Chapter 34
Paris
Three Days Later
“You don’t have to go to the United States with me,” she says, misreading my silence.
I’ve noticed her watching me since we arrived at the apartment I keep in the city. And although I know sooner or later we’ll have to talk about the news I got this morning, I have no idea how to do it.
I run both hands through my hair and walk to the floor-to-ceiling window in my suite.
Down below on the Quai d’Orsay, people stroll calmly, indifferent to my worries.
The last thing I wanted to do tonight was go out in public. I’d rather stay inside her, in our bed, all night long, so that when I have to tell her what’s going to happen in the near future, Elodie will have no doubt what she means to me.
Unfortunately, I can’t skip the event.
“It has nothing to do with the trip to the States,” I answer without turning to face her.
She doesn’t say anything else, and when I glance back, she’s stopped getting dressed. She’s wearing only a tiny red silk thong that matches her strapless bra and garter belt.
Elodie isn’t just beautiful, she’s sexy as hell.
Wherever we go in Italy, men turn their heads to covet her.
She notices, but she doesn’t encourage it.
My Romniya has a special way of letting admirers down without hurting their feelings, and I know every last one of them walks away hoping they’ll have a chance someday.
She doesn’t do it on purpose. She’s seductive without trying.
The more time we spend together, the more certain I am she’s the woman I want by my side.
She never lets herself be fully dominated the way all my previous partners did.
On the contrary, I always feel like she’s about to slip through my fingers, and it drives me crazy and arouses me at the same time.
Right now, though, it’s not the sly smile—as if she knows secrets the rest of the world doesn’t—that rules her gorgeous face.
It’s tension.
“I’m strong,” she says simply.
“What does that mean?”
“Exactly what I said. I don’t know what kind of women you were with before me, but I’m not some fragile flower. If you want to end it, just say so.”
For a moment I stare at her, speechless, because what she’s saying is the opposite of what I want.
She’s an expert at turning me inside out, so instead of denying the senseless statement, I find myself saying, “Is that what you want?”
Now it’s her turn to turn her back, and the feeling that I hit the bull’s-eye works through my veins like poison.
“Answer me.”
Nothing.
She stands still, not turning to look at me.
I go to her like a man on a mission. We’ve never been a couple of half-truths. If anything, we’re brutally honest.
“Look at me.”
She turns, chin high. Proud, defiant.
Mine.
“If I didn’t want you anymore, I’d say it plainly,” she finally says.
A mix of relief and irritation born of this morning’s overload turns me into a mess of tangled emotions.
Without a word, I lift her and pin her to the closet door.
“Do you like driving me insane?”
“Does the idea of losing me drive you insane?”
I know she’s trying to make it sound ironic, but after months together, I know her too well, and I can see the vulnerability behind the challenge.
Instead of answering, I speak the language that leaves no room for misunderstanding.
Ripping her panties and unzipping just enough to free my cock, I take her without warning or preliminaries.
“Ask me again.”
“Ahhhhh. . .”
“Ask, Elodie. Because if I’m still leaving room for you to doubt we belong to each other, I’m doing something wrong.”
I don’t wait for words—I devour her mouth while I drive deep into her.
Her body answers just as greedily.
She rides me and holds my face, kissing and biting, ravenous for the pleasure she knows I can give her.
And then we both open our eyes at the same time, and what was feral hunger turns into need. Urgency yields to the connection we always reach, the unique ability to show, without words, that we belong to each other.
And when the orgasm finally hits, I believe every doubt has been wiped away.
I’m wrong.
“Don’t be so nervous,” I say as we walk through the reception hall.
“Everyone’s looking at me.”
“Because there isn’t a more beautiful woman here, Romniya.”
“They know I don’t belong in this place.”
“Some might say that’s a blessing.”
“You can joke because you were born into this world.”
“You’re mistaken. I’m not like them, and I couldn’t care less what they think, otherwise I’d have let the bullying my brothers and I took as kids define me. I learned to ignore other people’s opinions.”
She doesn’t know the details of the love triangle between Mamma, Dino, and Carina, but she knows my parents aren’t married and that he kept a parallel relationship with his official wife, because one night when we went out to dinner, we ran into Chiar, my half-sister.
I’m not particularly close to her, or to Ricco, because my mother, in a way, fed our resentment toward the “rival” family.
But a lot has happened in recent years, including the death of my half-brother’s son, and little by little, all of us—Mamma included—have started to see the situation from a different angle.
The real culprit isn’t the women, nor us children. It’s Dino himself.
“Thank you. I needed to hear that.”
“Hear what?”
“That what people think of us doesn’t define who we are.” She gives me a gorgeous smile, and as always when I see her happy, warmth spreads through my chest.
But deep down, a voice warns me that later tonight, when we’re back at the apartment, I’m going to hurt her. I know Elodie well enough to predict some of her reactions.
As if life is toying with me, telling me I’ve just strapped into a roller-coaster car that isn’t under my control, the last person I want to see appears.
Capria Mancini.