A Hunger for the Forbidden

chapter FOUR

THE HUSH IN the lobby of Matteo’s plush Palermo hotel was thick, the lack of sound more pronounced and obvious than any scream could have been.

It was early in the day and employees were milling around, setting up for a wedding and mobilizing to sort out rooms and guests. As Matteo walked through, a wave of them parted, making room for him, making space. Good. He was in no mood to be confronted today. No mood for questions.

Bleached sunlight filtered through the windows, reflecting off a jewel-bright sea. A view most would find relaxing. For him, it did nothing but increase the knot of tension in his stomach. Homecoming, for him, would never be filled with a sense of comfort and belonging. For him, this setting had been the stage for violence, pain and shame that cut so deep it was a miracle he hadn’t bled to death with it.

He gritted his teeth and pulled together every last ounce of control he could scrape up, cooling the anger that seemed to be on a low simmer in his blood constantly now.

He had a feeling, though, that the shock was due only in part to his presence, with a much larger part due to the woman who was trailing behind him.

He punched the up button for the elevator and the doors slid open. He looked at Alessia, who simply stood there, her hands clasped in front of her, dark eyes looking at everything but him.

“After you, cara mia,” he said, putting his hand between the doors, keeping them from closing.

“You don’t demand that a wife walk three paces behind you at all times?” she asked, her words soft, defiant.

“A woman is of very little use to me when she’s behind me. Bent over in front of me is another matter, as you well know.”

Her cheeks turned dark with color, and not all of it was from embarrassment. He’d made her angry, as he’d intended to do. He didn’t know what it was about her that pushed him so. That made him say things like that.

That made him show anything beyond the unreadable mask he preferred to present to the world.

She was angry, but she didn’t say another word. She simply stepped into the elevator, her eyes fixed to the digital readout on the wall. The doors slid closed behind them, and still she didn’t look at him.

“If you brought me here to abuse me perhaps I should simply go back to my father’s house and take my chances with him.”

“That’s what you call abuse? You didn’t seem to find it so abhorrent the night you let me do it.”

“But you weren’t being a bastard that night. Had you approached me at the bar and used it as a pickup line I would have told you to go to hell.”

“Would you have, Alessia?” he asked, anger, heat, firing in his blood. “Somehow I don’t think that’s true.”

“No?”

“No.” He turned to her, put his hand, palm flat, on the glossy marble wall behind her, drawing closer, drawing in the scent of her. Dio. Like lilac and sun. She was Spring standing before him, new life, new hope.

He pushed away from her, shut down the feeling.

“Shows what you know.”

“I know a great deal about you.”

“Stop with the you-know-me stuff. Just because we slept together—”

“You have a dimple on your right cheek. It doesn’t show every time you smile, only when you’re really, really smiling. You dance by yourself in the sun, you don’t like to wear shoes. You’ve bandaged every scraped knee your brothers and sisters ever had. And whenever you see me, you can’t help yourself, you have to stare. I know you, Alessia Battaglia, don’t tell me otherwise.”

“You knew me, Matteo. You knew a child. I’m not the same person now.”

“Then how is it you ended up in my bed the night of your bachelorette party?”

Her eyes met his for the first time all morning, for the first time since his private plane had touched down in Sicily. “Because I wanted to make a choice, Matteo. Every other choice was being made for me. I wanted to … I wanted to at least make the choice about who my first lover should be.”

“Haven’t you had a lot of time to make that choice?”

“When? With all of my free time? I’ve spent my life making sure my brothers and sisters were cared for, really cared for, not just given the bare necessities by staff. I spent my life making sure they never bore the full brunt of my father’s rage. I’ve spent my life being the perfect daughter, the hostess for his functions, standing and smiling next to him when he got reelected for a position that he abuses.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because of my siblings. Because no matter that my father is a tyrant, he is our father. We’re Battaglias. I hoped … I’ve always hoped I could make that mean something good. That I could make sure my brothers and sisters learned to do the right things, learned to want the right things. If I didn’t make sure, they would only have my father as a guiding influence and I think we both know Antonioni Battaglia shouldn’t be anyone’s guiding influence.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

The elevator doors slid open and they stepped out into the empty hall on the top floor.

“You live your whole life for other people?”

She shook her head. “No. I live my life in the way that lets me sleep at night. Abandoning my brothers and sisters to our father would have hurt me. So it’s not like I’m a martyr. I do it because I love them.”

“But you ran out on the wedding.”

She didn’t say anything, she simply started walking down the hall, her heels clicking on the marble floor. He stood and watched her, his eyes drifting over her curves, over that gorgeous, heart-shaped backside, outlined so perfectly by her pencil skirt.

It looked like something from the Corretti clothing line. One thing he might have to thank his damn brother Luca for. But it was the only thing.

Especially since the rumor was that in his absence the other man was attempting to take Matteo’s share in the Corretti family hotels. A complete mess since that bastard Angelo had his hands in it, as well.

A total mess. And one he should have anticipated. He’d dropped out of the dealings with Corretti Enterprises completely since the day of Alessia and Alessandro’s aborted wedding. And the vultures had moved in. He should try to stop them, he knew that. And he could, frankly. He had his own fortune, his own power, independent of the Corretti machine, but at the moment, the most pressing issue was tied to the tall, willowy brunette who was currently sauntering in the wrong direction.

“The suite is this way,” he said.

She stopped, turned sharply on her heel and started walking back toward him, past him and down the hall.

He nearly laughed at the haughty look on her face. In fact, he found he wanted to, but wasn’t capable of it. It stuck in his throat, his control too tight to let it out.

He walked past her, to the door of the suite, and took a key card out of his wallet, tapping it against the reader. “My key opens all of them.”

“Careful, caro, that sounds like a bad euphemism.” She shot him a deadly look before entering the suite.

“So prickly, Alessia.”

“I told you you didn’t know me.”

“Then help me get to know you.”

“You first, Matteo.”

He straightened. “I’m Matteo Corretti, oldest son of Benito Corretti. I’m sure you know all about him. My criminal father who died in a fire, locked in an endless rivalry with his brother, Carlo. You ought to know about him, too, as you were going to marry Carlo’s son. I run the hotel arm of my family corporation, and I deal with my own privately owned line of boutique hotels, one of which you’re standing in.”

She crossed her arms and cocked her hip out to the side. “I think I read that in your online bio. And it’s nothing I don’t already know.”

“That’s all there is to know.”

She didn’t believe that. Not for a moment. She knew there was more to him than that. Knew it because she’d seen it. Seen his blind rage as he’d done everything in his power to protect her from a fate she didn’t even like to imagine.

But he didn’t speak of it. So neither did she.

“Tell me about you,” he said.

“Alessia Battaglia, Pisces, oldest daughter of Antonioni. My father is a politician who does under-the-table dealings with organized-crime families. It’s the thing that keeps him in power. But it doesn’t make him rich. It’s why he needs the Correttis.” She returned his style of disclosure neatly, tartly.

“The Correttis are no longer in the organized-crime business. In that regard, my cousins, my brothers and I have done well, no matter our personal feelings for each other.”

“You might not be criminals but you are rich. That’s why you’re so attractive. In my father’s estimation at least.”

“Attractive enough to trade us his daughter.”

She nodded. She looked tired suddenly. Defeated. He didn’t like that. He would rather have her spitting venom at him.

“You could walk away, Alessia,” he said. “Even now you could. I cannot keep you here. Your father cannot hold you. You’re twenty-seven. You have the freedom to do whatever you like. Hell, you could do it on my dime since I’ll be supporting my child regardless of what you do.”

He didn’t know why he was saying it, why he was giving her the out. But part of him wished she would take it. Wished she would leave him alone, take her beauty, the temptation, the ache that seemed to lodge in his chest whenever she was around, with her. The danger she presented to the walls of protection he’d built around his life.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t move. She was frozen to the spot, her lips parted slightly, her breath shallow, fast.

“Alessia, you have the freedom to walk out that door if you want. Right now.”

He took a step toward her, compelled, driven by something he didn’t understand. Didn’t want to understand. The beast in him was roaring now and he wanted it to shut up. Wanted his control back.

He’d had a handle on it again. Had moved forward from the events of his past. Until Alessia had come back into his life, and at the moment all he wanted was for her to be gone, and for his life to go back to the way it had been.

He cupped her chin, tilted her face up so that her eyes met his. “I am not holding you here. I am not your father and I am not your jailer.”

Dark eyes met his, the steel in them shocking. “No, you aren’t. But you are the father of my baby. Our baby. I’m not going to walk away, Matteo. If you want an out, you’ll have to take it yourself. Don’t think that I will. I’m strong enough to face this. To try to make this work.”

“It would be better if you would.”

“Do you really think that?”

“You think I will be a hands-on father? That I will somehow … be an influence in our child’s life?” The very thought made him sick. What could he offer a child but a legacy of violence and abuse? But he couldn’t walk away, either. Couldn’t leave Alessia on her own. But he feared his touch would only poison a child. His baby would be born innocent, unspoiled by the world, and Matteo was supposed to hold him? With his hands? Hands that were stained with blood.

“You think you won’t be?”

“How can you give what you never had?”

“I hardly remember my mother, Matteo, but I did a good job with my brothers and sisters.”

“Perhaps I find that an absence of a good parent is not the same as having bad ones. What lessons shall I teach our child, cara? The kind my father taught me? How to find a man who owes you money? How to break his kneecaps with efficiency when he doesn’t pay up? I think not.”

He had thought she would look shocked by that, but she hardly flinched, her eyes never wavering from his. “Again you underestimate me, Matteo. You forget the family I come from.”

“You are so soft,” he said, speaking his mind, speaking his heart. “Breakable. Like a flower. You and I are not the same.”

She nodded slowly. “It’s easy to crush a flower. But if it’s the right kind of flower, it comes back, every year, after every winter. No matter how many times you destroy the surface, it keeps on living underneath.”

Her words sent a shot of pain straight to his chest, her quiet strength twisting something deep inside of him. “Don’t pretend you were forced into this,” he said softly. “You were given your choice.”

“And you were given yours.”

He nodded once and turned away from her, walked out of the room ignoring the pounding in his blood, ignoring the tightness in his chest. Trying to banish the image of his hand closing around a blossom and crushing the petals, leaving it completely destroyed.

Alessia looked around the lavish, now empty, suite that she was staying in until … until she didn’t know when. Weeks of not being able to get ahold of Matteo, not knowing what she would do if she didn’t, and now he was suddenly in her life like a hurricane, uprooting everything, taking control of everything.

She really shouldn’t be too surprised about it. That was one thing she did know about Matteo Corretti, beyond that stupid ream of noninformation he’d given her. He was controlled. Totally. Completely.

Twice she’d seen him lose that control. Once, on a sunny day in Sicily while he was staying at his grandparents’ rural estate. The day that had cemented him in her mind as her potential salvation.

And their night in New York. There had been no control then, not for either of them.

She pictured him as he’d been then. The way he’d looked at her in the low light of the bar. She closed her eyes and she was back there. The memory still so strong, so painfully sweet.

“What brings you to New York, Alessia?”

“Bachelorette party.” It was easy enough to leave out that it was for her. If he didn’t know about Alessandro, then she wouldn’t tell him.

“Did you order any strippers?”

Her cheeks heated. “No, gosh, why? Are you offering to fill the position?”

“How much have you had to drink?” he asked, a smile on his face. It was so rare for her to see him smile. She couldn’t remember if she ever had.

“Not enough.”

“I could fix that, but I think I’d like a dance and if you’re too drunk you won’t be able to keep up.”

“Why are you talking to me?” she asked. She’d known there was a chance he could be here. He owned the hotel, after all. Part of her had hoped she’d catch a glimpse of him. A little bit of torture, but torture that would be well worth it.

“What do you mean?”

“You haven’t spoken to me since—” something flashed in his eyes, a strange unease, and she redirected her words “—in a long time.”

“Too long,” he said, his voice rough.

Her heart fluttered, a surge of hope moving through her. She tried to crush it, tried to stop the jittery feelings moving through her now.

“So, do you have a dance for me?” he asked. “For an old friend?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t deny him, couldn’t deny herself.

She left her friends in the corner of the bar, at their table with all of their fruity drinks, and let Matteo lead her away from them, lead her to the darkened dance floor. A jazz quartet was playing, the music slow and sensual.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against his body. Heat shot through her, heat and desire and lust.

His eyes locked with hers as they swayed in time to the music, and she was powerless to resist the desire to lean in and press her lips to his. His tongue touched the tip of hers, a shot of need so sharp, so strong, assaulting her she thought it would buckle her knees then and there.

She parted her lips for him, wrapping her arms around his neck, tangling her fingers in his hair. Years of fantasies added fuel to the moment.

Matteo Corretti was her ultimate fantasy. The man whose name she called out in her sleep. The man she wanted, more than anything. And this was her last chance.

Panic drove her, made her desperate. She deepened the kiss, her movements clumsy. She didn’t know how to make out. She’d never really done it before. Another thing that added fuel to the fire.

She’d never lived. She’d spent all of her life at the Battaglia castello, taking care of her siblings, making sure her family didn’t crumble. Her life existed for the comfort of others, and she needed a moment, a night, to have something different.

To have something for her.

Matteo pulled away from her, his chest rising and falling heavily with each indrawn breath. “We cannot do that here.”

She shook her head. “Apparently not.” The fire between them was burning too hot, too fast, threatening to rage out of control.

“I have a suite.” A smile curved his lips. “I own the hotel.”

She laughed, nervous, breathless. She flexed her fingers, where her engagement ring should be. The engagement ring she hadn’t put on tonight as she’d gotten ready for the party.

“Please. Just one night,” she said.

“Only one, cara mia?”

“That’s all I have to give.”

“I might be able to change your mind,” he said, his voice rough. He leaned in and kissed her neck, his teeth scraping her delicate skin, his tongue soothing away the sting.

Yes. She wanted to shout it. Yes, forever. Matteo, ti amo.

Instead, she kissed him again, long and deep, pouring everything out, every emotion, every longing that had gone unanswered for so long. Every dream she knew would never be fulfilled. Because Matteo might be hers tonight, but in just a month, she would belong to another man forever.

“Take me to your room.”

Alessia shook her head, brought herself back to the present. Everything had been so perfect that night. It was the morning that had broken her heart. The cold light of day spilling over her, illuminating the truth, not allowing her to hide behind fantasy any longer.

She could remember just how he’d looked, the sheets tangled around his masculine body, bright white against his dark skin. Leaving him had broken her.

She’d wanted so badly to kiss him again, but she hadn’t wanted to chance waking him.

Somehow that night she’d let her fantasies become real, had let them carry her away from reality, not just in her imagination but for real. And she couldn’t regret it, not then, not now.

At least, she hadn’t until recently. The way Matteo looked at her now … she hated it. Hated that he saw her as a leash.

But it was too late to turn back now. The dutiful daughter had had her rebellion, and it had destroyed everything in its path.

“You don’t go halfway, do you, Alessia?” she asked the empty room.

Unsurprisingly, she got no answer.