Chapter Seventeen
Lilianna Genovese
Matteo kept his hand on my knee the whole way home, as if touching me was non-negotiable. Our mutual control had waned to a dangerous point. If left alone, we’d certainly act on our impulses right now.
I wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing.
We needed to wait. There was too much that needed to be discussed first.
“Can we start talking here, or should we wait until we get inside?” I asked.
“Meet me in the hot tub,” he said, looking me up and down before moving from the car and leaving me behind. The driver didn’t say a word as he waited for me to get out of the car through the door Matteo had left open, but I waited a moment.
How far would I let this go tonight?
Did I want to go all the way?
The physical part of me did. My body’s reactions begged me to take our relationship to the next level again. But logic told me to wait. Logic said that there were too many things I needed to decide on my own before allowing our physical relationship to influence me.
I was afraid we’d never go back if we came together again.
I pulled myself from the car and walked toward the building. A breeze tickled its way up under my dress and made me shiver. I tipped my head back and allowed the chill of the evening to wipe away the residual lust I’d been feeling.
I took my time as I made my way up to the penthouse apartment. I tiptoed into the room Callum and I shared, careful not to wake him as he slept peacefully in the bed. I grabbed the light green bikini I’d bought on my shopping trip. I slid the dress over my shoulders and allowed it to drop to the floor before replacing it with the bathing suit. I glanced in the mirror and found that the green fabric brought out the green in my eyes.
I moved out to the patio and went to the railing for a moment, looking over the expanse of the city. It looked so beautiful from this angle. It looked safe. The occasional car horn echoed quietly up here, but the sounds of the city weren’t as loud and consuming from up here.
Nothing could draw my attention fully from the man behind me.
“Are you planning to stay over there?” Matteo asked from where he lounged in the tub.
I shook my head and didn’t look at him. I couldn’t yet. Not until I had made my intentions clear. My core still throbbed with my yearning, and if I looked at him before I spoke, I didn’t think I’d be able to keep cool. “I can’t have sex with you tonight.”
He didn’t respond immediately.
“Just tonight?” he finally asked.
“For now, not tonight. You can convince me easily, and I need you not to do that. Not until I can wrap my head around…everything. I don’t think I can keep it purely physical this time, and I’m not ready for more.”
He exhaled deeply. “I won’t have sex with you, Lilianna. I give you my word.”
“Not even if I ask for it,” I told him, taking a deep breath. I couldn’t let my body make choices like this for me. When his fingers had been inside of me, I would have gone through with it. I would never have stopped myself. Even now, with the memory of his hands so fresh, I knew I wouldn’t be in control.
“I promise.”
I looked over my shoulder. “I thought you wanted to.”
Matteo smirked, his eyes going alight as he took in the entirety of my exposed body. His gaze lingered, and he clenched his jaw in restraint. “More than you realize.” He paused and sucked in a sharp breath as he shook his head. “Fuck, you have no idea. But I don’t make a habit of sleeping with women who don’t want me. You’re safe with me, Lili.”
I nodded and finally moved toward the hot tub.
Even just the sight of him had my core turning molten again. The broad shoulders. The way his hair hung loosely at his shoulders. He’d taken it out of his slicked-back bun, and it hung down in unruly curls. I realized that he never allowed it to be messy like this. It was always tied back out of his face.
Wearing it like this was a liability. It was in the way, but with me, he didn’t seem to care.
I envisioned running my fingers through it, but I blinked away the fantasy.
Not yet. Not tonight.
I walked down the three steps before dropping into the hot water. My muscles immediately loosened, and I groaned as I sat on the side opposite Matteo.
“I just…I need to make some decisions, and I can’t have my lust for you clouding my judgment. I hope you understand.”
He nodded and leaned back. His motions appeared anything but relaxed. I could tell that staying away was taking a toll on him, but I didn’t comment on it. “What do you want to talk about then, Lili?”
I hadn’t considered it fully. I knew that Matteo had suggested the hot tub for reasons that went beyond talking, but there were things that I’d been thinking about for weeks. Things that needed to be said. I knew what I wanted to say but had no clue how to say it.
“You and Silas were best friends when you were young,” I recalled, sinking a little deeper into the warm water. It came to nearly my chin. “Did you stay close even when you started working together?”
He nodded. “We worked together because we were close. The alliance only worked because of Silas. Alessio ran his territory far differently than my father ran ours, and if it weren’t for our friendship, I don’t think it would have worked. Even after I took over for my father, it only worked because of our friendship.”
“Silas always told me to stay away from you,” I admitted. “He was very serious about it.”
I recalled one of our last arguments. He’d wanted me to stay in my room when Matteo visited, and I’d had enough. I’d been controlled by our father for my entire life, and I didn’t want Silas telling me what I could and couldn’t do. I didn’t know why it made me angry that time when he’d made comments like that for years, but I’d blown up.
It had been our last fight, and we’d long ago forgiven one another for it.
Still, thinking about it now felt like opening a raw wound, even though Silas hadn’t known that I’d gone behind his back and slept with Matteo before leaving.
It hadn’t been entirely intentional, but it had happened.
“He told me the same thing,” Matteo acknowledged.
I sat up straighter. “He told you to stay away from me?”
“I’ve always been attracted to you,” he assured me. “There were a lot of people interested in you, and all of them stayed away because of Silas.”
I chuckled and looked to the sky as if I could see him there, smiling smugly down at me.
“I’ve slept with you twice, and both times were behind my brother’s back,” I admitted. I recalled that drunken night three years ago and the way I had kept it a secret from Silas.
The night flooded back. I’d been a few beers and too many shots deep. Matteo hadn’t seemed intoxicated, but I’d seen him drink at least five shots during the night, and I knew there were more where that had come from. When we’d finally been alone—when he’d dragged me into a hallway closet and buried his face in my neck—I could smell precisely how intoxicated he was.
I didn’t care. I soaked my panties at his touches, pushing the encounter further and faster until we’d both lost all our clothes. Until he’d been buried so deep inside me I couldn’t think straight.
It didn’t matter how much alcohol was involved that night. I would never forget a moment of that claiming. I would never forget the way Matteo had whispered my name in my ear as he thrust into me, clinging to me as if he’d never let go.
I’d only allowed it to go so far because I planned to leave. I finally planned to get out of the mafia life, and sleeping with Matteo would have no consequences when I was going to leave soon anyway. Silas didn’t need to know because it was a one-time thing. It was a goodbye to the crush I’d had during my entire childhood.
I rubbed my face and sighed loudly.
I wished that I’d told Silas the truth.
And now… I couldn’t be honest with him. Silas had been gone the second time I’d slept with Matteo, but it had still been against his wishes.
“I have a lot to figure out about Callum’s and my future, and that’s my main priority. Sleeping with you will affect my decisions, and I don’t want that.” I paused. “Beyond that, I still feel like I’m hiding this from my brother.”
“He’s gone,” Matteo said gently.
“I know that. I do. But I never told him the truth about us. I don’t think I could have ever gone through with a relationship without getting his approval first, and knowing that he didn’t approve of us together…”
“Do you know why he didn’t approve?” Matteo asked.
“Because of the mafia and your connections to it. He wanted me to be with a normal person,” I said adamantly.
“Because,” he corrected, “he knew you were getting out. He said that you had planned to leave for years. Silas knew that he would never escape this life. It wasn’t an option for him. But you have always had a way out, and he wanted you to take it.”
“He said he wanted to go, too. I was waiting on him,” I argued.
“He wanted to help your desire to leave flourish. He never intended to be a part of it.”
I furrowed my brows. “You two spoke about me?” I asked.
“Silas and I talked about everything, and you were one of those topics, yes. He didn’t want us to be involved because I would hold you back from leaving. I swore I wouldn’t do that to you, and I didn’t plan to.”
“You could have gotten out, too,” I argued.
Matteo shook his head. “We both know I couldn’t have left.”
The mafia had strict laws on that. Once sworn into the family business, there was no escape. The only way out was death. I grew up hearing men swear themselves to my father. I’d seen the blood ritual. Men swore their lives to my father, and there was no exception for Matteo. Looking back, I wondered when Silas had sworn himself to my father. Had it been before or after our conversations about leaving?
“Silas knew he’d never get out?” I asked, stretching out my legs. My foot brushed against his calf, and I left it there.
Matteo nodded.
I took a long breath and nodded. I wanted so badly to believe that I knew my brother better than anybody, but that wasn’t the case. Not with Matteo sitting right here.
“There was so much I wanted to tell him about the last three years, but I couldn’t,” I admitted. “I had vague conversations with him, but I never told him where I was. I didn’t want my dad to know, so I couldn’t tell Silas either. I never even told him about Callum because I was afraid of my father learning about him. I couldn’t let them learn there was another male heir, or my dad would have tried to find us. So Silas never met Callum. He didn’t know that I had a passion for private investigating. I feel like he was cut off from an entire chapter of my life.”
Matteo’s body shifted, and he moved across the tub slowly, planting himself beside me. He grabbed my hips and moved me from the seat before placing himself behind me and pulling me down.
I gasped as I felt nothing but bare skin beneath me. The hard length of him sat beneath me, a reminder of both of our needs. My breathing quickened.
“Matteo…”
“You only said that we couldn’t fuck. Let me hold you.”
His voice left no room for debate. He was every ounce of the demanding Don that I’d grown to know at this moment.
Shivers ran down my spine as I sunk into his lap. My petite body seemed to fit perfectly against his, and I found myself relaxing there. He didn’t soften as we sat there. If anything, with each small movement, he hardened more. I made an effort not to move, but with the jets shifting us, I found stillness impossible.
God, I wanted him so badly.
I knew that if we weren’t submerged in water, his leg would be damp with proof of my desire.
“Does staying away from me make you feel like you’re doing what your brother wanted?” he asked.
“Yes.”
There was no hesitation behind my words.
“All he ever wanted was for you to be happy. That’s it. He knew that our goals didn’t align, and he knew that would deter you from finding your happiness.”
I felt a tear fall down my face as I looked out at the city around us and rested my head against his shoulder. This time, I didn’t bother keeping myself still. He stiffened, but I ignored the clear physical reaction.
“Being with you makes me happy,” I admitted. “It makes me really damn happy, even though I shouldn’t feel that way.”
“It makes you want to stay,” he remarked.
One of his fingers moved up my side, sending chills across my skin.
“It does, but I can’t do this with you. Not yet. Not until I have a chance to think about this and talk to him.” I backtracked. “Maybe not him, but at least his grave. I—I need him to know that I didn’t forget about him, even after running away. I always loved him, and I won’t forget about him now, either.”
It would be better to have a body to bury there, but I couldn’t continue putting all my plans on hold. I needed to move forward, regardless of how difficult that would be.
I relaxed fully into Matteo’s chest as his arms wound around my waist. The New York skyline was in perfect view of the tub, and though there was an incredible beauty to it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that danger lurked around every corner these days. Danger and a million reasons not to stay.
But there was one reason to stay, and as he held me closely to him, I realized that it might be enough.