A Hunger for the Forbidden

chapter SIX

MATTEO DIDN’T GET DRUNK as a rule. Unfortunately, he had a tendency to break rules when Alessia Battaglia—or was she Alessia Corretti now?—was involved.

Damn that woman.

Even after his father’s death he hadn’t gotten drunk. He’d wanted to. Had wanted to incinerate the memories, destroy them as the fire had destroyed the warehouses, destroyed the man who had held so much sway over his life.

But he hadn’t. Because he hadn’t deserved that kind of comfort. That kind of oblivion. He’d forced himself to face it.

This … this he couldn’t face.

He took another shot of whiskey and let it burn all the way down. It didn’t burn as much at this point in the evening, which was something of a disappointment. He looked down at the shot glass and frowned. Then he picked it up and threw it against the wall, watching the glass burst.

Now that was satisfying.

He chuckled and lifted the bottle to his lips. Dio, in his current state he almost felt happy. Why the hell didn’t he drink more?

“Matteo?”

He turned and saw Alessia standing in the doorway. Alessia. He wanted her. More than his next breath. He wanted those long legs wrapped around his waist, wanted to hear her husky voice whispering dirty things in his ear.

He didn’t think she’d ever done that, whispered dirty things in his ear, but he could imagine it, and he wanted it. Dio, did he want it.

“Come here, wife,” he said, pushing away from the bar, his movements unsteady.

“Are you drunk?”

“I should be. If I’m not … if I’m not there’s something very wrong with this whiskey.”

Her dark eyes were filled with some kind of emotion. Something strong and deep. He couldn’t decipher it. He didn’t want to.

“Why are you drunk?”

“Because I’ve been drinking. Alcohol. A lot of it.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know, could be because today I acquired a wife and I can’t say I ever particularly wanted one.”

“Thank you. I’m so glad to hear that, after the ceremony.”

“You would have changed your mind? You can’t. It’s all over the papers, in the news all over the world. You’re carrying a Corretti. You, a Battaglia. It’s news, cara. Not since Romeo and Juliet has there been such a scandal.”

“I’m not going to stab myself for you just because you’ve poisoned your damn self, so you can stop making those parallels anytime.”

“Come to me, Alessia.”

She took a step toward him, her movements unsteady, her lips turned down into a sulky frown. He wanted to kiss the expression off her face.

“You left your hair down,” he said, reaching out and taking a dark lock between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing the glossy strands. “You’re so beautiful. An angel. That was the first thing I thought when I saw you.”

She blinked rapidly. “When?”

“When we were children. I had always been told you Battaglias were monsters. Demons. And I couldn’t resist the chance to peek. And there you were, running around your father’s garden. You were maybe eleven. You were dirty and your hair was tangled, but I thought you looked like heaven. You were smiling. You always smile.” He frowned, looking at her face again. “You don’t smile as much now.”

“I haven’t had a lot of reasons to smile.”

“Have you ever?”

“No. But I’ve made them. Because someone had to smile. Someone had to teach the children how to smile.”

“And it had to be you?”

“There was no one else.”

“So you carry the weight of the world, little one?”

“You should know something about that, Matteo.”

He chuckled. “Perhaps a little something.” He didn’t feel so much like he was carrying it now.

He took her arm and tugged her forward, her dark eyes wide. “I want you,” he said.

Not waiting for a response, he leaned in and kissed her. Hard. She remained immobile beneath his mouth, her lips stiff, her entire body stiff. He pulled her more firmly against him, let her feel the evidence of his arousal, let her feel all of the frustration and need that had been building inside of him for the past three months.

“Did he kiss you like this?” he asked, pressing a heated kiss to her neck, her collarbone.

She shook her head. “N-no.”

“Good. I would have had to kill him.”

“Stop saying things like that.”

“Why?” he asked. “You and I both know that I could, Alessia. On your behalf, I could. I might not even be able to stop myself.” He kissed her again, his heart pounding hard, blood pouring hot and fast through his veins.

“Matteo, stop,” she said, pulling away from him.

“Why? Are you afraid of me, too, Alessia?”

She shook her head. “No, but you aren’t yourself. I don’t like it.”

“Maybe I am myself, and in that case, you’re wise not to like it.”

He released his hold on her. And he realized how tight his grip had been. Regret, the kind he usually kept dammed up inside of himself, released, flooding through him. “Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I wouldn’t.”

Suddenly, he was hit with a shot of self-realization so strong it nearly buckled his knees. He had done it again. He had let his defenses down with Alessia. Let them? He didn’t allow anything, with her it was just total destruction, a sudden, real demolition that he didn’t seem to be able to control at all.

“Get out,” he said.

“Matteo …”

“Out!” he roared, images flashing before his eyes. Images of violence. Of bones crushing beneath his fists, of not being able to stop. Not being able to stop until he was certain they could never hurt her again.

And it melded with images of his father. His father beating men until they were unconscious. Until they didn’t get back up again.

“What did they do?”

“They didn’t pay.”

“Is that all?”

“Is that all? Matteo, you can’t let anyone disrespect you, ever. Otherwise, it gets around. You have to make them an example. Whatever you have to do to protect your power, you do it. And if people have to die to secure it, so be it. Casualties of war, figlio mio.”

No. He wasn’t like that.

But you were, Matteo. You are.

Then in his mind, it wasn’t his father doing the beating. It was him.

“Out!”

Alessia’s dark eyes widened and she backed out of the room, a tear tracking down her cheek.

He sank down into a chair, his fingers curled tightly around a bottle of whiskey as the edges of his vision turned fuzzy, darkened.

Che cavolo, what was she doing to him?

Alessia slammed the bedroom door behind her and tore at the back of her wedding dress, such as it was, sobbing as she released the zipper and let it fall to the floor. She’d wanted Matteo to be the one to take it off her. She hadn’t realized how much until now.

Instead, her groom was off getting drunk rather than dealing with her.

“It’s more than that,” she said out loud. And she knew that it was. He was getting drunk instead of dealing with a whole lot of things.

Well, it was unfair because she couldn’t get drunk. She was pregnant with the man’s baby, and while he numbed the pain of it all, she just had to stand around and endure it.

There was nothing new to that. She had to smile. Had to keep it all moving.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, then scooted into the middle of it, lying down, curling her knees into her chest. Tonight, there was no fantasy to save her, no way to avoid reality.

Matteo had long been her rescue from the harsh reality and pain of life. And now he was her harsh reality. And he wasn’t who she’d believed he was. She’d simplified him, painted him as a savior.

She’d never realized how much he needed to be saved. The question was, was she up to the challenge? No, the real question was, did she have a choice?

There wasn’t a word foul enough to help release the pain that was currently pounding through Matteo’s head. So he said them all.

Matteo sat upright in the chair. He looked down at the floor, there was a mostly empty whiskey bottle lying on its side by the armchair. And there was a dark star-shaped whiskey stain on the wall, glass shards gathered beneath.

He remembered … not very much. The wedding. He was married now. He looked down at the ring on his left hand. Yes, he was married now.

He closed his eyes again, trying to lessen the pain in his head, and had a flash of lilac memory. A cloud of purple, long dark hair. He’d held her arm and pulled her against him, his lips hard on hers.

Dio, what had he done? Where had it stopped? He searched his brain desperately for an answer, tried to figure out what he’d done. What she’d done.

He stood quickly, ignoring the dizziness, the ferocious hammering in his temples. He swore again as he took his first step, he legs unsteady beneath him.

What was his problem? Where was his control? He knew better than to drink like that, knew better than to allow any lowered inhibitions.

The first time he’d gotten that drunk had been the night following Alessia’s rescue. He hadn’t been able to get clean. Hadn’t been able to get the images out of his head. Images of what he was capable of.

The stark truth was, it hadn’t been the attack that had driven him to drink. It had been what his father had said afterward.

“You are my son.”

When Benito Corretti had seen his son, blood-streaked, after the confrontation with Alessia’s attackers, he’d assumed that it meant Matteo was finally following in his footsteps. Had taken it as confirmation.

But Matteo hadn’t. It had been six years after that night when Benito had said it to him again. And that night, Matteo had embraced the words, and proven the old man right.

He pushed the memories away, his heart pounding too hard to go there.

He knew full well that he was capable of unthinkable things, even without the loss of control. But when control was gone … when it was gone, he truly became a monster. And last night, he’d lost control around Alessia.

He had to find her.

He walked down the hall, his heart pounding a sick tempo in his skull, his entire body filled with lead.

He went down the stairs, the natural light filtering through the windows delivering a just punishment for his hideous actions.

Coffee. He would find coffee first, and then Alessia.

He stopped when he got to the dining room. It turned out he had found both at the same time.

“Good morning,” Alessia said, her hands folded in front of her, her voice soft and still too loud.

“Morning,” he said, refusing to call it good.

“I assume you need coffee?” she asked, indicating a French press, ready for brewing, and a cup sitting next to it.

“Yes.”

“You know how that works, right?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

She didn’t make a move to do it for him, she simply sat in her seat, drinking a cup of tea.

He went to his spot at the expansive table, a few seats away from hers, and sat, pushing the plunger down slowly on the French press.

He poured himself a cup, left it black. He took a drink and waited a moment, letting the strong brew do its magic.

“Alessia,” he said, his voice rusty, the whiskey burn seeming to linger, “last night … did I hurt you?”

“In what way?” she asked, leaning back in her chair, her dark eyes unflinching.

“Physically.”

“No.”

The wave of relief that washed over him was profound, strong. “I’m pleased to hear it.”

“Emotionally, on the other hand, I’m not sure I faired so well.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, let’s see, my husband got drunk on our wedding night instead of coming to bed with me. What do you think?”

“I’m sorry if I wounded your pride,” he said, “that wasn’t my intention.” What he’d been after was oblivion, which he should have known wasn’t a safe pursuit.

“Wouldn’t your pride have been wounded if I’d done the same?”

“I would have ripped the bottle out of your hand. You’re pregnant.”

There hadn’t been a lot of time for him to really pause and think through the implications of that. It had all been about securing the marriage. Staying a step ahead of the press at all times. Making sure Alessia was legally bound to him.

“Hence the herbal tea,” she said, raising her cup to him. “And the pregnancy wasn’t really my point.”

“Alessia … this can’t be a normal marriage.”

“Why not?” she asked, sitting up straighter.

“Because it simply can’t be. I’m a busy man, I travel a lot. I was never going to marry … I never would have married.”

“I don’t see why we can’t have a normal marriage anyway. A lot of men and women travel for business, it doesn’t mean they don’t get married.”

“I don’t love you.”

Alessia felt like he’d slapped her. His words were so bald, so true and unflinching. And they cut a swath of devastation through her. “I didn’t ask you to,” she said, because it was the only truth she could bring herself to speak.

“Perhaps not, but a wife expects it from her husband.”

“I doubt my father loved my mother, and if he did, it wasn’t the kind of love I would like to submit to. What about yours?”

“Obsession, perhaps, was a better word. My father loved Lia’s mother, I’m sure of that. I’m not certain he loved mine. At least, not enough to stay away from other women. And my mother was—is, for that matter—very good at escaping unpleasant truths by way of drugs and alcohol.” His headache mocked him, a reminder that he’d used alcohol for the very same reason last night.

“Perhaps it was their marriages that weren’t normal. Perhaps—”

“Alessia, don’t. I think you saw last night that I’m not exactly a brilliant candidate for husband or father of the year.”

“So try to be. Don’t just tell me you can’t, Matteo, or that you don’t want to. Be better. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to be stronger, to do the right thing.”

“Yes, because that’s what you do,” he said, his tone dry. “You make things better, because it makes you feel better, and as long as you feel good you assume all is right with your world. You trust your moral compass.”

“Well, yes, I suppose that’s true.”

“I don’t trust mine. I want things I shouldn’t want. I have already taken what I didn’t have the right to take.”

“If you mean my virginity, I will throw this herbal tea in your face,” she said, pregnancy hormones coming to the rescue, bringing an intense surge of anger.

“I’m not so crass, but yes. Your body, you, you aren’t for me.”

“For Alessandro? That’s who I was for?”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“The hell it’s not, Matteo!” she shouted, not caring if she hurt his head. Him and his head could go to hell. “You’re just like him. You think I can’t make my own decisions? That I don’t know my own mind? My body belongs to me, not to you, not to my father, not to Alessandro. I didn’t give myself to you, I took you. I made you tremble beneath my hands, and I could do it again. Don’t treat me like some fragile thing. Don’t treat me like you have to protect me from myself.”

He stayed calm, maddeningly so, his focus on his cup of coffee. “It’s not you I’m protecting you from.”

“It’s you?”

A smile, void of humor, curved his lips. “I don’t trust me, Alessia, why should you?”

“Well, let me put you at ease, Matteo. I don’t trust anyone. Just because I jumped into bed with you doesn’t mean you’re the exception. I just think you’re hot.” She was minimizing it. Minimizing what she felt. And she hated that. But she was powerless to do anything to stop the words from coming out. She wanted to protect herself, to push him back from her vulnerable places. To keep him from hurting her.

Because the loss of Matteo in her fantasies … it was almost too much to bear. As he became her reality, she was losing her escape, and she was angry at him for taking it. For not being the ideal she had made him out to be.

“I’m flattered,” he said, taking another drink of his coffee.

“How do you see this marriage going, then?”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Assume it’s too late. Where do we go from here?”

He leaned forward, his dark eyes shuttered. “When exactly are you due?”

“November 22. It was easy for them to figure out since I knew the exact date I conceived.”

“I will make sure you get the best care, whatever you need. And we’ll make a room for the baby.”

“Well, all things considered, I suppose our child should have a room in his own house.”

“I’m trying,” he bit out. “I’m not made for this. I don’t know how to handle it.”

“Well, I do. I know exactly how much work babies are. I know exactly what it’s like to raise children. I was thirteen when my mother died. Thirteen when my baby sister and the rest of my siblings became my responsibility. Babies are hard work. But you love them, so much. And at the same time, they take everything from you. I know that, I know it so well. And I’m terrified,” she said, the last word breaking. It was a horrible confession, but it was true.

She’d essentially raised four children, one of them from infancy, and as much as she adored them, with every piece of herself, she also knew the cost of it. Knew just how much you poured into children. How much you gave, how much they took.

And she was doing it again. Without ever finding a place for herself in the world. Without having the fantasies she’d craved. True love. A man who would take care of her.

You’ve had some of the fantasies.

Oh, yes, she had. But one night of passion wasn’t the sum total of her life’s desires.

“All of this,” he said. “And still you want this child?”

“Yes, Matteo. I do. Because babies are a lot of work. But the love you feel for them … it’s stronger than anything, than any fear. It doesn’t mean I’m not afraid, only that I know in the end the love will win.”

“Well, we can be terrified together,” he said.

“You’re terrified?”

“Babies are tiny. They look very easily broken.”

“I’ll teach you how to hold one.”

Their eyes met, heat arching between them, and this time her pregnancy hormones were making her feel something other than anger.

She looked back down at her breakfast. “How’s your head?”

“I feel like someone put a woodpecker in my skull.”

“It’s no less than you deserve.”

“I will treat you better than I did last night. That I promise you. I’m not sure what other promises I can make, but that one … that one I will keep.”

She thought of him last night. Broken. Passionate. Needy. She wondered how much of that was the real Matteo. How much he kept hidden beneath a facade.

How much he kept from escaping. And she knew just how he felt in some ways. Knew what it was like to hide everything behind a mask. It was just that her mask was smiling, and his hardly made an expression at all.

“Will you be faithful to me?” she asked, the words catching in her throat.

Matteo looked down into his coffee for a moment, then stood, his cup in his hand. “I have some work to see to this morning, and my head is killing me. We can talk more later.”

Alessia’s heart squeezed tight, nausea rolling through her. “Later?”

“My head, Alessia.”

My heart, you jackass. “Great. Well, perhaps we can have a meeting tonight, or something.”

“We’re busy tonight.”

“Oh. Doing what?”

“Celebrating our marriage, quite publicly, at a charity event.”

“What?” She felt far too raw to be in public.

“After what happened with Alessandro, we have to present a united front. Your not-quite wedding to him was very public, as was your announcement of your pregnancy. The entire world is very likely scratching their heads over the spectacle we’ve created, and now it’s time to show a little bit of normal.”

“But we don’t have a normal marriage—I mean, so I’ve been told.”

“As far as the media is concerned we do.”

“Why? Afraid of a little scandal? You’re a Corretti.”

“What do you want our child to grow up and read? Because thanks to the internet, this stuff doesn’t die. It’s going to linger, scandal following him wherever he goes. You and I both know what that’s like. To have all the other kids whisper about your parents. For our part, we aren’t criminals, but we’ve hardly given our child a clean start.”

“So we go out and look pretty and sparkly and together, and what? The press just forgets about what happened?”

“No, but perhaps they will continue on in the vein that they’ve started in.”

“What’s that?” She’d, frankly, spent a lot of energy avoiding the stories that the media had written about the wedding.

“That we were forbidden lovers, who risked it all to be together.”

It wasn’t far from the truth, although Matteo hadn’t truly known the risk they’d been taking their night together. But she had. And she’d risked it all for the chance to be with him.

Looking at him now, dealing with all the bruises he’d inflicted on her heart, she knew she would make the same choice now. Because at least it had been her choice. Her mistake. Her very first big one. It was like a rite of passage in a way.

“Well, then, I suppose we had better get ready to put on a show. I’m not sure I have the appropriate costume, though.”

“I’m sure I can come up with something.”