A Hunger for the Forbidden

chapter FIVE

“YOU CANNOT SIMPLY take what is mine without paying for it, Corretti.”

Matteo looked at Antonioni Battaglia and fought a wave of rage. The man had no idea who he was dealing with. Matteo was a Corretti, the capability to commit hideous acts was a part of his DNA. More than that, Matteo had actually done it before. Had embraced the violence. Both with cold precision, and in the heat of rage.

The temptation to do it again was strong. Instead, he leaned forward and adjusted a glass figurine that his grandmother had had commissioned for him. A perfect model of his first hotel. Not one of the Corretti Hotels, the first hotel he’d bought with his own personal fortune.

“And what exactly is that?” Matteo asked, leaning back in his office chair.

“My daughter. You defiled her. She’s much less valuable to me now, which means you’d better damn well marry her and make good on the deal I cut with your grandfather, or the Correttis won’t be doing any trading out of Sicily.”

“My mistake, I thought Alessia’s body belonged to her, not you.”

“I’m an old-fashioned man.”

“Be that as it may, the law prevents you from owning anyone, which means Alessia does not belong to you.” He gritted his teeth, thought of Alessia’s siblings, of all she’d given up to ensure they would be cared for. “However, at my fiancée’s request, I have decided to honor the agreement.” He paused for a moment. “What are your other children doing at the moment?”

“I’ve arranged for the boys to get a job in the family business.”

Matteo gritted his teeth. “Is that what they want?”

“You have to take opportunity where it exists.”

“And if I created a different opportunity?” He turned the figurine again, keeping his hands busy, keeping himself from violence.

“Why should I do any more business with a Corretti than necessary?”

“Because I hold your potential fortune in the palm of my hands. Not only that, I’ll be the father of your first grandchild. Mainly, though, because you’ll take what I give you, and no more. So it’s by my good grace that you will have anything.”

Antonioni’s cheeks turned red. It was clear the old man didn’t like being told what to do. “Corretti, I don’t have to give your family rights to—”

“And I don’t have to give you a damn thing. I know you’re making deals with Angelo. And you know how I feel about Angelo, which puts you in my bad book right off. I may, however, be willing to overlook it all if you do as I ask. So I suggest you take steps to make me happy. Send your children to college. I’m paying for it.”

“That’s hardly necessary.”

He thought of Alessia, of all she’d sacrificed for them. “Listen to me now, Battaglia, and remember what I say. Memorize it. Make a nice little plaque and hang it above your fireplace if need be: If I say it is necessary, then it is. So long as you do what I say, you’ll be kept well in the lifestyle you would like to become accustomed to.”

The other man nodded. “It’s your dime, Corretti.”

“Yes, and your life is now on my dime. Get used to that concept.”

Had Alessia’s father not said what he had, had he not acted as though her virginity, her body, was his bargaining tool, Matteo might not have taken such joy in letting the other man know his neck was, in effect, under his heel.

But he had. So Matteo did.

“I paid for one wedding,” Battaglia said. “I’m not paying for another.”

“I think I can handle that, too.” Matteo picked up the tiny glass hotel, turning it in front of the light. “You’re dismissed.”

Battaglia liked that last order least of all, but he complied, leaving Matteo’s office without another word.

Matteo tightened his hold on the small, breakable representation of his empire, curling his fingers around it, not stopping until it cracked, driving a shard deep into his palm.

He looked down, watched the blood drip down his wrist. Then he set the figurine back on his desk, examined the broken pieces. Marveled at how easy it was to destroy it with his anger.

He pulled the silk handkerchief out of the pocket of his jacket and wrapped the white fabric around his hand, pressing it hard, until a spot of crimson stained the fabric.

It was so easy to let emotion ruin things. So frighteningly easy.

He gritted his teeth, pushed the wall up around himself again. Control. He would have it, in all things. Alessia Battaglia was not allowed to steal it from him. Not anymore.

Never again.

“I’ve secured the marriage license, and we will have the wedding at my palazzo.” His inheritance after the death of his father. A piece of his childhood he wasn’t certain he wanted. But one he possessed nonetheless.

“Not at your family home?”

“I have no use for that place,” he said, his tone hard. “Anyway, it has all been arranged.”

Alessia stood up from the plush bed, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. “Really? And what shall I wear? How shall I fix my hair? Have you written my vows for me?”

“I don’t care. Who gives a damn? And didn’t someone already take care of writing vows for weddings hundreds of years ago?”

She blinked, trying to process his rapid-fire response. “I … Don’t you have … I mean, don’t I need to conform to some sort of image you’re projecting or … something?”

“This will be a small affair. We may provide the press with a picture for proof. Or perhaps I’ll just send them a photocopy of the marriage license. Anyway, you can wear what you like. I’ve never seen you not looking beautiful.”

The compliment, careless, offhanded, sent a strange sensation through her. “Oh. Well. Thank you.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Well, thank you again.”

She wasn’t sure what to do, both with him being nice and with him giving her a choice on what to wear to the wedding. Such a simple thing, but it was more than her father had given her when it came to Alessandro.

“As long as it doesn’t have lace,” she said.

“What?”

“The wedding dress.”

“The dress for your last wedding was covered in it.”

“Exactly. Hellish, awful contraption. And I didn’t choose it. I didn’t choose any of that.”

“What would you have chosen?” She shook her head and looked down. “Does it matter?”

“Why not? You can’t walk down the aisle naked and we have to get married somewhere, so you might as well make the choice.”

“I would wear something simple. Beautiful. And I would be barefoot. And it would be outside.”

He lifted his hand and brushed it over his short hair. “Of course. Then we’ll have it outside at the palazzo and you may forego shoes.” He lowered his hand and she saw a slash of red on his palm.

She frowned and stepped forward. “What did you do?”

“What?” He turned his hand over. “Nothing. Just a cut.”

“You look like you got in a fight.”

His whole body tensed. “I don’t get in fights.”

“No, I know. I wasn’t being serious.” Tension held between them as they both had the same memory. She knew that was what was happening. Knew that he was thinking of the day she’d been attacked.

But she wanted to know what he remembered, how he remembered it, because it was obvious it was something he preferred to ignore. Not that she loved thinking about it except … except as horrible as it had been to have those men touching her, pawing at her, as awful as those memories were, the moment when they’d been wrenched from her, when she’d seen Matteo … the rush of relief, the feeling of absolute peace and certainty that everything would be okay, had been so real, so acute, she could still feel it.

She’d clung to him after. Clung to him and cried. And he’d stroked her cheek with his hand, wiping away her tears. Later she’d realized he’d left a streak of blood on her face, from the blood on his hands. Blood he’d shed, spilled, for her.

He’d been her hero that day, and every day since. She’d spent her whole life saving everyone else, being the stopgap for her siblings, taking her father’s wrath if they’d been too noisy. Always the one to receive a slap across the face, rather than allow him near the younger children.

Matteo was the only person who’d ever stood up for her. The only one who’d ever saved her. And so, when life got hard, when it got painful, or scary, she would imagine that he would come again. That he would pull her into impossibly strong arms and fight her demons for her.

He never did. Never again. After that day, he even stopped watching her. But having the hope of it, the fantasy, was part of what had pulled her through the bleakness of her life. Imagination had always been her escape, and he’d added a richer texture to it, given a face to her dreams for the future.

He’d asked if she always spoke her mind, and she’d told him the truth, she didn’t. She kept her head down and tried to get through her life, tried to simply do the best she could. But in her mind … her imagination was her escape, and always had been. When she ran barefoot through the garden, she was somewhere else entirely.

When she went to bed at night, she read until sleep found her, so that she could have new thoughts in her head, rather than simply memories of the day.

So that she could have better dreams.

It was probably a good thing Matteo didn’t know the place he occupied in her dreams. It would give him too much power. More than he already had.

“I’m not like my father,” he said. “I will never strike my wife.”

She looked at him and she realized that never, for one moment, had she believed he would. Her father had kept her mother “in line” with the back of his hand, and he’d done the same with her. But even having grown up with that as a normal occurrence, she’d never once imagined Matteo would do it.

“I know,” she said.

“You know?”

“Yes.”

“And how is it you know?”

“Because you aren’t that kind of person, Matteo.”

“Such confidence in me. Especially when you’re one of the very few people who has actually seen what I’m capable of.”

She had. She’d seen his brute strength applied to those who had dared try to harm her. It had been the most welcome sight in all of her life. “You protected me.”

“I went too far.”

“They would have gone further,” she said.

He took a step away from her, the darkness in his eyes suddenly so deep, so pronounced, it threatened to pull her in. “I have work to do. I’ll be at my downtown office. I’ve arranged to have a credit card issued to you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black card, extending his hand to her.

She took it, not ready to fight with him about it.

“If you need anything, whatever you need, it’s yours.” He turned away and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

She’d done the wrong thing again. With Matteo it seemed she could do nothing right. And she so desperately wanted to do right by him.

But it seemed impossible.

She growled, the sound releasing some of her tension. But not enough. “Matteo, why are you always so far out of my reach?”

This was Alessia’s second wedding day. Weird, because she’d never technically had a boyfriend. One hot night of sex didn’t really make Matteo her boyfriend. Boyfriend sounded too tame for a man like Matteo, anyway. Alessia finished zipping up the back of her gown. It was light, with flutter sleeves and a chiffon skirt that swirled around her ankles. It was lavender instead of white. She was a pregnant bride, after all.

There weren’t many people in attendance, but she liked that better. Her father, her brothers and sisters, Matteo’s grandmother, Teresa, and his mother, Simona.

She took the bouquet of lilacs she’d picked from the garden out of their vase and looked in the mirror. Nothing like what the makeup artist had managed on The Other Wedding Day, but today she at least looked like her.

She opened the guest bedroom door and tried to get a handle on her heart rate.

She was marrying Matteo Corretti today. In a sun-drenched garden. She was having his baby. She repeated that, over and over, trying to make it feel real, trying to hold on to the surge of good feelings it gave her. Because no matter how terrifying it was sometimes, it was also wonderful. A chance at something new. A chance to have a child, give that child the life that had been denied her. The life that had been denied Matteo.

The stone floor was cool beneath her bare feet, the palazzo empty, everyone outside waiting. She’d opted to forego shoes since that was how he said he knew her.

Barefoot in the garden. So, she would meet him as he remembered her. Barefoot in the garden, with her hair down. Maybe then they could start over. They were getting married today, after all, and in her mind that meant they would have to start trying to work things out. They would at least have to be civil.

She put her hands on the rail of the curved, marble staircase, still repeating her mantra. She walked through the grand foyer, decorated in traditional, ornate furniture that didn’t remind her one bit of Matteo, and she opened the door, stepping out into the sun.

The music was already playing. A string quartet. She’d forgotten to say what she wanted for music but this was perfect, simple.

And in spite of what Matteo had said, there was a photographer.

But those details faded into the background when she saw Matteo, standing near the priest, his body rigid, his physique displayed to perfection by a custom-made gray suit.

There was no aisle. No loud click of marble beneath her heels, just grass beneath her feet. And the guests were standing, no chairs. Her father looked like he was ready to grab her if she decided to run. Eva, Giana, Pietro and Marco looked worried, and she didn’t blame them. She had been their stability for most of their lives, their surrogate mother. And she hadn’t told them she was marrying Alessandro for convenience, which meant her disappearance, subsequent reappearance with a different groom and a publicly announced pregnancy must seem a few steps beyond bizarre to them.

She gave them her best, most confident smile. This was her role. To show them it was all okay, to hold everything together.

But her eyes were drawn back to Matteo. He made her throat dry, made her heart pound.

But when she reached him, he didn’t take her hand. He hardly looked at her. Instead, he looked at the priest. The words to the ceremony were traditional, words she knew by heart from attending hundreds of society weddings in her life.

There was nothing personal about them, nothing unique. And Matteo never once met her eyes.

She was afraid she was alone in her resolve to make things work. To make things happy. She swallowed hard. It was always her job to make it okay. To smooth it over. Why wasn’t it working?

“You may kiss the bride.”

They were the words she’d been anticipating and dreading. She let her eyes drift shut and she waited. She could feel his heat draw near to her, and then, the brush of his lips on hers, so soft, so brief, she thought she might have imagined it.

And then nothing more.

Her breath caught, her heart stopped. She opened her eyes, and Matteo was already turning to face their small audience. Then he drew her near to him, his arm tight around her waist. But there was no intimacy in the gesture. No warmth.

“Thank you for bearing witness,” Matteo said, both to her father and his grandmother.

“You’ve done a good thing for the family, Matteo,” his grandmother said, putting a hand over his. And Alessia wondered just how much trouble Matteo had been in with his family for the wedding fiasco.

She knew the media had made assumptions they’d run off together. Too bad nothing could be further from the truth.

Still, her father, his family, must think that was the truth. Because now they were back in Sicily, she was pregnant and they were married.

“Perhaps we should go inside for a drink?” her father suggested.

“A good plan, Battaglia, but we don’t talk business at weddings.”

Simona begged off, giving Matteo a double kiss on the cheeks and saying she had a party to get to in the city. Matteo didn’t seem the least bit fazed by his mother’s abandonment. He simply followed her father into the house.

She watched him walk inside, her heart feeling heavy.

Teresa offered her a smile. “I’ll see that Matteo’s staff finds some refreshments to serve for us. I’ll only be a moment.” The older woman turned and went into the house, too, leaving Alessia with her siblings.

It was Eva, fourteen and emotional, who flung herself into Alessia’s arms. “Where did you go?”

“New York,” Alessia said, stroking her sister’s hair.

“Why?”

“I had to get away … I couldn’t marry Alessandro.”

“Then why did you agree to the engagement?” This from Marco, the second oldest at nineteen.

“It’s complicated, Marco, as things often are with Father. You know that.”

“But you wanted to marry Corretti? This Corretti, I mean,” asked sixteen-year-old Pietro.

She nodded, her throat tight. “Of course.” She didn’t want them to be upset. Didn’t want them to worry. She maybe should have thought of that before running off to New York, but she really hadn’t been able to consider anyone else. For the first time, she’d been burned out on it and she’d had to take care of herself.

“They’re having a baby,” Giana said drily. “I assume that means she liked him at least a little bit.” Then she turned back to Alessia. “I’m excited about being an aunt.”

“I’m glad,” she said, tugging on her sister’s braid.

They spent the rest of the afternoon out in the garden, having antipasti, wine for the older children and Teresa, and lemonade for her and younger kids. Her siblings told her stories of their most recent adventures, which ended up with everyone laughing. And for the first time in months, Alessia felt at ease. This was her family, her happiness. The reason she’d agreed to marry Alessandro. And one of the driving reasons behind her decision to marry Matteo.

Although she couldn’t deny her own desire where he was concerned. Still, happy wasn’t exactly the word that she would use to describe herself at the moment. Anxiety-ridden? Check. Sick to her stomach? That a little bit, too.

The sun was starting to sink behind the hills, gray twilight settling on the garden, the solar lights that were strung across the expanse of the grass illuminating the growing darkness.

Their father appeared on the balcony, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes settled on her siblings.

“I guess we have to go,” Marco said.

“I know. Come back and stay with us anytime,” she said, not even thinking to ask Matteo if it was okay. As soon as she had the thought, she banished it. If she was going to be married to the man, then she wasn’t going to ask his permission to breathe in their shared home. It wasn’t only his now and he would have to get used to it.

Her father was the unquestionable head of their household, but she was the heart of it. She’d kept it running, made sure the kids got their favorite meals cooked, remembered birthdays and helped with homework. Her role in their lives didn’t end with her marriage, and she wasn’t equipped to take on a passive role in a household, anyway.

So, on that, Matteo would just have to learn to deal.

She stopped and kissed her brothers and sisters on the head before watching them go up to where their father stood. All of them but Marco. She held him a bit longer in her embrace. “Take care of everyone,” she said, a tear escaping and sliding down her cheek.

“Just like you always did,” he said softly.

“And I’m still here.”

“I know.”

He squeezed her hand before walking up to join the rest of the family.

“And I should leave you, as well,” Teresa said, standing. “It was lovely to see you again, my dear.”

Teresa hadn’t batted an eye at the sudden change of groom, had never seemed at all ruffled by the events.

“You care for him,” she said, as if she could read Alessia’s internal musings.

Alessia nodded. “I do.”

“That’s what these men need, Alessia. A strong woman to love them. They may fight it, but it is what they need.” Teresa spoke with pain in her eyes, a pain that Alessia felt echo inside of her.

Alessia couldn’t speak past the lump in her throat. She tried to avoid the L word. The one that was stronger than like. There was only so much a woman could deal with at once. So instead, she just nodded and watched Teresa walk back up toward the house.

Alessia stayed in the garden and waited. The darkness thickened, the lights burning brighter. And Matteo didn’t come.

She moved into the house, walked up the stairs. The palazzo was completely quiet, the lights off. She wrapped her arms around herself, and made her way back to the bedroom Matteo had put her in to get ready.

She went in and sat on the edge of the bed and waited for her husband to come and claim his wedding night.