A Hunger for the Forbidden

chapter SEVEN

“SOMETHING” TURNED OUT to be an evening gown from the Corretti fashion line. It was gorgeous, and it was very slinky, with silky gold fabric that molded to her curves and showed the emerging baby bump that she almost hadn’t noticed until she’d put on the formfitting garment.

Of course, there was no point in hiding her pregnancy. She’d announced it on television, for heaven’s sake. But even so, since she hadn’t really dealt with it yet, she felt nervous about sharing it with the public like this.

She put her hand on her stomach, smoothing her palm over the small bump. She was going to be a mother. Such a frightening, amazing thing to realize. She’d been tangled up in finding Matteo, and then in the days since—had it really only been days?—she’d been dealing with having him back in her life. With marrying him. She hadn’t had a chance to really think of the baby in concrete terms.

Alessia looked at herself in the mirror one more time, at her stomach, and then back at her face. Her looks had never mattered very much to her. She was comfortable with them, more or less. She was taller than almost every other woman she knew, and a good portion of the men, at an Amazonian six feet, but Matteo was taller.

He managed to make her feel small. Feminine. Beautiful.

That night they were together he’d made her feel especially beautiful. And then last night he’d made her feel especially undesirable. Funny how that worked.

She turned away from the mirror and walked out of the bedroom. Matteo was standing in the hall waiting for her, looking so handsome in his black suit she went a little weak-kneed. He was a man who had a strong effect, that was for sure.

“Don’t you clean up nice,” she said. “You almost look civilized.”

“Appearances can be deceiving,” he said.

“The devil wore Armani?”

“Something like that.” He held his hand out and she hesitated for a moment before taking it and allowing him to lead her down the curved staircase and into the foyer. He opened the door for her, his actions that of a perfectly solicitous husband.

Matteo’s sports car was waiting for them, the keys in the ignition.

Alessia waited until they were on the road before speaking again. “So, what’s the charity?”

He shifted gears, his shoulders bunched up, muscles tense. “It’s one of mine.”

“You have charities?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t realize.”

“I thought you knew me.”

“We’re filled with surprises for each other, aren’t we? It’s a good thing we have a whole lifetime together to look forward to,” she said drily.

“Yes,” he said, his voice rough, unconvincing.

And she was reminded of their earlier conversation in the dining room. She’d asked him point-blank if he would be faithful, and he’d sidestepped her. She had a feeling he was doing it again.

She gritted her teeth to keep from saying anything more. To keep from asking him anything, or pressing the issue. She had some pride. She did. She was sure she did, and she was going to do everything she could to hold on to her last little bit of it.

“Well, what is your charity for, then?”

“This is an education fund. For the schools here.”

“That’s … great,” she said. “I didn’t get to do any higher education.”

“Did you want to?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean … I didn’t really have anything I wanted to be when I grew up.”

“Nothing?”

“There weren’t a lot of options on the table. Though I did always think I would like to be a mother.” A wife and a mother. That she would like to have someone who loved her, cherished her like the men in her much-loved books cherished their heroines. It was a small dream, one that should have been somewhat manageable.

Instead, she’d gone off and traded it in for a night of wild sex.

And darn it, she still didn’t regret it. Mainly. “Mission accomplished.”

“Why, yes, Matteo, I am, as they say, living the dream.”

“There’s no need to be—”

“There is every need to be,” she said. “Don’t act like I should thank you for any of this.”

“I wasn’t going to,” he said, his tone biting.

“You were headed there. This is not my dream.” But it was close. So close that it hurt worse in some ways than not getting anywhere near it at all. Because this was proving that her dream didn’t exist. That it wasn’t possible.

“My apologies, cara, for not being your dream.” His voice was rough, angry, and she wanted to know where he got off being mad after the way he’d been treating her.

“And my apologies for not being yours. I imagine if I had a room number stapled to my forehead and a bag of money in my hand I’d come a little closer.”

“Now you’re being absurd.”

“I don’t think so.”

Matteo maneuvered his car through the narrow city streets, not bothering with nice things like braking before turning, and pulled up to the front of his hotel.

“It’s at your hotel,” she said.

“Naturally.” He threw the car into Park, then got out, rounding to the passenger side and opening the door for her. “Come, my darling wife, we have a public to impress.”

He extended his hand to her and she slowly reached her hand out to accept it. Lighting streaked through her, from her fingertips, spreading to every other part of her, the shock and electricity curling her toes in her pumps.

She stood, her eyes level with his thanks to her shoes. “Thank you.”

A member of the hotel staff came to where they were and had a brief exchange with Matteo before getting into the car and driving it off to the parking lot. Alessia wandered to the steps of the hotel, taking two of them before pausing to wait for her husband.

Matteo turned back to her, his dark eyes glittering in the streetlamps. He moved to the stairs, and she advanced up one more, just to keep her height advantage. But Matteo wasn’t having it. He got onto her stair, meeting her eyes straight on.

“There are rules tonight, Alessia, and you will play by them.”

“Will I?” she asked. She wasn’t sure why she was goading him. Maybe because it was the only way in all the world she could feel like she had some power. Or maybe it was because if she wasn’t trying to goad him, she was longing for him. And the longing was just unacceptable.

A smile curved his lips and she couldn’t help but wonder if he needed this, too. This edge of hostility, the bite of anger between them.

Although why Matteo would need anything to hold her at a distance when he’d already made his feelings quite clear was a mystery to her.

“Yes, my darling wife, you will.” He put his hand on her chin, drawing close to her, his heat making her shiver deep inside. It brought her right back to that night.

To the aching, heart-rending desperation she’d felt when his lips had finally touched hers. To the moment they’d closed his hotel room door and he’d pressed her against the wall, devouring, taking, giving.

He drew his thumb across her lower lip and she snapped back to the present. “You must stop looking at me like that,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re frightened of me.” There was an underlying note to his voice that she couldn’t guess at, a frayed edge to his control that made his words gritty.

“I’m not.”

“You look at me like I’m the very devil sometimes.”

“You act like the very devil sometimes.”

“True enough. But there are other times …”

“What other times?”

“You didn’t used to look at me that way.”

“How did I look at you?” she asked, her chest tightening, her stomach pulling in on itself.

“When you were a girl? With curiosity. At the hotel? Like you were hungry.”

“You looked at me the same way.”

“And how do you think I look at you now?”

“You don’t,” she whispered. “When you can help it, you don’t look at me at all.”

He moved his other hand up to cup her cheek, his thumb still stroking her lower lip. “I’m looking at you now.”

And there was heat in his eyes. Heat like there had been their night together, the night that had started all of this. The night that had changed the course of her life.

“Because you have to,” she said. “For the guests.”

“Oh, yes, the guests,” he said.

Suddenly, a flash pierced the dim light, interrupting their moment. They both looked in the direction of the photographer, who was still snapping pictures in spite of the fact that the moment was completely broken.

“Shall we go in?” he asked. Any evidence of frayed control was gone now, the rawness, the intensity, covered by a mask. And now her husband was replaced with a smooth, cool stranger.

She’d love to say it wasn’t the man she’d married, but this was exactly the man she’d married. This guarded man with more layers of artifice than anyone she’d ever met. She had been so convinced she’d seen the man behind the fiction, that the night in the hotel she’d seen the real Matteo. That in those stolen glances they’d shared when they were young, she’d seen the truth.

That in the moment of unrestrained violence, when he’d put himself in harm’s way to keep her from getting hurt, she’d seen the real man.

Now she realized what small moments those were in the entirety of Matteo’s life. And for the first time, she wondered if she was simply wrong about him.

A feeling that settled sickly in her stomach, a leaden weight, as they continued up the stairs and into the entrance to the hotel’s main ballroom.

There were more photographers inside, capturing photographs of the well-dressed crème de la crème of Sicilian society. And Alessia did her best to keep a smile on her face. This was her strength, being happy no matter what was going on. Keeping a smile glued to her face at whatever event she was at on behalf of her father, making sure she showed her brothers and sisters she was okay even if she’d just taken a slap to the face from their father.

But this wasn’t so simple. She was having a harder time finding a place to go to inside of herself. Having a harder time finding that false feeling of hope that she’d become so good at creating for herself to help preserve her sanity.

No one could live in total hopelessness, so she’d spent her life creating hope inside of herself. She’d managed to do it through so many difficult scenarios. Why was it so hard now? So hard with Matteo?

She knew she’d already answered that question. It was too hard to retreat to a much-loved fantasy when that much-loved fantasy was standing beside you, the source of most of your angst.

Though she couldn’t blame it all on Matteo. The night of her bachelorette party was the first night she’d stopped trying to find solace in herself, had stopped just trying to be happy no matter what, and had gone for what she wanted, in spite of possible consequences.

She spent the night with Matteo’s arm wrapped around her waist, his touch keeping her entire body strung tight, on a slow burn. She also turned down champagne more times than she could count. Was she normally offered alcohol so much at a party? She’d never been conscious of it when she was allowed to drink it. Right now it just seemed a cruelty, since she could use the haze, but couldn’t take the chance with her baby’s health.

Anyway, for some reason it all smelled sour and spoiled to her now. The pregnancy was making her nose do weird things.

Although Matteo smelled just as good as he ever had. The thought made her draw a little closer to him, breathe in the scent of him, some sort of spicy cologne mingling with the scent of his skin. She was especially tuned into the scent of his skin now, the scent of his sweat.

Dio, even his sweat turned her on. Because it reminded her of his bare skin, slick from exertion, her hands roaming over his back as he thrust hard into her, his dark eyes intent on hers. And there were no walls. Not then.

She blinked and came back to the present. She really had to stop with the sexual fantasies, they did her no good.

A photographer approached them. “Smile for me?” he asked.

Matteo drew her in close to his body, and she put her hand on his chest. She knew her smile looked perfect. She had perfected her picture smile for events such as these, to put on a good front for the Battaglia family. She was an expert.

Matteo should have been, as well, but he looked like he was trying to smile around a rock in his mouth, his expression strained and unnatural.

“A dance for the new bride and groom?” the photographer asked while taking their picture, and she was sure that in that moment her smile faltered a bit.

“Of course,” Matteo said, his grin widening. Was she the only one who could see the totally feral light in his eyes, who could see that none of this was real?

The photographer was smiling back, as were some of the guests standing in their immediate area, so they must not be able to tell. Must not be able to see how completely disingenuous the expression of warmth was.

“Come. Dance with me.”

And so she followed him out onto the glossy marble dance floor, where other couples were holding each other close, slow dancing to a piece of piano music.

It was different from when they’d danced in New York. The ballroom was bright, crystal chandeliers hanging overhead, casting shimmering light onto caramel-colored walls and floors. The music was as bright as the lighting, nothing darkly sensual or seductive.

And yet when Matteo drew her into his hold, his arms tight, strong around her, they might as well have been the only two people in the room. Back again, shrouded in darkness in the corner of a club, stealing whatever moments together they could have before fate would force them to part forever.

Except fate had had other ideas.

She’d spent a lot of her life believing in fate, believing that the right thing would happen in the end. She questioned that now. Now she just wondered if she’d let her body lead her into an impossible situation all for the sake of assuaging rioting hormones.

“This will make a nice headline, don’t you think?”

he asked, swirling her around before drawing her back in tight against him.

“I imagine it will. You’re a great dancer, by the way. I don’t know if I mentioned that … last time.”

“You didn’t, but your mouth was otherwise occupied.”

Her cheeks heated. “Yes, I suppose it was.”

“My mother made sure I had dance lessons starting at an early age. All a part of grooming me to take my place at the helm of Benito’s empire.”

“But you haven’t really. Taken the helm of your father’s empire, I mean.”

“Not as such. We’ve all taken a piece of it, but in the meantime we’ve been working to root out the shadier elements of the business. It’s one thing my brothers and I do not suffer. We’re not criminals.”

“A fact I appreciate. And for the record, neither is Alessandro. I would never have agreed to marry him otherwise.”

“Is that so?”

“I’ve had enough shady dealings to last me a lifetime. My father, for all that he puts on the front of being an honorable citizen, is not. At least your fathers and your grandfather had the decency to be somewhat open about the fact that they weren’t playing by the rules.”

“Gentleman thugs,” he said, his voice hard. “But I’ll let you in on a little secret—no matter how good you are at dancing, no matter how nicely tailored your suit is, it doesn’t change the fact that when you hit a man in the legs with a metal cane, his knees shatter. And he doesn’t care what you’re wearing. Neither do the widows of the men you kill.”

Alessia was stunned by his words, not by the content of them, not as shocked as she wished she were. People often assumed that she was some naive, cosseted flower. Her smile had that effect. They assumed she must not know how organized crime worked. But she did. She knew the reality of it. She knew her father was bound up so tightly in all of it he could hardly escape it even if he wanted to.

He was addicted to the power, and being friendly with the mob bosses was what kept him in power. He couldn’t walk away easily. Not with his power, possibly not even with his life.

And yet, the Correttis had disentangled themselves from it. The Corretti men and women had walked away from it.

No, it wasn’t the content of his words that had surprised her. It was the fact that he’d said them at all. Because Matteo played his cards close to his chest. Because Matteo preferred not to address the subject of his family, of that part of his past.

“You aren’t like that, though.”

“No?” he asked. “I’m in a suit.”

“And you wouldn’t do that to someone.”

“Darling Alessia, you are an eternal optimist,” he said, and there was something in his words she didn’t like. A hard edge that made her stomach tighten. “I don’t know how you manage it.”

“Survival. I have to protect myself.”

“I thought that was where cynics came from?”

“Perhaps a good number of them. But no matter how I feel about a situation, I’ve never had any control over the outcome. My mother died in childbirth, and no amount of feeling good or bad about it would have changed that. My father is a criminal, no matter the public mask he wears, who has no qualms about slapping my face to keep me in line.” They swirled in a fast circle, Matteo’s hold tightening on her, something dangerous flickering in his eyes. “No matter how I feel about the situation, that is the situation. If I didn’t choose to be happy no matter what, I’m not sure I would have ever stopped crying, and I didn’t want to live like that, either.”

“And why didn’t you leave?” he asked.

“Without Marco, Giana, Eva and Pietro? Never. I couldn’t do it.”

“With them, then.”

“With no money? With my father and his men bearing down on us? If it were only myself, then I would have left. But it was never only me. I think we were why my mother stayed, too.” She swallowed hard. “And if she could do it for us, how could I do any less?”

“Your mother was good to you?”

“So good,” Alessia said, remembering her beautiful, dark-haired mother, the gentle smile that had always put her at ease when her father was in the other room shouting. The sweet, soothing touch, a hand on her forehead to help her fall asleep. “I wanted to give them all what she gave to me. I was the oldest, the only one who remembered her very well. It seemed important I try to help them remember. That I give them the love I received, because I knew they would never get it from my father.”

“And in New York? With me?”

“What do you mean?”

“You toed the line all of your life, Alessia. You were prepared to marry to keep your brothers and sisters safe and cared for. Why did you even chance ruining it by sleeping with me?” His hold tightened on her, his voice getting back that rough edge. That genuine quality it had been missing since they’d stepped inside the hotel.

It was a good question. It was the question, really.

“Tell me, cara,” he said, and she glimpsed something in his eyes as he spoke. A desperation.

And she couldn’t goad him. Couldn’t lie to him. Not now.

“Did you ever want something, Matteo, with all of yourself? So much that it seemed like it was in your blood? I did. For so many years. When we were children, I wanted to cross that wall between our families’ estates and take your hand, make you run with me in the grass, make you smile. And when I got older … well, I wanted something different from you, starting about the time you rescued me, and I don’t want to hear about how much you regret that. It mattered to me. I dreamed of what it would be like to kiss you, and then, I dreamed of what it would be like to make love with you. So much so that by the time I saw you in New York, when you finally did kiss me, I felt like I knew the steps to the dance. And following your lead seemed the easiest thing. How could I not follow?”

“I am a man, Alessia, so I fear there is very little romance to my version of your story. From the time you started to become a woman, I dreamed of your skin against mine. Of kissing you. Of being inside you. I could not have stopped myself that night any more than you could have.”

“That’s good to know,” she said, heat rushing through her, settling over her skin. It made her dress, so lovely and formfitting a few moments ago, feel tight. Far too tight.

“I don’t understand what it is you do to me.”

“I thought … I was certain that I must not be so different from all your other women.”

“There weren’t that many,” he said. “And you are different.”

It was a balm to her soul that he felt that way. That she truly hadn’t been simply one in a lineup. It was easy for her, she realized, to minimize the experience on his end. It had been easy for her to justify being with him, not being honest with him, giving him a one-night stand, because she’d assumed he’d had them before. It had been easy to believe she was the only one who’d stood to be hurt or affected, because she was the virgin.

That had been unfair. And she could see now, looking into his eyes, that it wasn’t true, either.

“Kiss me,” he said, all of the civility gone now.

She complied, closing the short distance between them, kissing him, really kissing him, for the first time in three months. Their wedding kiss had been nothing. A pale shadow of the passion they’d shared before. A mockery of the desire that was like a living beast inside of them both.

She parted her lips for him, sucked his tongue deep inside of her mouth, not caring that it would be obvious to the people around them. Matteo was hers now, her husband. She wouldn’t hide it, not from anyone. Wouldn’t hide her desire.

He growled low in his throat, the sound vibrating through his body. “Careful, Alessia, or I will not be responsible for what happens.”

“I don’t want you to be responsible,” she said, kissing his neck. Biting him lightly. There was something happening to her, something that had happened once before. A total loss of control. At the hands of Matteo Corretti.

It was like she was possessed, possessed by the desire to have him, to take him, make him hers. Make him understand what she felt. Make herself understand what she felt.

“We can’t do this here,” he said.

“This sounds familiar.”

“It does,” he said. He shifted, pulled her away from his body, twining his fingers with hers. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere,” he said.

He led her out of the ballroom, ignoring everyone who tried to talk to them. A photographer followed them and Matteo cursed, leading them a different way, down a corridor and to the elevators.

He pushed the up button and they both waited. It only took a moment for the elevator doors to slide open, and the moment they did, she was being tugged inside, tugged up against the hard wall of his chest and kissed so hard, so deep, she was afraid she would drown in it.

She heard the doors slide closed behind them, was dimly aware of the elevator starting to move. Matteo shifted their positions, put her back up against the wall, his lips hungry on hers.

“I need you,” he said, his voice shaking.

“I need you,” she said.

Her entire body had gone liquid with desire, her need for him overshadowing everything. Common sense, self-protection, everything. There was no time for thought. This was Matteo. The man she wanted with everything she had in her, the man who haunted her dreams. This was her white knight, but he was different than she’d imagined.

There was a darkness to him. An edge she’d never been able to imagine. And she found she liked it. Found she wanted a taste of it. She didn’t know what that said about her, didn’t know what it meant, but at the moment, she didn’t care, either.

“This is a beautiful dress,” he said, tracing the deep V of the neckline with his fingertip, skimming silk and skin with the movement. Her breath hitched, her entire body on edge, waiting for what he would do next. Needing it more than she needed air. “But it is not as beautiful as you. And right now, I need to see you.”

He reached around, tugging on the zipper, jerking it down.

“Careful,” she said, choking on the word. “You’ll snag the fabric.”

“I’ll tear it if I have to,” he said.

The top fell around her waist, revealing her breasts, covered only by a whisper-thin bra that showed the outline of her nipples beneath the insubstantial fabric.

He lifted his hand and cupped her, slid his thumb over the tightened bud. “Hot for me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Wet for me?” He put his other hand on her hip, flexed his fingers.

She couldn’t speak, she just nodded. And he closed his eyes, his expression one of pained relief like she’d never seen before.

She put her hand between her breasts, flicked the front clasp on her bra, letting it fall to the elevator floor. He looked at her, lowering his head, sucking her deep into his mouth. An arrow of pleasure shot from there down to her core. She tightened her fingers in his hair, then suddenly became conscious of the continued movement of the elevator.

“Hit the stop button,” she said, her voice breathless.

“What?” he asked, lifting his head, his cheeks flushed, his hair in disarray. Her heart nearly stopped. Matteo Corretti undone was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen.

“The elevator,” she said.

He cursed and turned around, hitting the red button on the wall, the elevator coming to a halt. He cursed again and reached into his pocket, taking out his cell phone. “Just a second.”

“You better not be texting,” she said.

He pushed a few buttons, his eyes not straying to her. “Not exactly.” He turned the screen toward her and she saw him. And her. And her breasts.

“Oh.”

He pushed a few more buttons. “I have disabled the security camera now. Unless you like the idea of being on film.”

She had to admit, she had a certain amount of curiosity as to what it looked like when Matteo Corretti made love to her. It was a video she wouldn’t mind owning, in all honesty. But she didn’t want it on security footage, either.

“Not in the mood to provide security with any early-evening jollies.”

“No worries, I have now deleted that little stretch of footage. There are advantages to being a control freak. Having an app on your phone that lets you see all the security at your hotels, and do as you please with the cameras, is one of them.”

He discarded his suit jacket and tie then, throwing them onto the floor of the elevator, tossing his phone down on top of them.

“Have you used that trick before?” she asked, before he lowered his head to kiss her again.

“With a woman?”

“Yes.”

“Jealous?”

“Hell, yes,” she said, not worried if he knew it. She wanted this moment, this desperation that was beyond anything she’d known, to be as foreign to him as it was to her.

“No, I haven’t.” He kissed her again, his tongue sliding against hers, and she forgot her lingering concerns.

Forgot about everything but what it felt like to have Matteo kissing her. Caressing her.

“Later—” he kissed the hollow of her throat “—I will do this right—” lowered his head and traced the line of her collarbone with his tongue. “I’ll taste every inch of you. Take time to savor you. Take your clothes off slowly. Look at those gorgeous curves.” He kissed her neck, bit her lightly like she’d done to him earlier. “Now, though … now I just need to be inside you.”

He started to gather her skirt up in his hands, the slippery fabric sliding up her legs easily. “Take your panties off,” he said.

She complied, her hands trembling as she worked her underwear down, kicking them to the side with her heels. He pushed her dress up around her hips, his hand hot on her thigh. He tugged her leg up around his, her back pinned against the wall of the elevator.

He tested her with his other hand, teasing her *oris, sending streaks of white heat through her body with each pass his fingers made through her slick folds. “You didn’t lie,” he said. “You do want me.”

“Yes,” she said. “Tell me,” he said.

“I want you.”

“My name.”

“I want you, Matteo.”

He abandoned her body for a moment, working at his belt, shoving his slacks and underwear down, just enough to free his erection so that he could sink into her. It was a shock, all those weeks without him, and she’d forgotten just how big he was. Just how much he filled her. She let her head fall back against the wall of the elevator, pleasure building deep inside her, her internal muscles tightening around his length.

And then there was no more talking. There was nothing but their ragged breathing, Matteo moving hard and fast inside her, blunt fingertips digging into her hips as he held her steady, thrusting into her.

He lowered his head, capturing her nipple in his mouth again. A raw sound of pleasure escaped her lips and she didn’t even care. She wasn’t embarrassed at all.

Because this was Matteo. The man she’d always wanted. Wanted enough to break out of what was expected of her for the first time in her life. The man who had saved her, the man who made her angry and hurt her, the man who made her feel things she’d never felt before.

Matteo scared her. He confused her. He made her feel more than anyone else ever had.

And right now he was driving her to a point she’d never even imagined, to the edge of a cliff so high she couldn’t see the bottom of the chasm below.

She was afraid to fall, afraid to let the pleasure that was building in her break, because she didn’t know what would greet her on the other side. Didn’t know what would happen. And something would happen. Something would change. There was no question. None at all.

And then he looked at her, those dark eyes meeting hers, and she saw him. Not the mask, the man. Raw need, desperation and a fear that mirrored her own.

He lowered his head, his lips pressing against her neck, his thrusts losing their measured rhythm. And something in her broke, released. And she was falling, falling into that endless chasm. But she wasn’t afraid anymore.

Release rolled through her in waves, stealing every breath, every thought, everything but the moment.

And when she finally did reach bottom, Matteo was there, his strong arms around her. He was breathing hard, too, sweat on his brow, the back of his shirt damp, his heartbeat raging, so hard that, with his body pressed so tightly against hers, she could feel it against her own chest.

He stepped away from her slowly, running his hand over his hair, erasing the evidence that she’d ever speared her fingers through it. That she’d messed with his well-ordered control.

He adjusted his pants. Bent and collected his jacket, putting his phone back into his pocket. And she just stood there, her back to the wall, her dress still pushed partway up around her hips, the top resting at her waist, her underwear on the floor by her feet.

Matteo put his tie around his neck and started straightening it, too, before he looked at her. “Get dressed,” he said.

“What?”

“Get dressed,” he said. “We have to go back to the party.”

“W-we do?”

“It’s my charity,” he said. “I have a speech to make.” He checked his wristwatch. “And it seems I’m not too late for it so I really should try to manage it.”

“I …”

“Turn around,” he ordered, his voice harsh. She did as he asked. He put her straps back into place, zipped the dress back up. “My bra …”

“You don’t need it,” he said.

“What should I do with it?”

He opened up his jacket and indicated his inner pocket. She bent and scooped up her bra and panties and handed them to him, and he put both tiny garments into his pocket.

“Solved,” he said.

She looked down at her chest, cupped her breasts for a moment. “I’m sagging.”

“You are not.”

He hit the button on the elevator and it started moving again, the doors sliding open. Then he hit the button for the first floor and they waited for the doors to close again.

Alessia felt … used. No, not even that. She just felt sad. Angry, because he was able to do that with her and then go back to his purely unruffled self.

Maybe she’d been making more out of them, and the sex, than she should have. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it didn’t mean anything to him. Nothing more than just sex, anyway, and a man like Matteo surely had it quite a bit.

They rode in silence, and the doors opened again. The photographer was still out there, wandering the halls. Looking for a photo op, no doubt.

Matteo put his arm around her waist and led her through the hall, that false smile back on his face. They started back toward the ballroom and she had the strangest feeling of déjà vu. Like they were back at the beginning of the night. Like their interlude in the elevator hadn’t happened at all. But it had. She knew it had.

The photographer snapped a picture. And Alessia didn’t bother to smile.