“I did them one small favor in return for the hundreds they’ve bestowed on me. I’m tired of you constantly questioning my loyalty.”
He sat down on the bed, his head in his hands, a deep sigh rolling out of him. He looked as though he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. And maybe he had carried it all this time. But things were different now. Changing.
And Alex was damned if she’d let him shoulder this alone anymore.
“Give me a chance to explain, V.”
“Why did you tell them?”
“Because they deserved to know that their father’s actions still had serious consequences, such far-reaching potential for destruction. Because I wanted to show you that you don’t have to carry this burden alone. The burden of righting all the wrongs Silvio did, of bringing justice to those who can’t fight for themselves.”
He pulled her to him then, with a half-swallowed growl that sounded like a feral animal fighting for its last breath, and her heart thudded painfully in her breast. His face buried in her chest, his arms clung around her waist.
She sank her fingers into his crisp hair. “Leo’s about to become a father to two children. Imagine you and I having a child and someone out there wishing our family so much ill will as these people do…” She shuddered and his arms tightened around her.
“How is it that you keep unraveling me?” he asked.
She looked down and their eyes held. Fused with a connection that they hadn’t been able to deny from that first moment. The connection he wanted but not the force of emotion that strengthened it. The compromise and change it constantly asked of him, even the sacrifice it sometimes demanded.
“I’ve already decided not to demolish the villa,” he said, and the small flicker of hope turned into a full-blown flame in her body. “But—”
She didn’t want to hear any more. Pressing her finger to his mouth, she shimmied out of the flimsy robe and stood naked in front of him. Their kiss was a conflagration of desire and hope and such emotion that her heart stuttered in her chest.
His mouth was hard, rough; his kiss desperate, intense, a hard taking instead of giving. A demand for everything she could give.
She could sense it in the hunger in his eyes. In the tense jut of his muscles. But this wasn’t pure lust. This was him reaching out to her when the ground was shifting beneath him. He palmed her breasts, pinched her nipples as she pulled his shirt out of his trousers with a fervent need. Tugged the zipper down and sneaked her hand inside.
His hips thrust against her hand as she molded the hard length of him. “I want to be inside you, now, bella.”
“Yes, please,” she whispered back. “Now.”
Their mouths clung to each other as he shucked off the rest of his clothes.
A soft moan left her mouth as her body settled against his—breast to chest, thigh to thigh, his abdominal muscles a hard slab of heat against hers. Wrapping her legs around him, she threw her head back and moaned.
And then he was inside her, her back against the wall, her front a delicious slide against all his muscles. But he didn’t move inside her. Just held her like that, where she could feel him all over her body. His heart thudding against hers.
“We will live in that house, bella. You, me, our family. That’s the only way I won’t ruin it.”
“But—”
“My wedding gift to you, cara mia. It’s your choice now.”
But he didn’t wait for her answer. He started moving and her eyes rolled back.
Another searing kiss that swallowed not only her protest but her very breath. But she had no real protest anyway. She would take the little he gave her. He had changed for her. Because of her.
One corded arm rested near her head as he pulled out with a grunt and thrust back in. His teeth in the juncture of her neck kept that small edge to the waves of sensation building inside her, amplifying their sweetness in contrast.
With each upward jerk of his hips, she was pushed up and against the wall. With each wicked twist of his hips, sensation swelled and swirled downward. His face was savage in his utter lack of control. But even in the wake of such hunger, he didn’t forget about her. Every upward thrust rubbed her in just the right place. When he tugged her nipple into his mouth, Alex fragmented. And he followed.
Alex held him as he released into her with a feral growl.
The words rose to her lips, desperate to be set free. The emotion in her chest taking the space of everything else. Rumbling like a volcano about to explode.
Instead, Alex buried her own teeth in the taut curve of his shoulder and swallowed away the words. Words never meant much to her anyway.
He’d shown her in actions that he cared about her. Which gave her hope. And hope was more than enough right now.
* * *
It was a long time later, tucked into the crook of his arm, his body a warm embrace, that Alex said, “What did Leo and Massimo do that angered Antonio so much? You never told me.”
She’d expected him to shut her down; instead he only sighed. The darkness helped, she knew. And it wasn’t just that. She’d seen something in him earlier. A shift. A change. A vulnerability that made her throat ache. And everything in her wanted to embrace that hope. Cling to it like she’d never done anything else before.
His fingers spread over her throat, his words a harsh whisper in the silence. “They offered financial reparation to the families of those that were cheated, crushed by their father. Training, jobs, even stock options in BFI.”
Alex’s heart lightened. Her
