. Because Grace had the feeling that if she were to give a single sign, to utter one word of encouragement, then she would find herself stripped bare in seconds and beneath a just as naked Matteo.
The thought of the two of them naked together, skin against skin, was enough to cause her breath to catch in her throat.
A reaction that Matteo was obviously aware of, his eyes darkening. “Come back to the ho
tel with me.”
Grace didn’t make the mistake of thinking his words were a request. This man had made it clear he ordered, he didn’t ask. “I can’t.” She shook her head.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both!”
His nostrils flared. “Then I’m staying here with you tonight.”
“No—”
“Yes!” he grated. “Yes, Grace. Fucking, yes!” He punctuated each word with a hard kiss on her lips, lingering after the last yes until her lips parted and he could deepen the kiss.
Grace finally regained enough of her senses to break the contact. “Your sister—”
“Knows I won’t be back at the wedding reception tonight. I promised I’ll be back in time to share breakfast with her in the morning, before she and Bryce leave on their honeymoon.”
Color warmed her cheeks at what Bella Steele must be thinking of her. “But—”
“I want you so badly,” Matteo groaned his frustration, his breath warm against her throat. “Let me have you? Please?”
Grace could feel how much he wanted her as his engorged cock throbbed hotly against her abdomen. It was a depth of desire she reciprocated.
But what happened after they had spent the night together?
She released a shaky sigh. “I’m not who you think I am, Matteo.”
His mouth quirked up in the semblance of a smile. “You’re not?”
“No,” she stated firmly.
He frowned. “Then who are you?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Her mouth tightened. “Won’t.”
“Is your name Grace, at least?”
“More or less, yes,” she evaded.
“Good enough.” He nodded. “So let’s ask the only relevant question… Are you secretly plotting to kill me?”
“No!” Her eyes widened indignantly. “What on earth made you even ask me a question like that?”
He shrugged. “It’s an occupational hazard.”
“Then perhaps you should take up another profession!”
“I’m a Zalotti. This is what my family does.”
Yes, Grace had heard a variation of that statement all her life, once she was able to understand what it meant, from her father and his associates. Once they were in the organization, there was no way out, except through death. Either self-inflicted or at the hands of someone more powerful or ambitious.
MATTEO (Dance with the Devil 1) Page 7