Chapter 12
12
“ W E SHOULDN’T BE DOING this,” she groaned against his throat, tasting him, fingers pulling his shirt from his waistband and connecting with bare flesh as though it had been months, not hours, since they’d seen one another. “Not here.”
His response was to push her skirt up higher, his hand cupping her naked rear, pushing her forward. “So you want to stop?”
Damn it, he knew she didn’t. He knew she was driven as mad by this as ever. Never mind that they were at a charity event. Never mind that they’d sought out yet another emergency stairwell, just like that first night. Except then, she’d been so angry with him, and that dark anger had permeated her feelings. Now?
Now she felt a tangle of things that were as confusing and overwhelming as anything she’d ever known. Why, of all the men she’d known since Jesse, was Salvatore the one who could turn her blood to fire and flame? Why was it Salvatore that made her pulse throb and twist, and her heart yearn.
Yes, her heart.
And him, a Santoro!
“Emilia?” His voice was sharp, and she realised she hadn’t answered him. Did she want this to stop? Not now. Not ever.
She shook her head quickly, then turned her attention to his belt, unfastening it and working on separating his pants.
“Don’t stop,” she implored, groaning as his erection was freed from the confines of his pants.
“Good choice,” he murmured. “I want to fuck you.”
She shivered, reveling in the raw honesty of that. In the animalistic urges that drove them. Telling herself that a chemistry like this – pure, raw physical – wasn’t actually love. It was just lust and dependence. She’d get over him sooner or later. Of course she would.
As intoxicating as this was, it was an addiction she could conquer.
“God, but you’re perfect,” he swore, pulling her closer to him, so she could feel his naked cock against her sex and she trembled at the promise of what was to come.
“Enough talking,” she begged, as she pulled him deeper down the stairs, kissing him as he sat on the landing, enabling her to straddle him and take him deep inside, to feel his power and perfection as she shifted her body over his length until the sensations were almost too much to handle.
His hands cupped her breasts, his mouth sought hers, and with his kiss, she felt herself tumbling over the abyss, into a space where time had no meaning, and nothing else existed. She found herself cordoned off from reality, in an oasis of pleasure—where it was easy to imagine, just for a moment, that this was never going to end. How could something so good, so right, be doomed to fail?
“Jesus fucking Christ.” The voice was familiar to Emilia, but also, jarringly hard to comprehend, because it was the last thing she’d expected to hear at the top of the stairwell, as she and Salvatore prepared to return to the party.
Panic surged through her and she clung to a futile, stupid hope that her ears had deceived her. Even as she was turning and confirming with her eyes that Leandro had just burst through the door and was glaring down at them with a look of absolute fury.
Her lips parted, yet no words came out. She could only stare at her brother as he began to stalk down the stairs, to the landing on which they stood. Mercifully, they were dressed again, but that wasn’t to say there was no sign of what they’d just been doing.
Emilia had no doubt her hair was untidy, and one side of Salvatore’s shirt was untucked. She squeezed her eyes closed on a wave of something awful, like nausea, and panic, and anger, too, because she didn’t want Leandro here, now. What right did he have?
“I cannot believe it,” he ground out. “Just what the hell is going on?”
But it was Salvatore she was conscious of, moving to stand in front of her, his big, broad frame protective and familiar.
Emilia tried to think. To work out what to say. Leandro was someone she knew better than just about anyone on earth. She could fix this. She could make him understand. She just had to concentrate on finding the right words.
Except her brain just wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t connect the dots. This thing with Salvatore was secret. Their secret. It was a bubble out of time. It was not supposed to include her brother. It wasn’t supposed to include anyone.
“What the fuck, Emme?”
He’d gone from angry to shocked, to possibly hurt, so she fidgeted her fingers in front of her before putting a hand on Salvatore’s back.
“Hey, listen,” Salvatore’s voice emerged calm and level, as though this sort of thing happened to him every day.
“I’m not talking to you, Santoro,” Leandro ground out, eyes flicking to Salvatore’s with obvious disdain. “Get the fuck out of here.”
Emilia’s temperature spiked. She ran her fingers over Salvatore’s broad, warm back. How many times had she done that in this past month? Touched him like this, intimately and in a familiar way, as though they were designed for this, and each other. Touched him like she had every right. Like this wasn’t a loaded gun they were casually playing with.
“Salvatore, you should go,” she whispered. In contrast to his even, level tone, her own voice was tremulous and soft.
He turned to face her, his eyes roaming her features. He was so familiar to her. Without really meaning to, she’d committed every single part of him to memory, from the fine freckles that ran across his cheeks, to the specks of gold in his otherwise dark eyes, to the bump midway down his nose. She’d never asked him what had happened to cause it and it was all she could think of in that moment. Not just his nose, but all the other little things about him she didn’t know and didn’t have a lifetime to find out.
She’d known it was going to end, but she still wasn’t really prepared for that. And she wasn’t prepared for this. How could she be? They’d taken such care to avoid being seen. Except, they hadn’t. Not really. Using this stairwell had been reckless—and impossible to resist.
“What are you doing here?” She asked Leandro.
“Looking for you,” he ground out. “Carey Mossa said you came in here. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“That hardly seems to matter now.” Leandro’s voice rang with barely concealed anger. “Do you know who this is?”
She met his question with an unblinking stare.
“Is this a one-off thing?” Leandro demanded, when she didn’t answer.
“With respect, that’s none of your business,” Salvatore cut in. “Emilia’s life, and my life, for that matter, are our business. No one else’s.”
“With all due respect,’ Leandro volleyed back, making it clear respect was the last thing he felt for this man, “my sister’s life is very much my business.”
Emilia bristled at that.
“She is a grown woman, capable of making her own decisions.”
“Evidently not,” Leandro disputed. “Not if you’re one of them.”
She felt Salvatore tense a little, but Leandro continued before Salvatore could speak. “What the hell is this all about, Santoro? Some kind of game? A way to hurt us?”
“Leo – that’s not –,”
“I’m not talking to you, Emme.”
“But you are speaking about her,” Salvatore interjected. “And she has a right to reply.”
And then, Salvatore’s hand was coming around to his back, his fingers catching hers and lacing them together, squeezing.
“Don’t tell me?—,”
“Leo, please,” Emilia groaned. “Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do this? You’re saying that to me? Have you been fucking this—this—piece of shit, Emme? Have you actually been?—,”
Salvatore squeezed her hand. “Careful,” he warned Leandro.
But Leandro’s temper flared up and then he was shoving Salvatore, so he almost fell backwards. Emilia gasped at the uncharacteristic show of violence from her brother, as she instinctively stood aside, out of danger. “Stop,” she said, shaking her head, but Leandro was pushing again, harder this time, so Salvatore took a step backwards.
“Touch me again, and you’ll regret it.”
Salvatore’s words rang through the concrete stairwell.
“Is that a threat?”
“What do you think?”
“You want to know what I think? I think you’re using my sister. I think you’re using her to get back at us, and Emme just doesn’t see it. Damn it, Emme,” he rounded on her. “You are too fucking trusting. This bastard is using you. How can you not see that?”
“He’s not like that,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s not like you think.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m serious, Leo. Salvatore is?—,”
But she drew a blank, because where could she start? What could she say that wouldn’t be completely insufficient?
Handsome? Kind? Generous? Sincere? Wonderful? Perfect? Her other half?
She almost groaned out loud as the words floating though her mind jostled for space in her mouth. Yet none formed. She couldn’t admit it. She couldn’t say to Leandro what she hadn’t even been brave enough to tell Salvatore: how much he meant to her. How much she needed him in her life.
She’d thought it. She’d shown it. But she’d never said the words.
“Fuuuuck, Emme, this is absolute crap. You are—you should have known better. Where’s your bag?”
She blinked at him, confused. “What?”
“Get your goddamn bag. We’re leaving.”
“Hey,” Salvatore’s voice cut through Leandro’s tirade like a whip. “You cannot order her around. She’s a grown woman, not a child.”
“Stay the hell out of this, Santoro. It’s a family matter.”
“No, it’s an Emilia matter. What does she want to do? Stay here, with me? Or go, with you?”
Both men looked at her and Emilia felt the whole world slipping. She looked from her beloved brother who had supported her through thick and through thin, with whom she had a billion wonderful memories and shared experiences. And then, she looked at Salvatore, who she now knew held the keys to her heart, and always would.
She wanted to stay with Salvatore. She wanted to get away from this fundraiser, and escape to the privacy of one of their apartments, or the hotel room at the Plaza. She wanted to climb back into the little bubble they’d made, exist there, inside, safe from the outside world, far away from anyone or anything that would tear them down. Travel to the ends of the earth, so long as Salvatore was with her. Maybe go back to the yacht? But would it be the same, now Leo knew?
She closed her eyes on a wave of desolation. How had they thought they could do this? How had they thought it was realistic to create a world that didn’t include their families—and violate everything those families would want for them.
“Get your bag, Emme.”
“Let her speak.” Salvatore’s voice was level enough, but Emilia heard something beneath it—an emotion she hated, because it sounded a lot like uncertainty. As though he didn’t know for sure that she’d choose him, a thousand times over, always.
“Don’t you dare tell me what to do,” Leandro returned harshly.
In the very back of her mind, the parts of her that were capable of any kind of thought, she knew that Salvatore was muting his first response. The part of him that would have run into this no holds barred was indeed holding back, respecting Emilia in that one simple choice by acknowledging that this was her family, and her fight. Even when he might have wanted to protect her, to shield her and absorb any blows Leandro would throw—metaphorically—he knew that she had to be a part of that response.
“Leo, listen,” she said, hating that her voice was so unsteady. Salvatore squeezed her hand, and she felt it in her core—the courage he was giving her, the unspoken, unwavering support. And even in that moment of sheer survival and panic, she was aware of the way her heart was tripping over, and stretching, to accommodate Salvatore’s presence in a way she wanted to keep forever. For always. “This isn’t the time or place?—,”
“Something you should have thought about before you came in here with him and did—Jesus Christ, Emilia. What the hell are you thinking? This is a Santoro. A goddamn Santoro.”
“I’m aware of that,” she murmured, at the same time Salvatore said, soft and low, “Watch it.”
Leandro turned to face Salvatore. “I told you: stop telling me what to do.”
“Then stop acting like such a jackass,” he growled. “Your sister’s right. This has nothing to do with you.”
“Did you seduce her to get back at us? Is that what this is?”
“Leandro,” Emilia’s voice was sharp. “This has nothing to do with you. And he didn’t seduce me.” She glanced at Salvatore, his face harsh, all angles and ruthless disgust. “It was mutual.”
“You don’t know what he’s like.”
“No, you don’t know what he’s like.”
“These people are—the worst of the worst.”
“I said, watch it,” Salvatore said, still measured and contained. But Leo was looking at Emilia with all the love and concern of an older brother—the older brother who would have run into a burning building if it would have saved her. The brother who had loved and adored her from birth, who had been at her back in every difficulty she’d faced in life. He was protecting her—or thought he was. And he was right. She did need protecting. But not from Salvatore, so much as the pain of loving someone she could never have.
“Am I wrong?” Leandro’s nostrils flared. “Or are you using my sister for sex?”
“How dare you!” Emilia shouted, drawn back to the present by his totally unreasonable accusation.
“That’s none of your damned business,” Salvatore rebutted, and Emilia pursed her lips in exasperation. Why couldn’t he say what he felt? What they shared?
“She is my sister. My little sister,” Leandro roared, so Emilia flinched, and was distantly aware of the party happening beyond them, wondering if the guests had become aware of the screaming match taking place in the stairwell.
“She is a grown woman?—,”
Her bond with Leandro had been forged over a series of years, and it was unbreakable. If anything, the recent discovery of Leandro’s adoption had taken something strong and made it impossible to break. She felt that. She felt it in his look, in his eyes, in the way he held his shoulders, braced to take any weight from hers and carry it himself.
So she wasn’t even really surprised when he lifted his fist and struck Salvatore’s face. Without warning, without apology. Just a single blow that had Salvatore stagger one step backwards before lifting his own hand. Not to return the action but to press to his red cheek.
“Leandro!” Emilia cried out. “Don’t!” But Leandro was already lifting his hand again, and now Salvatore had no choice but to lift his hands and block Leandro’s attack. In doing so, their arms braced, and they were moving as one. Emilia lifted her shaking hands to her mouth and pressed them there, breath held. Her eyes flew to the top of the stairs and the door that led to the party and she contemplated running up to shout for help, but it was all happening so fast–too fast—for her to do anything but cry their names over and over. Another arm flew: this time, Salvatore was punching Leandro so she was pushing forward and wrenching at their tuxedo-clad arms, trying to separate them, panic surging through her veins.
It all happened so fast. So fast.
She couldn’t even have said how, in the end. All she knew was that she lost her footing and was then tumbling backwards, thrown completely off balance, unable to grab hold of anything.
Distantly, she heard her name from Salvatore’s lips. Torn with passion, just as she’d heard it so many times, and yet not, because this passion had a dark edge. A derangement. It was a passion mingled with the absolute worst kind of all-consuming panic. And then, everything went black.
Salvatore had spent his entire adult life wanting to avoid hurting anyone else. He’d learned his lesson as a teenager. Over and over, and then, finally, with that disastrous break up. He’d learned his lesson.
He wanted to never hurt anyone, and yet, despite that, he now stared down the stairwell, chest heaving, at Emilia. On the landing beneath them, where only minutes earlier they’d been together in the most pleasurable of ways, he stared at her. Unconscious. Pale.
“What have you done?” Leandro screamed, rushing down the stairs towards his sister. Nausea rose inside Salvatore, a horrible, consuming feeling.
“Is she alive?” The words were mangled in his throat. He could barely utter them. He couldn’t speak of a reality that would destroy him. He needed to know. “Damn it, Leandro,” he was moving now, towards her.
But Leandro whirled around. “Don’t. Don’t you dare.”
Emilia lay there, lifeless. But not lifeless. In many ways, she looked exactly as she did in sleep, so it was easy to imagine stroking her cheek, kissing her lips, having her stir in his arms as she had every morning that followed a night shared.
“Call an ambulance,” Leandro said, his cheek darkening into what would no doubt show a bruise.
Salvatore was already removing his phone from his pocket and pressing in the emergency numbers. And then, she moved. Just a little, turning her head, before blinking her eyes and parting her lips.
Then, her hand. Reaching not for him, but Leandro. “Leo.” Her voice was soft.
Salvatore’s whole chest felt like it was splitting in two, but he stood where he was, staring at her, feeling like his whole world was imploding. This beautiful precious woman. He prayed then, to God, to everyone and everything who held any kind of power. He prayed that she would be okay. God, but he needed to know that.
“Don’t move, Emme. Don’t move. Help is on the way,” Leandro replied, stroking her hand.
Salvatore pressed the phone tighter to his ear, and started to move swiftly down the stairs, coming to crouch at her other side, ignoring the way Leandro was shooting daggers at him. Neither of them would be stupid enough to fight now. Not with Emilia in this condition.
“It’s okay,” she said, pressing her fingers to her temple as she went to sit up.
Salvatore moved in quickly, grabbing her behind the shoulders and steadying her. “Don’t move, cara. Don’t move.”
“I’m fine,” she said, flicking her gaze to him, and frowning slightly. Fear curdled in his gut. The fear that he’d hurt her; that she’d hate him.
“Damn it,” he cursed into the phone, at how long it was taking to connect. “There’s no reception in here.”
Leandro looked around. “I’ll drive her.”
“I’m okay,” she insisted.
“You’re going to hospital, Emme,” Leandro’s voice was curt.
Salvatore, crouching beside her, reached for Emilia’s hand, holding it in his. “He’s right, cara mia. You have to see a doctor.”
“No, I just need to go,” she muttered. “Would you get me out of here?”
In his gut, Salvatore felt a burst of relief that she’d asked him. Relief that she’d turned to him rather than Leandro.
“I would prefer not to move you,” he said, though, reluctantly. Torn between his need to give her what she’d asked for, and what he thought to be right.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Please just take me home.”
He could feel Leandro’s response. There was something in the tension of the other man, the way his whole body was radiating an ice like rejection. Rather than risk Leandro saying or doing anything to upset Emilia, Salvatore nodded once. “I’ll take you away,” he promised. “On one condition.”
She glanced at him mutinously, but he barely noticed. All he could see was the pale colour of her skin, and he knew in that moment he would do whatever was necessary to fix this.
“We are going to hospital, before I take you home.”
“Salvatore, please?—,”
“No, Emilia.” He glanced across at Leandro, whose face was stone-like. “This is non-negotiable.” And then, with a look back at Emilia, “I need to know you’re okay.”
She expelled a breath slowly. “But I am. I don’t need a doctor.”
“Then do it because I need it. I need to know.”
She opened her mouth to fight him, to argue, but after a moment, she simply nodded. “Okay. But it’s a fuss about nothing.”