‘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 the hotel.

About the Author

MAISEY YATES was an avid Mills & Boon® ModernTM romance reader before she began to write them. She still can’t quite believe she’s lucky enough to get to create her very own sexy alpha heroes and feisty heroines. Seeing her name on one of those lovely covers is a dream come true.

Maisey lives with her handsome, wonderful, nappy-changing husband and three small children across the street from her extremely supportive parents and the home she grew up in, in the wilds of Southern Oregon, USA. She enjoys the contrast of living in a place where you might wake up to find a bear on your back porch and then heading into the home office to write stories that take place in exotic urban locales.

A Hunger for the Forbidden

Maisey Yates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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You push me to be better and to take risks.

And you make my job fun. Thank you.

CHAPTER ONE

ALESSIA BATTAGLIA ADJUSTED her veil, the whisper-thin fabric skimming over the delicate skin of her neck. Like a lover’s kiss. Soft. Gentle.

She closed her eyes, and she could feel it.

Hot, warm lips on her bare flesh. A firm, masculine hand at her waist.

She opened her eyes again and bent down, adjusting the delicate buckles on her white satin heels.

Her lover’s hands on her ankle, removing her high heels. Leaving her naked in front of him, naked before a man for the first time. But there was no time for nerves. There was nothing more than the heat between them. Years of fantasy, years of longing.

Alessia swallowed and took the bouquet of bloodred roses from the chair they were resting on. She looked down at the blossoms, some of them bruised by the way she’d laid them down.

Brushing her fingertips over the crushed velvet petals brought another wave of memory. A wave of sensation.

Her lover’s mouth at her breast, her fingers woven through his thick dark hair.

“Alessia?”

Her head snapped up and she saw her wedding coordinator standing in the doorway, one hand covering her headset.

“Yes?”

“It’s time.”

Alessia nodded, and headed toward the doorway, her shoes loud on the marble floor of the basilica. She exited the room that had been set aside for her to get ready in, and entered the vast foyer. It was empty now, all of the guests in the sanctuary, waiting for the ceremony.

She let out a long breath, the sound loud in the empty, high-ceilinged room. Then she started her walk toward the sanctuary, past pillars inlaid with gold and stones. She stopped for a moment, hoping to find some comfort, some peace, in the biblical scenes depicted on the walls.

Her eyes fell to a detailed painting of a garden. Of Eve handing Adam the apple.

“Please. Just one night.”

“Only one, cara mia?”

“That’s all I have to give.”

A searing kiss, like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Better than any fantasy.

Her breath caught and she turned away from the painting, continuing on, continuing to the small antechamber outside of the sanctuary.

Her father was there, his suit crisp and pressed. Antonioni Battaglia looked every inch the respectable citizen everyone knew he was not. And the wedding, so formal, so traditional, was another statement of his power. Power that he longed to increase, with the Corretti fortune and status.

That desire was the reason she was here.

“You are very much like your mother.”

She wondered if there was any truth to the words, or if it was just the right thing to say. Tenderness was something her father had never seemed capable of.

“Thank you,” she said, looking down at her bouquet.

“This is what’s right for the family.”

She knew it was. Knew that it was the key to ensuring that her brothers and sisters were cared for. And that was, after all, what she’d done since her mother died in childbirth. Pietro, Giana, Marco and Eva were the brightest lights in her existence, and she would do, had done, whatever she could to ensure they had the best life possible.

And still, regret settled on her like a cloak, and memory clouded the present. Memories of her lover. His hands, his body, his passion.

If only her lover, and the man waiting behind the doors to the sanctuary, waiting to marry her, were the same.

“I know,” she said, fighting against the desolation inside of her. The emptiness.

The double doors parted, revealing an impossibly long aisle. The music changed, everyone turned to look at her—all twelve hundred guests, who had come to watch the union of the Battaglia family and their much-hated rivals, the Correttis.

She held her head up, trying to breathe. The bodice of her dress threatened to choke her. The lace, which formed a high collar, and sleeves that ended in a point over her hands, was heavy and scratched against her skin. The yards of fabric clung to her, heat making her feel light-headed.

It was a beautiful dress, but it was too fussy for her. Too heavy. But the dress wasn’t about her. The wedding wasn’t about her.

Her father followed her into the sanctuary but didn’t take her arm. He had given her away when he’d signed his agreement with the late Salvatore Corretti. He didn’t need to do it again. He didn’t move to take a seat, either, rather he prowled around the back of the pews, up the side of the church, his steps parallel to hers. That was Antonioni Battaglia all over. Watching proceedings, ensuring all went well. Watching her. Making sure she did as she was told.

A drop of sweat rolled down her back and another flash of memory hit her hard.

His sweat-slicked skin beneath her fingertips. Her nails digging into his shoulders. Her thighs wrapped around lean, masculine hips …

She blinked and looked up at Alessandro. Her groom. The man to whom she was about to make her vows.

God forgive me.

Had she not been holding the roses, she would have crossed herself.

And then she felt him. As though he had reached out and put his hands on her.

She looked at the Corretti side, and her heart stopped for a moment. Matteo.

Her lover. Her groom’s enemy.

Matteo was arresting as ever, with the power to draw the breath from her lungs. Tall and broad, his physique outlined to perfection by his custom-made suit. Olive skin and square jaw. Lips that delivered pleasure in beautiful and torturous ways.

But this man standing in the pews was not the man who’d shared her bed that night a month ago. He was different. Rage, dark and bottomless, burned from his eyes, his jaw tight. She had thought, had almost hoped, that he wouldn’t care about her being promised to Alessandro. That a night of passion with her would be like a night with any other woman.

Yes, that thought had hurt, but it had been better than this. Better than him looking at her like he hated her.

She could remember those dark eyes meeting hers with a different kind of fire. Lust. Need. A bleak desperation that had echoed inside of her. And she could remember them clouded by desire, his expression pained as she’d touched him, tasted him.

She looked to Alessandro but she could still feel Matteo watching her. And she had to look back. She always had to look at Matteo Corretti. For as long as she could remember, she’d been drawn to him.

And for one night, she’d had him.

Now … now she would never have him again.

Her steps faltered, her high heel turning sideways beneath her. She stumbled, caught herself, her eyes locking with Matteo’s again.

Dio, it was hot. Her dress was suffocating her now. The veil too heavy on her head, the lace at her throat threatening to choke her.

She stopped walking, the war within her threatening to tear her to pieces.

Matteo Corretti thought he would gag on his anger. Watching her walk toward Alessandro, his cousin, his rival in business and now, because of this, his enemy.

Watching Alessia Battaglia make her way to Alessandro, to bind herself to him.

She was Matteo’s. His lover. His woman. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. It wasn’t simply the smooth perfection of her golden skin, not just the exquisite cheekbones and full, rose-colored lips. It was something that existed beneath her skin, a vitality and passion that had, by turns, fascinated and confused him.

Her every laugh, every smile, every mundane action, was filled with more life, more joy, than his most memorable moments. It was why, from the first time he’d sneaked a look at her as a boy, he had been transfixed.

Far from the monster he’d been made to believe the Battaglias were, she had been an angel in his eyes.

But he had never touched her. Never breached the unspoken command issued by his father and grandfather. Because she was a Battaglia and he a Corretti, the bad blood between them going back more than fifty years. He had been forbidden from even speaking to her and as a boy he had only violated that order once.

And now, when Salvatore had thought it might benefit him, now she was being traded to Alessandro like cattle. He tightened his hands into fists, anger, anger like he hadn’t felt in more than thirteen years, curling in his gut. The kind of rage he normally kept packed in ice was roaring through him. He feared it might explode, and he knew what happened when it did.

He could not be held responsible for what he might do if he had to watch Alessandro touch Alessia. Kiss her.

And then Alessia froze in place, her big, dark eyes darting from Alessandro, and back to him. Those eyes. Those eyes were always in his dreams.

Her hand dropped to her side, and then she released her hold on her bouquet of roses, the sound of them hitting the stone floor loud in the sudden silence of the room.

Then she turned, gripping the front of her heavy lace skirt, and ran back down the aisle. The white fabric billowed around her as she ran. She only looked behind her once. Wide, frightened eyes meeting his.

“Alessia!” He couldn’t stop himself. Her name burst from his lips, and his body burst from its position in the pews. And he was running, too. “Alessia!”

The roar of the congregation drowned out his words. But still he ran. People were standing now, filing into the aisle, blocking his path. The faces of the crowd were a blur, he wasn’t aware of who he touched, who he moved out of his way, in his pursuit of the bride.

When he finally burst through the exterior doors of the basilica, Alessia was getting into the backseat of the limo that was waiting to carry her and her groom away after the ceremony, trying to get her massive skirt and train into the vehicle with her. When she saw him, everything in her face changed. A hope in her eyes that grabbed him deep in his chest and twisted his heart. Hard.

“Matteo.”

“What are you doing, Alessia?”

“I have to go,” she said, her eyes focused behind him now, fearful. Fearful of her father, he knew. He was gripped then by a sudden need to erase her fears. To keep her from ever needing to be afraid again.

“Where?” he asked, his voice rough.

“The airport. Meet me.”

“Alessia …”

“Matteo, please. I’ll wait.” She shut the door to the limo and the car pulled out of the parking lot, just as her father exited the church.

“You!” Antonioni turned on him. “What have you done?”

And Alessandro appeared behind him, his eyes blazing with fury. “Yes, cousin, what have you done?”

Alessia’s hands shook as she handed the cash to the woman at the clothing shop. She’d never been permitted to go into a store like this. Her father thought this sort of place, with mass-produced garments, was common. Not for a Battaglia. But the jeans, T-shirt and trainers she’d found suited her purpose because they were common. Because any woman would wear them. Because a Battaglia would not. As if the Battaglias had the money to put on the show they did. Her father borrowed what he had to in order to maintain the fiction that their power was as infinite as it ever was. His position as Minister for the Trade and Housing department might net him a certain amount of power, power that was easily and happily manipulated, but it didn’t keep the same flow of money that had come from her grandfather’s rather more seedy organization.

The shopgirl looked at her curiously, and Alessia knew why. A shivering bride, sans groom, in a small tourist shop still wearing her gown and veil was a strange sight indeed.

“May I use the changing room?” she asked once her items were paid for.

She felt slightly sick using her father’s money to escape, sicker still over the way she’d gotten it. She must have been quite the sight in the bank, in her wedding gown, demanding a cash advance against a card with her father’s name on it.

“I’m a Battaglia,” she’d said, employing all the self-importance she’d ever heard come from Antonioni. “Of course it’s all right for me to access my family money.”

Cash was essential, because she knew better than to leave a paper trail. Having a family who had, rather famously, been on the wrong side of the law was helpful in that regard at least. As had her lifelong observation of how utter confidence could get you things you shouldn’t be allowed to have. The money in her purse being a prime example.

“Of course,” the cashier said.

Alessia scurried into the changing room and started tugging off the gown, the hideous, suffocating gown. The one chosen by her father because it was so traditional. The virgin bride in white.

If he only knew.

She contorted her arm behind her and tugged at the tab of the zip, stepping out of the dress, punching the crinoline down and stepping out of the pile of fabric. She slipped the jeans on and tugged the stretchy black top over her head.

She emerged from the room a moment later, using the rubber bands she’d purchased to restrain her long, thick hair. Then she slipped on the trainers, ruing her lack of socks for a moment, then straightened.

And she breathed. Feeling more like herself again. Like Alessia. “Thank you,” she said to the cashier. “Keep the dress. Sell it if you like.”

She dashed out of the store and onto the busy streets, finally able to breathe. Finally.

She’d ditched the limo at the bank, offering the driver a generous tip for his part in the getaway. It only took her a moment to flag down a cab.

She slid in the back, clutching her bag to her chest. “Aeroporto di Catania, per favore.”

“Naturalmente.”

Matteo hadn’t lingered at the basilica. Instead, he’d sidestepped his cousin’s furious questions and gotten into his sports car, roaring out of the parking lot and heading in the direction of the airport without giving it any thought.

His heart was pounding hard, adrenaline pouring through him.

He felt beyond himself today. Out of control in a way he never allowed.

In a way he rarely allowed, at least. There had been a few breaks in his infamous control, and all of them were tied to Alessia. And they provided a window into just what he could become if the hideous cold that lived in him met with passionate flame.

She was his weakness. A weakness he should never have allowed and one he should certainly never allow again.

Dark eyes clashing with his in a mirror hanging behind the bar. Eyes he would recognize anywhere.

He turned sharply and saw her, the breath pulled from his lungs.

He set his drink down on the bar and walked across the crowded room, away from his colleagues.

“Alessia.” He addressed her directly for the first time in thirteen years.

“Matteo.” His name sounded so sweet on her lips.

It had been a month since their night together in New York City, a chance encounter, he’d imagined. He wondered now.

A whole month and he could still taste her skin on his tongue, could still feel the soft curves of her breasts resting in his palms. Could still hear her broken sighs of need as they took each other to the height of pleasure.

And he had not wanted another woman since.

They barely made it into his hotel room, they were far too desperate for each other. He slammed the door, locking it with shaking fingers, pressing her body against the wall. Her dress was long, with a generous slit up the side, revealing her toned, tan legs.

He wrapped his fingers around her thigh and tugged her leg up around his hip, settling the hardness of his erection against her softness.

It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

Matteo stopped at a red light, impatience tearing at him. Need, need like he had only known once before, was like a beast inside him, devouring, roaring.

Finally, she was naked, her bare breasts pressing hard against his chest. He had to have her. His entire body trembling with lust.

“Ready for me, cara mia?”

“Always for you.”

He slid inside of her body, so tight, much more so than he’d expected, than he’d ever experienced. She cried out softly, the bite of her nails in his flesh not due to pleasure now.

A virgin.

His. Only his.

Except she had not been his. It had been a lie. The next morning, Alessia was gone. And when he’d returned to Sicily, she’d been there.

He’d been invited to a family party but he had not realized that all branches of the Corretti family would be present. Had not realized it was an engagement party. For Alessandro and Alessia. A party to celebrate the end of a feud, the beginning of a partnership between the Battaglias and the Correttis, a change to revitalize the docklands in Palermo and strengthen their family corporation.

“How long have you and Alessia been engaged?” he asked, his eyes trained on her even as he posed the question to Alessandro.

“For a while now. But we wanted to wait to make the big announcement until all the details were finalized.”

“I see,” he said. “And when is the blessed event?”

“One month. No point in waiting.”

Some of the old rage burned through the desire that had settled inside of him. She had been engaged to Alessandro when he’d taken her into his bed. She’d intended, from the beginning, to marry another man the night she’d given herself to him.

And he, he had been forced to watch her hang on his cousin’s arm for the past month while his blood boiled in agony as he watched his biggest rival hold on to the one thing he wanted more than his next breath. The one thing he had always wanted, but never allowed himself to have.

He had craved violence watching the two of them together. Had longed to rip Alessandro’s hands off her and show him what happened when a man touched what belonged to him.

Even now, the thought sent a rising tide of nausea through him.

What was it Alessia did to him? This wave of possessiveness, this current of passion that threatened to drown him, it was not something that was a part of him. He was a man who lived in his mind, a man who embraced logic and fact, duty and honor.

When he did not, when he gave in to emotion, the danger was far too great. He was a Corretti, cut from the same cloth as his father and grandfather, a fabric woven together with greed, violence and a passion for acquiring more money, more power, than any one man could ever need.

Even with logic, with reason, he could and had justified actions that would horrify most men. He hated to think what might happen if he were unleashed without any hold on his control.

So he shunned passion, in all areas of life.

Except one.

He pulled his car off the road and slammed on his breaks, killing the engine, his knuckles burning from the hard grip he had on the steering wheel, his breath coming in short, harsh bursts.

This was not him. He didn’t know himself with Alessia, and he never had.

And nothing good could come from it. He had spent his life trying to change the man he seemed destined to be. Trying to keep control, to move his life in a different direction than the one his father would have pushed him into.

Alessia compromised that. She tested it.

He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to catch his breath.

Then he turned the key over, the engine roaring to life again. And he turned the car around, heading away from the airport, away from the city.

He punched a button on his dashboard and connected himself to his PA.

“Lucia?”

“Sì?”

“Hold my calls until further notice.”

It had been three hours. No doubt the only reason her father and his men hadn’t come tearing through the airport was that they would never have imagined she would do something so audacious as to run away completely.

Alessia shifted in the plastic chair and wiped her cheek again, even though her tears had dried. She had no more tears left to cry. It was all she’d done since she’d arrived.

And she’d done more since it had become clear Matteo wasn’t coming.

And then she’d done more when she’d suddenly had to go into the bathroom and throw up in a public stall.

Then she’d stopped, just long enough to go into one of the airport shops and pick up the one thing she’d avoided buying for the past week.

She’d started crying again when the pregnancy test had resulted in two little pink, positive, yes-you’re-having-a-baby lines.

Now she was wrung out. Sick. And completely alone.

Well, not completely alone. Not really. She was having a baby, after all.

The thought didn’t comfort her so much as magnify the feeling of utter loneliness.

One thing was certain. There was no going back to Alessandro. No going back to her family. She was having the wrong man’s baby. A man who clearly didn’t want her.

But he did once.

That thought made her furious, defiant. Yes, he had. More than once, which was likely how the pregnancy had happened. Because there had been protection during their times in bed, but they’d also showered together in the early hours of the morning and then … then neither of them had been able to think, or spare the time.

A voice came over the loudspeaker, the last call for her flight out to New York.

She stood up, picked up her purse, the only thing she had with her, the only thing she had to her name, and handed her ticket to the man at the counter.

“Going to New York?” he asked, verifying.

She took a deep breath. “Yes.”

CHAPTER TWO

HE’D NEVER EVEN opened the emails she’d been sending him. She knew, because she’d set them up so that they would send her a receipt when the addressee opened her message, but she’d never gotten one.

He didn’t answer her calls, either. Not the calls to his office, not the calls to his mobile phone, not the calls to the Palazzolo Corretti, or to his personal estate outside Palermo.

Matteo Corretti was doing an exceptional job of ignoring her, and he had been for weeks now while she’d been holed up in her friend Carolina’s apartment. Carolina, the friend who had talked her into a New York bachelorette party in the first place. Which, all things considered, meant she sort of owed Alessia since that bachelorette party was the source of both her problems, and her pregnancy.

No, that wasn’t fair. It was her fault. Well, a lot of it was. The rest was Matteo Corretti’s. Master of disguise and phone-call-avoider extraordinaire.

She wished she didn’t need him but she didn’t know what else to do. She was so tired. So sad, all the time. Her father wouldn’t take her calls, either, her siblings, the most precious people in her life were forbidden from speaking to her. That, more than anything, was threatening to burn a hole in her soul. She felt adrift without them around her. They’d kept her going for most of her life, given her a sense of purpose, of strength and responsibility. Without them she just felt like she was floundering.

She’d had one option, of course. To terminate the pregnancy and return home. Beg her father and Alessandro for forgiveness. But she hadn’t been able to face that. She’d lost so much in her life already and as confused as she was about the baby, about what it would mean for her, as terrified as she was, she couldn’t face losing the tiny life inside of her.

But she would run out of money soon. Then she would be alone and penniless while Matteo Corretti spent more of his fortune on sports cars and high-rise hotels.

She wasn’t going to allow it anymore. Not when she’d already decided that if he didn’t want to be a part of their baby’s life he would have to come tell her to her face. He would have to stand before her and denounce their child, verbally, not simply by ignoring emails and messages. He would have to make that denouncement a physical action.

Yes, she’d made the wrong decision to sleep with him without telling him about Alessandro. But it didn’t give him the right to deny their child. Their child had nothing to do with her stupidity. He or she was the only innocent party in the situation.

She looked down at the screen on her phone. She had her Twitter account all set up and ready to help her contact every news outlet in the area.

She took a breath and started typing.

@theobserver @NYTnews @HBpress I’m about to make an important announcement re Matteo Corretti & the wedding scandal. Luxe Hotel on 3rd.

Then she stepped out of the back of the cab and walked up to the front steps of Matteo’s world-renowned hotel, where he was rumored to be in residence, though no one would confirm it, and waited.

The sidewalks were crowded, people pushing past other people, walking with their heads down, no one sparing her a glance. Until the news crews started showing up.

First there was one, then another, and another. Some from outlets she hadn’t personally included in her tweet. The small crowd drew stares, and some passersby started lingering to see what was happening.

There was no denying that she was big news. The assumption had been that she’d run off with Matteo but nothing could be further from the truth. And she was about to give the media a big dose of truth.

It didn’t take long for them to catch the attention of the people inside the hotel, which had been a key part of her plan.

A sharply dressed man walked out of the front of the hotel, his expression wary. “Is there something I can help you with?”

She turned to him. “I’m just making a quick announcement. If you want to go get Matteo, that might help.”

“Mr. Corretti is not in residence.”

“That’s like saying someone isn’t At Home in a Regency novel, isn’t it? He’s here, but he doesn’t want anyone to know it.”

The reporters were watching the exchange with rapt attention, and the flash on one of the cameras started going, followed by the others.

“Mr. Corretti is not—”

She whirled around to face him again. “Fine, then if Mr. Corretti is truly not in residence you can stand out here and listen to what I have to say and relay it to your boss when you deliver dinner to the room he is not in residence in.”

She turned back to the reporters, and suddenly, the official press release she’d spent hours memorizing last night seemed to shatter in her brain, making it impossible to piece back together, impossible to make sense of it.

She swallowed hard, looking at the skyline, her vision filled with concrete, glass and steel. The noise from the cars was deafening, the motion of the traffic in front of her making her head swim. “I know that the wedding has been much talked about. And that Matteo chasing me out of the church has been the headline. Well, there’s more to the story.”

Flashes blinded her, tape recorders shoved into her face, questions started to drown out her voice. She felt weak, shaky, and she wondered, not for the first time, if she was completely insane.

Her life in Sicily had been quiet, domestic, one surrounded by her family, one so insular that she’d been dependent upon imagination to make it bearable, a belief of something bigger looming in her future. And as a result, she had a tendency to romanticize the grand gesture in her mind. To think that somehow, no matter how bleak the situation seemed, she could fix it. That, in the end, she would make it perfect and manage to find her happy ending.

She’d done it on the night of her bachelorette party. New York was so different than the tiny village she’d been raised in. So much bigger, faster. Just being there had seemed like a dream and so when she’d been confronted with Matteo it had seemed an easy, logical thing to approach him, to follow the path their mutual attraction had led them down. It was a prime example of her putting more stock in fantasy, in the belief in happy endings, over her common sense.

This was another.

But no matter how well planned this was, she hadn’t realized how she would feel, standing there with everyone watching her. She wasn’t the kind of woman who was used to having all eyes on her, her aborted wedding being the exception.

“I’m pregnant, and Matteo Corretti is the father of my baby.” It slipped out, bald and true, and not at all what she’d been planning to say. At least she didn’t think it was.

“Mr. Corretti—” the employee was speaking into his phone now, his complexion pallid “—you need to come out here.”

She released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“When is the baby due?”

“Are you certain he’s the father?”

“When did you discover you were pregnant?”

The questions were coming rapid-fire now, but she didn’t need to answer them because this was never about the press. This was about getting his attention. This was about forcing a confrontation that he seemed content to avoid.

“I’ll answer more questions when Matteo comes to make his statement.”

“Did the two of you leave the wedding together, or are you estranged? Has he denied paternity?” one of the reporters asked.

“I …”

“What the hell is going on?”

Alessia turned and her heart caught in her throat, making it impossible to breathe. Matteo. It felt like an eternity since she’d seen him, since he’d kissed her, put his hands on her skin. An eternity.

She ached with the need to run to him, to hold on to him, use him as an anchor. In her fantasies, he had long been her knight in shining armor, a simplistic vision of a man who had saved her from a hideous fate.

But in the years since, things had changed. Become more complex, more real. He was her lover now. The father of her child. The man she had lied to. The man who had left her sitting alone in an airport, crying and clutching a positive pregnancy test.

For a moment, the longing for those simple, sun-drenched days in Sicily, when he had been nothing more than an idealized savior, was so sharp and sweet she ached.

“Mr. Corretti, is this why you broke up the wedding?”

“I didn’t break up anyone’s wedding,” he said, his tone dark.

“No, I ran out of the wedding,” she said.

“And is what why I broke up the wedding?” he asked, addressing the reporter, stormy eyes never once looking at her.

“The baby,” the reporter said.

Matteo froze, his face turning to stone. “The baby.” Color drained from his face, but he remained stoic, only the change in his complexion a clue as to the shock that he felt.

He didn’t know. She felt the impact of that reality like a physical blow. He hadn’t even listened to a single message. Hadn’t opened any emails, even before she’d started tagging them to let her know when he opened them.

“Is there more than one?” This from another reporter.

“Of course not,” Matteo said, his words smooth, his eyes cold like granite. “Only this one.”

He came to stand beside her, his gaze still avoiding hers. He put his arm around her waist, the sudden contact like touching an open flame, heat streaking through her veins. How did he manage to affect her this way still? After all he’d done to her? After the way he’d treated her?

“Do you have a statement?”

“Not at this point,” he bit out. “But when the details for the wedding are finalized, we will be in touch.”

He tightened his hold on her waist and turned them both around, away from the reporters, leading her up the steps and into the hotel. She felt very much like she was being led into the lion’s den.

“What are you doing?” she asked, wishing he would move away from her, wishing he would stop touching her.

“Taking you away from the circus you created. I have no desire to discuss this with an audience.”

If he wasn’t so angry with her, she might think it was a good idea. But Matteo Corretti’s rage was like ice-cold water in a black sea. Fathomless, with the great threat of pulling her beneath the waves.

His hold tightened with each step they took toward the hotel, and her stomach started to feel more and more unsettled until, when they passed through the revolving door and into the hotel lobby, she was afraid she might vomit on the high-gloss marble floors.

A charming photo to go with the headlines.

He released her the moment they were fully inside. “What the hell is the meaning of this?” he asked, rounding on her as his staff milled around very carefully not watching.

“Should we go somewhere more private?” she asked. Suddenly she felt like she’d rather brave his rage than put on a show. She was too tired for that. Too vulnerable. Bringing the press in was never about drawing attention to herself, it was about getting information to Matteo that he couldn’t ignore. Giving the man no excuse to say he didn’t know.

“Says the woman who called a bloody press conference?”

“You didn’t answer my calls. Or return my messages. And I’m pretty sure now that you didn’t even listen to any of them.”

“I have been away,” he said.

“Well, that’s hardly my fault that you chose this moment to go on sabbatical. And I had no way of knowing.”

He was looking at her like she’d grown an extra head. “Take me to your suite,” she said.

“I’m not in the mood, Alessia.”

“Neither am I!” she shot back. “I want to talk.”

“It’s just that last time we were in this hotel, talking was very much not on the agenda.”

Her face heated, searing prickles dotting her skin. “No. That’s very true. Which is how we find ourselves in this current situation.”

“Communication seems to be something we don’t do well with,” he said. “Our lack of talking last time we were here together certainly caused some issues.”

“But I want to talk now,” she said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts.

He cocked his head to the side, dark eyes trained on her now with a focus he’d withheld until that moment. “You aren’t afraid of me.”

“No.”

“A mistake, some might say, cara mia.”

“Is that so?”

“You won’t like me when I’m angry.”

“You turn green and split your pants?”

“Perhaps taking this somewhere private is the best idea,” he said, wrapping his fingers around her arm, just above her elbow, and directing her toward the elevator.

He pushed the up button and they both waited. She felt like she was hovering in a dream, but she dug her fingernails into her palms, and her surroundings didn’t melt away. It was real. All of this.

The elevator doors slid open and they both stepped inside. And as soon as they were closed into the lift, he rounded on her.

“You’re pregnant?” His words were flat in the quiet of the elevator.

“Yes. I tried to tell you in a less public way, but it’s been two months and you’ve been very hard to get ahold of.”

“Not an accident.”

“Oh, no, I know. It was far too purposeful to be accidental. You never even opened my emails.”

“I blocked your address after you sent the first few.”

“Uh,” she said, unable to make a more eloquent sound.

“I see it offends you.”

“Yes. It does offend me. Didn’t it occur to you that I might have something important to tell you?”

“I didn’t care,” he said.

The elevator stopped at the top floor and the doors slid open. “Is there a point in me going any further, then? Or should I just go back to my friend Carolina’s apartment and start a baby registry?”

“You are not leaving.”

“But you just said you didn’t care.”

“I didn’t care until I found out you were carrying my child.”

She was both struck, and pleased, by his certainty that the child was his. She wouldn’t have really blamed him if he’d questioned her at least once. She’d lied about her engagement to Alessandro. By omission, but still. She knew she wasn’t blameless in the whole fiasco.

“What did you think I was trying to contact you for? To beg you to take me back? To beg you for more sex? Because that’s what we shared that night, that’s all we shared.” The lie was an acid burn on her tongue. “I would hardly have burned my pride to the ground for the sake of another orgasm.”

“Is that true? You would hardly be the first person to do it.”

“If you mean you, I’m sure it cost you to take a Battaglia to your bed. Must have been some epic dry spell.”

“And not worth the price in the end, I think.”

His words were designed to peel skin from bone, and they did their job. “I would say the same.”

“I can see now why you ran from the wedding.”

A wave of confusion hit her, and it took her a moment to realize that she hadn’t told him the order in which the events had occurred. Wedding abandonment, then pregnancy test, but before she could correct him he pressed on.

“And how conveniently you’ve played it, too. Alessandro would, of course, know it wasn’t his child as you never slept with him. I hope you’re pleased with the way all of this unfolded because you have managed to ensure that you are still able to marry a Corretti, in spite of our little mistake. Good insurance for your family since, thanks to your abandonment, the deal between our family and yours has gone to hell.”

“You think I planned this? You aren’t even serious about marrying me, are you?”

“There is no other choice. You announced your pregnancy to the whole world.”

“I had to tell you.”

“And if I had chosen not to be a part of the baby’s life?”

“I was going to make you tell me that to my face.” He regarded her closely. “Strange to think I ever imagined you to be soft, Alessia.”

“I’m a Battaglia. I’ve never had the luxury of being soft.”

“Clearly not.” He looked at her, long and hard. “This makes sense, Alessia.” His tone was all business now. Maddeningly sure and decisive. “It will put to rest rumors of bad blood, unite the families.”

“You didn’t seem to care about that before.”

“That was before the baby. The baby changes everything.”

Because he wanted to make a family? The idea, so silly and hopeful, bloomed inside of her. It was her blessing and curse that she always found the kernel of hope in any situation. It was the thing that got her through. The thing that had helped her survive the loss of her mother, the cold detachment from her father, the time spent caring for her siblings when other girls her age were out dating, having lives, fulfilling dreams.

She’d created her own. Locked them inside of her. Nurtured them.

“I … It does?” she asked, the words a whisper.

“Of course,” he said, dark eyes blazing. “My child will be a Corretti. On that, there can be no compromise.”

CHAPTER THREE

MATTEO’S OWN WORDS echoed in his head.

My child will be a Corretti. On that there can be no compromise.

It was true. No child of his would be raised a Battaglia. Their family feud was not simply a business matter. The Battaglias had set out to destroy his grandfather, and had they succeeded they would have wiped out the line entirely.

It was the hurt on her face that surprised him, and more than that, his response to it.

Damn Alessia Battaglia and those dark, soulful eyes. Eyes that had led him to ruin on more than one occasion.

“Because you won’t allow your child to carry my name?” she asked.

“That’s right.”

“And what of my role in raising my child?”

“You will, of course, be present.”

“And what else? Because more than mere presence is required to raise a child.”

“Nannies are also required, in my experience.”

“In your experience raising children, or being raised?”

“Being raised. I’m supremely responsible in my sexual encounters so I’ve never been in this situation before.”

“Supremely responsible?” she asked, cheeks flushing a gorgeous shade of rose that reminded him of the blooms in his Sicilian palazzo. “Is that what you call having sex with your cousin’s fiancée with no condom?”

Her words, so stark and angry, shocked him. Alessia had always seemed fragile to him. Sweet. But tangling with her today was forcing him to recognize that she was also a woman capable of supreme ruthlessness if the situation required it.

Something he had to reluctantly respect.

“I didn’t know you were engaged to be married, as you withheld the information from me. As to the other issue, that has never happened to me before.”

“So you say.”

“It has not,” he said.

“Well, it’s not like you were overly conscious of it at the time.”

Shame cracked over his insides like a whip. He had thought himself immune to shame at this point. He was wrong. “I knew. After.”

“You remembered and you still didn’t think to contact me?”

“I did not think it possible.” The thought hadn’t occurred to him because he’d been too wrapped up in simply trying to avoid her. Alessia was bad for him, a conclusion he’d come to years ago and reaffirmed the day he’d decided not to go after her.

And now he was bound to her. Bound to a woman who dug down far too deep inside of him. Who disturbed his grasp on his control. He could not afford the interruption. Could not afford to take the chance that he might lose his grip.

“Why, because only other people have the kind of sex that makes babies?”

“Do you always say what comes to your mind?”

“No. I never do. I never speak or act impulsively, I only think about it. It’s just you that seems to bring it out.”

“Aren’t I lucky?” Her admission gripped him, held him. That there was something about him that brought about a change in her … that the thing between them didn’t only shatter his well-ordered existence but hers, too, was not a comfort. Not in the least.

“Clearly, neither of us are in possession of much luck, Alessia.”

“Clearly,” she said.

“There is no way I will let my child be a bastard. I’ve seen what happens to bastards. You can ask my cousin Angelo about that.” A cousin who was becoming quite the problem. It was part of why Matteo had come to New York, why he was making his way back into circulation. In his absence, Angelo had gone and bought himself a hefty amount of shares for Corretti Enterprises and at this very moment, he was sitting in Matteo’s office, the new head of Corretti Hotels. He’d been about to go back and make the other man pay. Wrench the power right back from him.

Now, it seemed there was a more pressing matter.

“So, you’re doing this to save face?”

“For what other reason? Do you want our child to be sneered at? Disgraced? The product of an illicit affair between two of Sicily’s great warring families?”

“No.”

Matteo tried not to read the emotion in her dark eyes, tried not to let them pull him in. Always, from the moment he’d seen her, he’d been fascinated. A young girl with flowers tangled in her dark hair, running around the garden of her father’s home, a smile on her lips. He could remember her dancing in the grass in her bare feet, while her siblings played around her.

And he had been transfixed. Amazed by this girl who, from all he had been told, should have been visibly evil in some way. But she was a light. She held a brightness and joy like he had never seen. Watching it, being close enough to touch it, helped him pretend it was something he could feel, too.

She made him not so afraid of feeling.

She’d had a hold on him from day one. She was a sorceress. There was no other explanation. Her grip on him defied logic, defied every defense he’d built inside of himself.

And no matter how hard he tried, he could read her. Easily. She was hurt. He had hurt her.

“What is it?” he asked.

She looked away. “What do you mean?”

“Why are you hurt?”

“You’ve just told me how unlucky we both are that I’m pregnant—was I supposed to look happy?”

“Don’t tell me you’re pleased about this. Unless it was your plan.”

“How could I have … planned this? That doesn’t make any sense.”

He pushed his fingers through his hair and turned away from her. “I know. Che cavolo, Alessia, I know that.” He turned back to her.

“I just wanted to tell you about the baby.”

He felt like he was drowning, like every breath was suffocating him. A baby. She was having his baby. And he was just about the last man on earth who should ever be a father. He should walk away. But he couldn’t.

“And this was the only way?”

Her eyes glittered with rage. “You know damn well it was!”

He did. He’d avoided her every attempt at contacting him. Had let his anger fuel the need for distance between them. Had let the very existence of the emotion serve as a reminder. And he had come back frozen again. So he’d thought. Because now Alessia was here again, pushing against that control.

“Why didn’t you meet me at the airport?” she asked, her words a whisper.

“Why didn’t I meet you?” he asked, his teeth gritted. “You expected me to chase after you like a dog? If you think you can bring me to heel that easily, Alessia, you are a fool.”

“And if you think I’m trying to you’re an idiot, Matteo Corretti. I don’t want you on a leash.”

“Well, you damn well have me on one!” he said, shouting for the first time, his tenuous grip on his control slipping. “What am I to do after your public display? Deny my child? Send you off to raise it on your own? Highly unlikely.”

“How can we marry each other? We don’t love each other. We barely like each other right now!”

“Is that so bad? You were prepared to marry Alessandro, after all. Better the devil you know. And we both know you know me much better than you knew him.”

“Stop it,” she said, the catch in her voice sending a hot slash of guilt through his chest. Why he was compelled to lash out at her, he wasn’t sure.

Except that nothing with Alessia was ever simple. Nothing was ever straightforward. Nothing was ever neat or controlled.

It has to be.

“It’s true, though, isn’t it, Alessia?” he asked, his entire body tense now. He knew for a fact he was the first man to be with her, and something in him burned to know that he had been the only man. That Alessandro had never touched her as he had. “You were never with him. Not like you were with me.”

The idea of his cousin’s hands on her … A wave of red hazed his vision, the need for violence gripping his throat, shaking him.

He swallowed hard, battled back the rage, fought against images that were always so close to the surface when Alessia was around. A memory he had to hold on to, no matter how much he might wish for it to disappear.

Blood. Streaked up to his elbows, the skin on his knuckles broken. A beast inside of him unleashed. And Alessia’s attackers on the ground, unmoving.

He blinked and banished the memory. It shouldn’t linger as it did. It was but one moment of violence in a lifetime of it. And yet, it had been different. It had been an act born of passion, outside of his control, outside of rational thought.

“Tell me,” he ground out.

“Do you honestly think I would sleep with Alessandro after what happened?”

“You were going to. You were prepared to marry him. To share his bed.”

She nodded wordlessly. “Yes. I was.”

“And then you found out about the baby.”

“No,” she said, her voice a whisper.

“What, then?”

“Then I saw you.”

“Guilt?”

“We were in a church.”

“Understandable.”

“Why didn’t you meet me?” she asked again, her words holding a wealth of pain.

“Because,” he said, visions of blood washing through his brain again, a reminder of what happened when he let his passions have control, “I got everything I wanted from you that night. Sex. That was all I ever wanted from you, darling.”

She drew back as though he’d struck her. “Is that why you’ve always watched me?”

“I’ll admit, I had a bit of an obsession with your body, but you know you had one with mine.”

“I liked you,” she said, her words hard, shaky. “But you never came near me after—”

“There is no need to dredge up the past,” he said, not wanting to hear her speak of that day. He didn’t want to hear her side of it. How horrifying it must have been for a fourteen-year-old girl to see such violence. To see what he was capable of.

Yet, she had never looked at him with the shock, the horror, he’d deserved. There was a way she looked at him, as though she saw something in him no one else did. Something good. And he craved that feeling. It was one reason he’d taken her up on her invitation that night at the hotel bar.

Too late, he realized that he was not in control of their encounter that time, either. No, Alessia stole the control. Always.

No more, he told himself again.

Alessia swallowed back tears. This wasn’t going how she’d thought it would. Now she wasn’t sure what she thought. No, she knew. Part of her, this stupid, girlish, optimistic part of her, had imagined Matteo’s eyes would soften, that he would smile. Touch her stomach. Take joy in the fact that they had created a life together.

And then they would live happily ever after.

She was such a fool. But Matteo had long been the knight in shining armor of her fantasies. And so in her mind he could do no wrong.

She’d always felt like she’d known him. Like she’d understood the serious, dark-eyed young man she’d caught watching her when she was in Palermo. Who had crept up to the wall around her house when he was visiting his grandmother and stood there while she’d played in the garden. Always looking like he wanted to join in, like he wanted to play, but wouldn’t allow himself to.

And then … and then when she’d needed him most, he’d been there. Saved her from … she hardly even knew what horror he’d saved her from. Thank God she hadn’t had to find out exactly what those two men had intended to use her for. Matteo had been there. As always. And he had protected her, shielded her.

That was why, when she’d seen him in New York, it had been easy, natural, to kiss him. To ask him to make love to her.

But after that he hadn’t come to save her.

She looked at him now, at those dark eyes, hollow, his face like stone. And he seemed like a stranger. She wondered how she could have been so wrong all this time.

“I don’t want to dredge up the past. But I want to know that the future won’t be miserable.”

“If you preferred Alessandro, you should have married him while you had him at the altar with a priest standing by. Now you belong to me, the choice has been taken. So you should make the best of it.”

“Stop being such an ass!”

Now he looked shocked, which, she felt, was a bit of an accomplishment. “You want me to tell you how happy I am? You want me to lie?”

“No,” she said, her stomach tightening painfully. “But stop … stop trying to hurt me.”

He swore, an ugly, crude word. “I am sorry, Alessia, it is not my intent.”

The apology was about the most shocking event of the afternoon. “I … I know this is unexpected. Trust me, I know.”

“When did you find out?” he asked.

“At the airport. So … if you had met me, you would have found out when I did.”

“And what did you do after that?”

“I waited for you,” she said. “And then I got on a plane and came to New York. I have a friend here, the friend that hosted my little bachelorette party.”

“Why did you come to New York?”

“Why not?” She made it sound casual, like it was almost accidental. But it wasn’t. It had made her feel close to him, no matter where he might have been in the world, because it was the place she’d finally been with him the way she’d always dreamed of. “Why did you come to New York?”

“Possibly for the same reason you did,” he said, his voice rough. It made her stomach twist, but she didn’t want to ask him for clarification. Didn’t want to hope that it had something to do with her.

She was too raw to take more of Matteo’s insults. And she was even more afraid of his tenderness. That would make her crumble completely. She couldn’t afford it, not now. Now she had to figure out what she was doing. What she wanted.

Could she really marry Matteo?

It was so close to her dearest fantasy. The one that had kept her awake long nights since she was a teenager. Matteo. Hers. Only hers. Such an innocent fantasy at first, and as she’d gotten older, one that had become filled with heat and passion, a longing for things she’d never experienced outside of her dreams.

“And if …” she said, hardly trusting herself to speak “… if we marry, my family will still benefit from the merger?”

“Your father will get his money. His piece of the Corretti empire, as agreed upon.”

“You give it away so easily.”

“Because my family still needs the docklands revitalization. And your father holds the key to that.”

“And it will benefit Alessandro, too.”

“Just as it would have benefitted me had he married you.”

Those words, hearing that it would have benefitted him for her to marry someone else, made her feel ill. “So a win all around for the Correttis, then?”

“I suppose it is,” he said.

There was a ruthless glint in his eyes now. One she had never seen directed at her before. One she’d only seen on one other occasion.

“What if I say no?” she asked, because she had to know. She wasn’t sure why she was exploring her options now. Maybe because she’d already blown everything up. Her father likely hated her.… Her siblings … they must be worried sick. And she wondered if anyone was caring for them properly.

Yes, the youngest, Eva, was fourteen now and the rest of them in their late teens, but still, she was the only person who nurtured them. The only person who ever had.

The life she’d always known, the life she’d clung to for the past twenty-seven years, was changed forever. And now she felt compelled in some ways to see how far she could push it.

“You won’t say no,” he said.

“I won’t?”

“No. Because if you do, the Battaglias are as good as bankrupt. You will be cared for, of course our child will be, too. I’m not the kind of man who would abandon his responsibility in that way. But what of your siblings? Their care will not be my problem.”

“And if I marry you?”

“They’ll be family. And I take care of family.”

A rush of joy and terror filled her in equal parts. Because in some ways, she was getting just what she wanted. Matteo. Forever.

But this wasn’t the Matteo she’d woven fantasies around. This was the real Matteo. Dark. Bitter. Emotionless in a way she’d somehow never realized before.

He’d given her passion on their night together, but for the most part, the lights had been off. She wondered now if, while his hands had moved over her body with such skill and heat, his eyes had been blank and cold. Like they were now.

She knew that what she was about to agree to wasn’t the fantasy. But it was the best choice for her baby, the best choice for her family.

And more fool her, she wanted him. Still. All of those factors combined meant there was only ever one answer for her to give.

“Yes, Matteo. I’ll marry you.”

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