“Is this some kind of twisted retribution for Rome?” he asked after long moments passed, no hint of green in those dark eyes of his.
“I’m not the one who started this,” Elena threw at him before she had time to consider it. Not that he was the first man to think she was a whore, not that Niccolo hadn’t covered the same ground extensively—but somehow, this didn’t feel anything like the triumph it should have been. It hurt. “I was perfectly happy on that boat. But you had to sweep in and ruin everything, the same way you did—”
She cut herself off, appalled at what she’d nearly said. Her heart was rioting in her chest, and she was afraid to look at him—afraid of what she’d see. Or what he would.
“By all means,” he invited her, his voice silk and stone. “Finish what you were saying. What else did I ruin?”
She would never know how she pulled herself together then, enough to look at him with clear eyes and something like a smile on her mouth.
“That was the first ball I’d ever attended, my first night in Rome,” she said, light and something like airy, daring him to refute her. “I felt like a princess. And you ruined it.”
“You have no comprehension whatsoever of the damage you do, do you?” He shook his head. “You’re like an earthquake, leaving nothing but rubble in your wake.”
It’s like he knows, a little voice whispered, directly into that dark place inside of her where she hated herself the most. Like he knows what you nearly let happen.
She set her glass back down on the table with a sharp click. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I would have thought that much was clear,” he replied, a self-mocking curve to that hard mouth she knew too well now. Far too well. “If nothing else. I want you, Elena. Then. Now. Still. God help us both.”
Elena clenched her hands together in her lap, everything inside of her seeming to squeeze tight and ache. Something deep and heavy sat over the table as the sun disappeared for good, and soft lights came on to illuminate the terrace. She could feel it pressing down on her, into her, and the way he was looking at her didn’t help.
“No clever reply to that?” His voice then was quiet, yet no less lethal, and it sliced into her like a jagged blade. “I don’t know what lies you tell yourself. I can’t imagine. But I know you want me, too.”
She shook her head as if that might clear it, pulling in a breath as if that might help. When she looked at him again, she wasn’t playing her part. She couldn’t.
“I want you,” she said in a low voice, letting all of the ways she loathed herself show, letting it all bleed out between them, letting it poison him, too. “I always have. And I’ll never forgive myself for it.”
She thought he looked shaken then, for the briefest moment, but he blinked it away. And he was too hard again, too fierce. She told herself she’d seen only what she wanted to see. He sat forward, those dark, cruel eyes fixed on her, and she reminded herself that nothing shook this man. Nothing could. Especially not minor little earthquakes like her.
“Congratulations, Elena,” he said, his voice a sardonic lash. “I believe that’s the first honest thing you’ve said to me since you told me your name.”
She had to wrench her gaze away from his then, while she ordered herself to stay calm. To tamp down the chaotic emotions that surged inside of her, taking her over, making her want nothing more than to sob—once again—for something she could never have. Something she never should have wanted in the first place.
Unbidden, images of what they’d done together, here on this very same terrace, skated through her mind. His mouth, those hands. The wild heat of him, his impossible strength and his ruthless, intense possession—
Something occurred to her then, slamming through her as hard and as vicious as if he’d punched her in the gut. He might as well have. It couldn’t have been worse.
She had been on birth control pills throughout her relationship with Niccolo, but the past six months had been so hectic. She’d run away and run out of the pills, and she hadn’t wanted to leave any kind of record of where she’d been—so no doctors. She hadn’t imagined it would be an issue. And then, today, she’d simply forgotten she wasn’t protected.
She’d forgotten.
“We didn’t use anything,” she gasped out, so appalled she could hardly get the words past her lips. She felt numb with horror.
Alessandro went still. Too still. And for the first time in their brief, impossible acquaintance, she couldn’t read a thing in the narrow, considering gaze he aimed at her. She could only see the darkness.