40. Roman
Iwas going to give her a few minutes to get to the library. Not that I could follow the entire conversation since it was mainly in Italian, but I did pick up on Isabel getting books during lunch.
And I picked up on the word Bastardo, which admittedly grated on my nerves. I didn’t need to speak a word of Italian to understand exactly what that meant. So, Isabel could discuss this travesty with her friend, but not with me?
After our conversation this morning, or lack thereof, I considered giving her the opportunity to come to me when she finally decided to tell me what the hell was going on, but at this point that didn’t seem likely.
Subsequently, my mind went on a speculation spree as to what might be happening. For a while I even suspected Byron might be involved, but I knew he wouldn’t take my earlier threat lightly. He knew when I warned him to stay away from Isabel that I wasn’t fucking around.
All the times I’d had to extricate him from potentially explosive scandals or pesky situations, it had been easy to do. Money was a huge motivator, and most things simply disappeared as if they’d never happened. I’d even managed to keep his very existence out of the press. For the most part. But Isabel was personal, and Byron wasn’t stupid. And he was simply too terrified to defy me.
This was something else, something Isabel was apparently unwilling to divulge. Maybe the nymph wanted me to drag it out of her. And I fully intended to do that in the library, one way or another.
My distraction today frustrated my daytime assistant Andy to no end, and he finally relented and told some of the executives to put on their big boy pants and see if they could actually deal with a few things themselves without me holding their hands.
I had no idea how that went over, and even worse, I didn’t care at this point. Andy was the type of man who could tell someone to their face they sucked, and make them think it was a compliment. He had my full trust. Not many did.
Thank God he didn’t ask any more questions than what I was willing to answer, and he went to work on my schedule to ease the burden on my agitated state of mind.
He made one wry comment that would have made me smile if I wasn’t so troubled. “I’d like to meet the woman who holds the secret to rattling the oh-so-powerful Roman Henry Belmont the IV,” he said, without a hint of irony.
As I walked into the library, it took one whiff of air to know that Isabel was already there, her delicate scent lingering in her wake. I could hear her moving books on the second floor, but the minute I shut the door again, dead silence fell.
She didn’t run to the glass railing to welcome me, and there was no hint of the anticipation that usually awaited me. And I missed it, God how I missed it. I strained to keep the stress out of my voice. “Isabel?”
A few seconds passed.
“What?” she asked, her tone nothing short of brusque, which was a welcome change after her fragile tenor earlier in my father’s room. Still, she didn’t make an appearance at the glass railing.
“Can I speak to you please?” I begged.
An extended silence followed this time, which made my insides roil with disappointment. There was a small part of me that had hoped she’d be easier to reach by now.
“No,” the answer finally came, so much hurt and fury buried inside that one word it stunned me.
Jesus Christ. Why wouldn’t she tell me?
“How am I supposed to talk to you, Isabel? You haven’t answered my texts or called me back. And now you’ve blocked my number. It’s probably not the most mature way to deal with a problem.”
I immediately regretted the insult. From what I knew of Isabel, accusing her of immaturity would probably not get me anywhere. And I was right, because once again a heavy dose of silence was thrown my way, and there was no indication that she planned on breaking it.
And fuck it, I’d had enough. I thundered up the spiral staircase two steps at a time until I reached the second floor. I stalked down the row of bookcases until I found her with her back against the wall, her eyes glittering with resentment and—was that a sliver of bravado?
She watched me close in on her, making no effort to escape. In the gloomy light pouring through the windows, Isabel’s delicate features took on an ethereal quality, and the only color on her face was those emerald green eyes.
All I wanted to do was wrap her in my arms and ease all her troubles, whatever they might be. Rain spattered against the skylight, the soothing sound threatening to calm the mood. But Isabel was not about to succumb to tranquility.
“What do you want from me, Roman?” she spat out, a glowing blaze in her eyes.
I came within a couple of feet of her, but it felt like a gaping chasm that could never be bridged. My inflection was similar to something I might use in approaching a wild animal in the woods. “Don’t you think you owe me some sort of explanation as to what’s happening here?”
She took her time considering the question, evading my gaze and looking at the ground, as if all the answers were buried there. Her long lashes fanned over her cheeks, the very lashes I’d licked tears from before. “I don’t owe you shit,” she said. And the way she said it, all that bitterness coating her throaty voice, almost forced me to take a step back.
“Look at me,” I pleaded. There was no talking to her when she was willfully avoiding my gaze.
She shook her head slowly, deliberately, as if to drive home her reluctance to engage with me.
“Really, Isabel? So this is how it’s going to be.” By now I was bled dry of any expectation that this was going to end any better than this morning. “How the fuck did we get from two days ago to here? Just answer me that,” I asked, anger scalding my tone.
Now she looked up. “Like you don’t know,” she replied, venom dripping from her voice. “But tell me this, is there even one thing you told me that wasn’t a goddamn lie?”
The air between us was choking on this unsettling energy, leaving no room for reason anymore. I gritted my teeth. “I’m not even going to try to understand what the hell that’s supposed to mean.”
“Of course not, why would you? For you it’s just another fictitious day in the life of Roman Belmont.”
I was pestered by one single thought. Where the hell was all this coming from? Once again I suspected Byron of doing something foolish, and again just as quickly dismissed the thought. Byron was many things, but overtly stupid he wasn’t.
“This is a fucking joke, please tell me this is all a joke.” I gave her one last option to terminate this bullshit, to giggle and whisper in my ear that it was just some silly prank. But she didn’t, and instead simply doubled down. Her chin lifted defiantly. “What do you want, Roman? One last fuck? Is that what you want?”
“That’s the last thing on my mind right now,” I hissed, anger crawling its way through my veins. “But it seems to be foremost on yours.”
Her gaze dropped to my groin, but fortunately or unfortunately for the nymph, my cock didn’t respond well to this kind of heartache and was currently a very docile, innocent bystander to the entire catastrophe. But then she had to emit the most exasperated of sighs, as if my reluctant dick had ruined her moment of revenge.
Resentment clawed its way up my chest, and in less than a second I closed the gap between us, bracing my hands against the wall and caging her in. A small gasp escaped Isabel’s lips as I towered over her, and when she looked up at me I couldn’t be sure if the glint dancing in her glare was indignation or desire.
And when our eyes locked, there was a spine-tingling shift in the air. The sensible man in me yielded to the distraught bastard who felt jilted and aggravated and weak against this woman’s charms.
She didn’t break our feral gaze, but for a fraction of a second, when her eyes were cast down, she witnessed my cock’s sudden betrayal as it vigorously stirred back to life. Nothing else but her close proximity to blame for that.
The faintest trace of a sneer lined her lips and I wanted to take possession of that mouth and make the smirk disappear. And now it became clear that the glint in her eyes was not indignation, far from it. It was edging toward baiting, blatantly revealing her burgeoning need for my touch.
Which did nothing to calm my own growing need. It was no mystery what either of us wanted, and the worst part was the fact that in that instant I didn’t care what had made her suddenly hate me so much.
I wanted to be inside of her, to claim her for myself and show her who she belonged to and that nothing, absolutely nothing should ever come between us.
It was unnerving how an urge as primal as that could so easily dominate my thoughts, clearing the way for the darkest side of me to emerge from isolation. It was not my proudest moment, and I didn’t care.
My head curled down, my nose running along her cheek and my mouth mere inches from hers. My fingers trailed the curve of her jaw, burning a path down over her throat, then her chest, barely pausing to appreciate her breasts with their pebbled, rose-pink nipples hiding underneath her loose top.
She did nothing to stop me, and I seized the moment to pacify my own distress because touching her was balm to my blistering soul. My gaze lingered on the hollow in her throat, where the rapid pulsing of her heart was on full display, and I dipped my tongue in the warmth of that dented spot.
Her hands curled into fists against my chest.
My fingers continued their journey down to the waistband of her leggings, where my hand crawled inside and slipped between her thighs. Her back arched ever so slightly into my touch, eyes still shimmering with rage.
But then she pushed harder against my fingers, wanting more, and she wasn’t just wet, she was soaking wet.
When my fingers grazed her swelling clit, her lips parted as if the surging bliss coursing through her was completely unexpected, and a small whimper scraped past her lips. “And what do you know, it’s exactly what you had in mind,” I whispered in her ear, intoxicated by her scent drifting around me.
I could feel myself getting lost in her need, getting lost in my own need and in this terrible, consuming moment. “Is this what you want, my sweet?” I asked, not sure what I’d do if she said no.
“Don’t fucking call me that,” she demanded, her voice breaking as my fingers continued to pamper that small sensitive cluster of nerves between her slippery folds. A tiny moan leaked from her throat, her desire betraying her yet again. “I am not your goddamn sweet.”
My breath was ragged, my voice scouring my lips. “But that’s exactly what you are, you are my goddamn sweet.”
The words were incinerated by her searing look, but I turned a blind eye to her internal struggle. This was her last chance to get away from me and escape if she wanted to. But she didn’t.
Her eyes fluttered closed as two of my fingers plunged inside her, caressing that magical little spot on her front wall that could drive her to the brink before delivering the wave upon wave of pleasure she craved.
We were a hair’s breadth away from completely yielding to the flames consuming us both.
“Answer me, Isabel,” I insisted. “Tell me if this is what you want. Because I can stop.”
When her eyes opened again, all I could see was need mingled with defeat, and if I had been a better man, I would have extracted my fingers from her wet, pulsing core and walked away. I would have walked away and waited for her to come to me when she was ready to talk.
And I almost did, I swear. But then the defeat in her eyes turned into fire and her hand slid to the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair. “Yes…yes I need this,” she breathed before pulling my head down to hers and offering her mouth, which I accepted like a starving man. And when I tasted her, I was gone. We had crossed the Rubicon, both lost in the moment and this insatiable need we shared.
Yes…yes I need this.
Suddenly I was filled with hope that everything was going to be fine; how could it not be? The panic inside of me subsided because I kept telling myself she wouldn’t want this if she wasn’t willing to forgive whatever trespass I was guilty of.
Another one of her whimpers trembled against my lips, clouding my vision, and nothing else mattered anymore. It became a haze of ferocious gluttony as I tore down her leggings and she frantically freed my cock from my pants.
In one perfectly synchronized motion I lifted her up, her legs curled around my waist and I entered her, barely giving her a chance to adjust to me inside her before ruthlessly driving into her again and again. And again.
Our heartbeats were throbbing in tandem, our breaths mingling in shallow bursts. There was nothing gentle about what she wanted, and there was nothing gentle about what I was giving her.
She eagerly met me thrust for savage thrust. Unrelenting sensations ripped through my body, every bit of me as tortured as her cries. And when her orgasm swept through her body, her velvet walls clenched around my cock in a grip so tight she dragged me right over the cliff with her, searing the edges of my mind.
I put my face in her hair, sipping her scent like a thirsty man after a long walk in the desert, and for just a moment she let me. I ignored the fact that for the first time, she never once said my name, never once whispered to me in French, and when she came her fists were hammering against my chest. Bitter, frustrated fists.
I wanted to kiss her like I always did when she came down from her orgasms. I wanted to kiss her until she was breathless, and became pliant and languid in my arms. It was only then that I realized Isabel was crying. Shuddering, inconsolable sobs wrenching through her as she buried her face in my neck, her grief raw, ripping my heart right out of my chest.
A commiserating groan forced its way out of me and I wrapped my arms around her, holding her to me. “Isabel, please tell me what’s going on.”
But she recoiled as if those were the last words she wanted to hear. Her legs slipped from my waist, her feet landing feather-light on the ground. I took a cautious step back and reached for a handkerchief in my pants pocket to clean her, but she slapped my hand away.
The ecstasy coursing through us less than a minute ago had vanished, as if it never happened. She pulled her leggings on with the desperation of someone who needed to escape me as soon as she could.
I reached out in an attempt to soothe her, but she slipped from my grasp, pushing me away. Her voice strangled with grief. “You got what you wanted, Roman. Now just leave me alone.”
“What I wanted, Isabel?” I growled, my irritation welling up, the words becoming barbed wire on my tongue. “What I fucking wanted? As if you weren’t the one begging for it!”
She held my enraged stare for a brief moment, looking equally angry and absolutely shattered. “Trust me, I already hate myself for what I just did. It will never happen again.”
Every word was a dagger in my heart. And the finality in her tone cut through me with steel-edged precision, leaving nothing inside me whole.
I watched her flit down the spiral staircase and flee the library, never once glancing back. Another wave of confusion rippled through me. I was the fucking CEO of the Belmont Trust, I ate unruly executives for breakfast, and I managed one of the largest trusts in America.
Yet here I was, at the mercy of the thing called love, and it was destroying me from the inside out.
I don’t know how long I stood there, unable to form a coherent thought, admonishing myself for taking it so far. It should never have happened because whatever caused all this anguish was made ten times worse by this need for each other that overrode every bit of sensibility.
My stomach dropped at the mere idea of Isabel hating me with such intensity that she wasn’t even willing to tell me what was going on. If she was under the impression that I already knew, nothing could be further from the truth.
And just like that I invited the Old Roman to take the reins again. To push all these terrible consuming feelings out of range, where I didn’t have to acknowledge or deal with them.
For the first time in my life I felt completely powerless, and the thing with the Old Roman was that he would never allow me to accept being weak. Any hint of weakness would be crushed into submission, and used as a stepping stone to forge a stronger man.
My private phone rang. For a delirious moment I thought it might be Isabel, but it wasn’t.
“Nelson,” I answered, trying not to sound as if I was about to fling myself off a cliff.
“Sir… Roman,” Nelson replied. “I need to discuss something with you, and I’d rather not do it over the phone.”
Christ, what now?
“Is it urgent?” I asked.
“Yes, I believe it is,” Nelson said. “It concerns your father’s reader, Isabel.”
Cold sweat dripped down my back. It had been at least ten minutes since she left the library. What could possibly have happened between then and now. “Tell me she’s okay, Nelson. Please.”
“She’s fine,” he said calmly. “But there was information given to her which was subsequently taken out of context. Unfortunately, this has only now come to my attention. I believe, if dealt with immediately, it might clear up a horrendous misunderstanding between you and Isabel.”
Oh.
“Meet me in fifteen,” I told him.
It would take me a few minutes to get to my office, but I needed a few minutes more in the bathroom to not look as if I’d just furiously fucked my father’s reader in the goddamn library. I was even toying with the idea of pouring a whiskey, even if it was too early in the day.
My mind was racing about this “misunderstanding” that Nelson was so willing to clear up. Could it have anything to do with what caused this seismic shift between Isabel and me? It definitely sounded like something got lost in translation somewhere, and Isabel was at the receiving end of yet more bullshit.
My heart leapt at the possibility that the problem might be something as simple as that—and with a simple solution as well.
By the time Nelson entered the office I’d managed to pull myself together, if one ignored the glass of Glenmorangie Signet I was clutching like a lifeline. Nelson studied me with a smidgen of concern, his gaze lingering on the glass of whiskey just that split second too long.
“Give me a break, it’s been the day from Hell,” I said. “Please tell me what you’re about to say is going to make it better.”
Nelson gave me a reassuring smile. “I believe it will. But first of all, please accept my apology for not having my finger on the pulse. I usually know exactly what happens in this house with the staff members, but this particular situation completely escaped me. As a matter of fact, I might have unwittingly contributed to the confusion.”
I’d be damned. If that didn’t sound exactly like it could be the culprit for this entire calamity. I took a sip of whiskey. “Take a seat. Can I offer you a drink?”
Nelson sat down and arched a brow. “I prefer not to drink on the job, as it might impair decision-making. But I do appreciate the offer, Roman, thank you very much.”
Despite everything his comment drew a smile from me. “Next time a simple no will do, Nelson. Now please go ahead, you have the floor.”
Nelson crossed his legs and folded his hands on his lap. “Well, after Isabel and I had a short discussion yesterday where I confirmed her worst fears without surrounding myself with all the facts, she arrived this morning looking like death warmed over and I literally feared for her well-being. It didn’t take too long to put two and two together, and I paid Mrs. Sheldon a little visit to hear what exactly she chatted about to Isabel yesterday afternoon. As it turns out, when Mrs. Sheldon engaged in some unsolicited gossip, she didn’t bother to explain to Isabel that there were two Belmont sons.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“I am not.”
I slammed back the whiskey,a terrible habit I’d picked up since meeting the nymph. “Please tell me Isabel doesn’t think I put my father in a coma.”
“She does. Mrs. Sheldon also showed her a picture on her phone, sent to her by her sister, who’s a staff member in the Van Buren household. The photo depicts Byron and Mrs. Van Buren, and was taken during a party she had a few nights ago when Mr. Van Buren had business to attend to in Germany… I have the blasted picture here if you want to have a look. Unfortunately, someone unaware of Byron’s existence could reach only one conclusion.”
Nelson produced his phone and sent a message. My phone dinged, and I opened the picture.
My stomach jolted. “Oh fuck.”
Nelson responded with a faint grin. “If ever there were an appropriate phrase under the circumstances… I’d say Oh fuck, indeed.”