âThere are rules tonight, Alessia, and you will play by them.â
âWill I?â she asked. She wasnât sure why she was goading him. Maybe because it was the only way in all the world she could feel like she had some power. Or maybe it was because if she wasnât trying to goad him, she was longing for him. And the longing was just unacceptable.
A smile curved his lips and she couldnât help but wonder if he needed this too. This edge of hostility, the bite of anger between them.
Although why Matteo would need anything to hold her at a distance when heâd already made his feelings quite clear was a mystery to her.
âYes, my darling wife, you will.â He put his hand on her chin, drawing close to her, his heat making her shiver deep inside. It brought her right back to the hotel.
ALESSIA BATTAGLIA ADJUSTED her veil, the whisper-thin fabric skimming over the delicate skin of her neck. Like a loverâs kiss. Soft. Gentle.
She closed her eyes, and she could feel it.
Hot, warm lips on her bare flesh. A firm, masculine hand at her waist.
She opened her eyes again and bent down, adjusting the delicate buckles on her white satin heels.
Her loverâs hands on her ankle, removing her high heels. Leaving her naked in front of him, naked before a man for the first time. But there was no time for nerves. There was nothing more than the heat between them. Years of fantasy, years of longing.
Alessia swallowed and took the bouquet of bloodred roses from the chair they were resting on. She looked down at the blossoms, some of them bruised by the way sheâd laid them down.
Brushing her fingertips over the crushed velvet petals brought another wave of memory. A wave of sensation.
Her loverâs mouth at her breast, her fingers woven through his thick dark hair.
âAlessia?â
Her head snapped up and she saw her wedding coordinator standing in the doorway, one hand covering her headset.
âYes?â
âItâs time.â
Alessia nodded, and headed toward the doorway, her shoes loud on the marble floor of the basilica. She exited the room that had been set aside for her to get ready in, and entered the vast foyer. It was empty now, all of the guests in the sanctuary, waiting for the ceremony.
She let out a long breath, the sound loud in the empty, high-ceilinged room. Then she started her walk toward the sanctuary, past pillars inlaid with gold and stones. She stopped for a moment, hoping to find some comfort, some peace, in the biblical scenes depicted on the walls.
Her eyes fell to a detailed painting of a garden. Of Eve handing Adam the apple.
âPlease. Just one night.â
âOnly one, cara mia?â
âThatâs all I have to give.â
A searing kiss, like nothing sheâd ever experienced before. Better than any fantasy.
Her breath caught and she turned away from the painting, continuing on, continuing to the small antechamber outside of the sanctuary.
Her father was there, his suit crisp and pressed. Antonioni Battaglia looked every inch the respectable citizen everyone knew he was not. And the wedding, so formal, so traditional, was another statement of his power. Power that he longed to increase, with the Corretti fortune and status.
That desire was the reason she was here.
âYou are very much like your mother.â
She wondered if there was any truth to the words, or if it was just the right thing to say. Tenderness was something her father had never seemed capable of.
âThank you,â she said, looking down at her bouquet.
âThis is whatâs right for the family.â
She knew it was. Knew that it was the key to ensuring that her brothers and sisters were cared for. And that was, after all, what sheâd done since her mother died in childbirth. Pietro, Giana, Marco and Eva were the brightest lights in her existence, and she would do, had done, whatever she could to ensure they had the best life possible.
And still, regret settled on her like a cloak, and memory clouded the present. Memories of her lover. His hands, his body, his passion.
If only her lover, and the man waiting behind the doors to the sanctuary, waiting to marry her, were the same.
âI know,â she said, fighting against the desolation inside of her. The emptiness.