Alessia turned sharply, her dark hair cascading over her shoulder in waves. “Matteo.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“I needed some air.”
“You like being outdoors.”
She nodded. “I always have. I hated being cooped up inside my father’s house. I liked to take long walks in the sun, away from the … staleness of the estate.”
“You used to walk by yourself a lot.”
“I still do.”
“Even after the attack?” The words escaped without his permission, but he found he couldn’t be sorry he’d spoken them.
“Even then.”
“How?” he asked, his voice rough. “How did you keep doing that? How did you go on as if nothing had changed?”
“Life is hard, Matteo. People you love die, I know you know about that. People who should love you don’t treat you any better than they’d treat a piece of property they were trying to sell for a profit. I’ve just always tried to see the good parts of life, because what else could I do? I could sit and feel sorry for myself, but it wouldn’t change anything. And I’ve made the choice to stay, so that would be silly. I made the choice to stay and be there for my brothers and sisters, and I can’t regret it. That means I have to find happiness in it. And that means I can’t cut out my walks just because a couple of horrible men tried to steal them from me.”
“And it’s that simple?”
“It’s not simple at all, but I do it. Because I have to find a way to live my life. My life. It’s the only one I have. And I’ve just learned to try to love it as it is.”
“And do you?” he asked. “Do you love it?”
She shook her head. “No.” Her voice was a whisper. “But I’m not unhappy all the time. And I think that’s something. I mean, it has to count for something.”
“What about now? With this?”
“Are you happy?”
“Happiness has never been one of my primary goals. I don’t know that I’ve ever thought about it too closely.”
“Everybody wants to be happy,” she said.
Matteo put his hands into his pockets and looked over the big stone wall that partitioned his estate from the rest of the world, looked up at the moon. “I want to make something different out of my family. I want to do something more than threaten and terrorize the people in Palermo. Beyond that … does it matter?”
“It does matter. Your happiness matters.”
“I haven’t been unhappy,” he said, and then he wondered if he was lying. “What about you, Alessia?”
“I made a decision, Matteo, and it landed me in a situation that hasn’t been entirely comfortable. It was my first big mistake. My first big fallout. And no, not all of it has been happy. But I can’t really regret it, either.”
“I’m glad you don’t regret me.”
“Do you regret me?”
“I should. I should regret my loss of control more than I do—” a theme in his life, it seemed “—but I find I cannot.”
“What about tonight? In the elevator? Why did you just walk away?”
“I don’t know what to do with us,” he said, telling the truth, the honest, raw truth.
“Why do we have to know what we’re doing?”
“Because this isn’t some casual affair, and it never can be.” Because of how she made him feel, how she challenged him. But he wouldn’t say that. His honesty had limits, and that was a truth he disliked admitting even to himself. “You’re my wife. We’re going to have a child.”
“And if we don’t try, then we’re going to spend years sniping at each other and growing more and more bitter, is that better?”
“Better than hurting you? I think so.”
“You’ve hurt me already.”
“I did?”
“You won’t promise to be faithful to me, you clearly hate admitting that you want me, even though as soon as we touch … Matteo, we catch fire, and you can’t deny that. You know I don’t have a lot of experience with men, but I know this isn’t just normal. I know people don’t just feel this way.”
“And that’s exactly why we have to be careful.”
“So we’ll be careful. But we’re husband and wife, and I think we should try … try for the sake of our child, for our families, to make this marriage work. And I think we owe it to each other to not be unhappy.”
“Alessia …”
“Let’s keep taking walks, Matteo,” she said, her voice husky. She took a step toward him, her hair shimmering in the dim light.
He caught her arm and pulled her in close, his heart pounding hard and fast. “I can’t love you.”
“You keep saying.”
“You need to understand. There is a limit to what we can share. I’ll have you in my bed, but that’s as far as it goes. This wasn’t my choice.”
“I wasn’t your choice?”
Her words hit him hard, and they hurt. Because no, he hadn’t chosen to marry her without being forced into it. But it wasn’t for lack of wanting her. If there was no family history. If he had not been the son of one of Sicily’s most notorious crime bosses, if there was nothing but him and Alessia and every other woman on earth, he would choose her every time.
But he couldn’t discount those things. He couldn’t erase what was. He couldn’t make his heart anything but cold, not just toward her, but toward anyone. And he couldn’t afford to allow a change.
Alessia had no idea. Not of the real reasons why. Not the depth he was truly capable of sinking to. The man underneath the iron control was the very devil, as she had once accused him of being. There was no hero beneath his armor. Only ugliness and death. Only anger, rage, and the ability and willingness to mete out destruction and pain to those who got in his way.
If he had to choose between a life without feeling or embracing the darkness, he would take the blessed numbness every time.
“You know it wasn’t.”
She thrust her chin into the air. “And that’s how you want to start? By reminding me you didn’t choose me?”
“It isn’t to hurt you, or even to say that I don’t want you. But I would never have tied you to me if it wasn’t a necessity, and that is not a commentary on you, but on me, and what I’m able to give. There are reasons I never intended to take a wife. I know who I am, but you don’t.”
“Show me,” she said. And he could tell she meant it, with utter conviction. But she didn’t know what she was asking. She had no way of knowing. He had given her a window into his soul, a glimpse of the monster that lurked beneath his skin, but she didn’t know the half of it.
Didn’t know what he was truly capable of. What his father had trained him for.
And what it had all led to seven years ago during the fire that had taken Benito’s and Carlo’s lives.
That was when he discovered that he truly was the man his father had set out to make him. That was when he’d discovered just how deep the chill went.
He was cold all the way down. And it was only control that held it all in check.
There was only one place he had heat. Only one way he could get warm. But it was a fine line, because he needed the cold. Needed his control, even with it … even with it he was capable of things most men would never entertain thoughts of. But without it he knew the monster would truly be unleashed. That it would consume him.
“I know what I’d like to show you,” he said, taking a step toward her, putting his hand on her cheek. She warmed his palm. The heat, the life, that came from her, pouring into him. She shivered beneath his hand, as though his touch had frozen her, and he found it oddly appropriate.
If he kissed her, if he moved nearer to her now, he was making the choice to drag her into the darkness with him. To take what he wanted and use her to his own selfish ends.
He could walk away from her now and he could do the right thing. Protect her, protect their child. Give them both his name and a home, his money. Everything they would need.
She didn’t need him in his bed, taking his pleasure in her body, using her to feel warm.
To court the fire and passion that could burn down every last shred of his control. It would be a tightrope walk. Trying to keep the lusts of his body from turning into a desire that overwhelmed his heart.
If he wanted Alessia, there was no other choice.
It was easy with her, to focus on his body. What he wanted from her. Because she called to him, reached him, made him burn in a way no other woman ever had.
With her, though, there was always something else. Something more.
He shut it down. Severed the link. Focused on his body. The burn in his chest, his gut. Everywhere. He was so hard it hurt. Hard with the need for her. To be in her. To taste her.
He could embrace that, and that only. And consign her to a life with a man who would never give her what she deserved.
In this case, he would embrace the coldness in him. Only an utter bastard would do this to her. So it was a good thing that was what he was.
He bent his head and pressed his lips to hers. It wasn’t a deep kiss, it was a test. A test for him. To see if he could touch her without losing his mind.
She was soft. So soft. So alive. A taste of pure beauty in a world so filled with ugliness and filth. She reached into him and shone a light on him. On the darkest places in him.