He only laughed, disengaging my hands, and brushed down the front of his suit. ‘If you wanted her, perhaps you should have staked a claim,’ he said to me, also in Italian, words he knew Belle would not understand.
But then he turned to her and bowed. ‘Belle, I will leave you with your boss,’ he said, lifting her hand and buzzing a kiss across her knuckles. I imagined knocking out his teeth. ‘But remember, the offer still stands. Ciao.’
Saluting me, he strolled away.
‘Come,’ I said, grasping her hand, barely able to speak now round my fear. I forced my fury to the fore—with Camaro, with myself—to try and stem the terrible feeling of déjà vu.
Belle didn’t care for me, because no one could. Only Remy had. And I had lost him long ago—without ever really deserving him. Any more than I deserved Belle.
But Renzo was right. I should have staked a claim to her. Bound her to me with sex. She was the mother of my son. Surely that gave me a right to have her? A right to want her by my side?
I marched to the opposite end of the balcony that wrapped around the ballroom, heading for the entrance to the main lobby, clasping her wrist too tightly, but unable to loosen my grip.
I had seen the flash of need in her eyes when she had first laid eyes on me. She wasn’t immune. There was still desire there, a desire I could exploit. A desire I would exploit. If sex was the only way I could make her return to me, I would use it. And be grateful.
But as we reached the end of the terrace, she tugged her hand out of my grasp.
‘Alexi, stop, where are you taking me?’
/>
I turned back to her and cradled her cheek, no longer able to stem the urge to touch that soft skin. ‘To my suite, where else?’ I said as she shuddered, the spark of desire in her wide eyes both gratifying and torturous.
How had I ever let her go? Why had I? I couldn’t seem to make sense of any of my decisions any more. My mind was a blur of long-ago fears and much more current ones. Why had it never occurred to me until this very moment that I could not live without this woman in my life? And it had nothing to do with the beautiful son she had given me. Or even the insane sexual chemistry we shared.
The pain twisted and sharpened in my gut as she jerked away from my touch and the spark of desire, the shadow of hurt in her eyes, died, replaced by something blank, shuttered and guarded.
Was she scared of me? The thought horrified me and humbled me.
Her whole body trembled, making me desperate to gather her in my arms and soothe her, promise her I would do anything to get her back. But the words got lodged in my throat, my own fear so huge now it consumed me. What if it wasn’t fear I saw, but indifference? The same indifference I had seen flash in my mother’s eyes when I had pleaded with her not to leave and she had simply laughed and left anyway.
But when Belle’s gaze locked on mine and she spoke, she didn’t sound scared or indifferent, she sounded brave...and indomitable. ‘Whatever you have to say to me, we can talk here.’
‘I don’t want to talk, the time for talk is over,’ I managed, frantic now, because I knew there was nothing I could say to make her stay. All I had now was our sexual connection. The cruel irony of that didn’t escape me as I reached for her hand again, desperate to get her alone so I could touch her and tempt her, taste her and tease her, until she came apart in my arms as she had so often before...
Then I would never have to voice these terrible needs, never have to endure her rejection...
But she yanked her hand from my grasp.
‘Don’t touch me, Alexi, you have no right,’ she said, her voice low and shaky but somehow unyielding.
It was too much.
The red mist that had descended when I had first spotted her smiling at Camaro returned. But this time I welcomed it to smother my fear.
‘And Camaro does?’ I snapped. ‘Our bed is barely cold and you are already sleeping in his?’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Belle
MY HAND WHIPPED UP of its own accord, Alexi’s snarled words wounding me so deeply the anger surged from nowhere before I could stop it. But as his head reared back in an instinctive reaction to avoid the slap—a reaction I knew he had learned as a boy—my hand dropped back to my side.
I had never hit another human being in my life. And I had almost hit him. The horror of that was almost too much to bear. But as he watched me, his eyes guarded, the fortifying anger returned.
‘You bastard,’ I whispered. ‘You were my first lover and you are my only lover, Alexi.’
His expression changed, going from anger to astonishment, tinged with stunned disbelief. The pain ground into my gut.