In what he’d known about her the moment he’d seen her in Rome.
He should have tried to reach her then. Instead, he’d stormed off that dance floor and left her to be brutalized. He’d put her through hell all on his own. And he couldn’t blame his family for that. That had been all him.
He was no different from them at all. He couldn’t imagine how he’d ever believed otherwise.
He sensed her behind him a moment before she stepped to the rail beside him, hugging herself against the cool night air.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said.
She smiled, but she didn’t look at him. “You didn’t.”
He watched her, feeling something work through him, something powerful and new and all about that tilt to her jaw, that perfect curve of her hip, the way she squared her shoulders as she stood there. Her lovely strength. Her courage.
He didn’t have the slightest idea what to do with any of it. Or with her.
Alessandro couldn’t help but touch her then, his hands curving over her bare shoulders and turning her to face him. She was as beautiful in the shadows as she was in the light, though the wariness in her gaze made his chest ache. He wanted to protect her, to keep her safe. From Niccolo. From the world.
Even from himself.
He stroked his fingers down her lovely face, and felt the way she shivered, heard the way she sighed. He thought of that first touch, so long ago now, that glorious heat. He thought of that marvelous glow between them. That easy, instant perfection.
And all of it was true.
Everything he’d felt. Everything he’d imagined. Everything he’d wanted then, and thought impossible.
“What happens now?” she asked softly, her eyes searching his.
He smiled then, over the rawness inside of him, the dangerous, insidious hope.
“Now?” he asked, his voice gruff. As uneven as he felt. “I apologize.”
And then he kissed her, gently, and she melted into him. Like the first time all over again. Better.
Real.
Elena woke in his wide bed, safe and warm.
She lay on her side and gazed out at the morning light, the blue sky, and the previous afternoon came back to her slowly, drip by drip. Then the night. The way he’d picked her up so gently and carried her back to bed. The way he’d moved over her, worshipping every part of her, taking his time and driving her into a sweet, wild oblivion, before curling around her and holding her close as they fell asleep together.
It had been so different, Elena thought now. She smiled to herself. It had felt like—
But she pushed that thought away, afraid to look at it too closely. Her stomach began to ache, and she cursed herself. Things were precarious enough already. There were any number of ways Alessandro could use what she’d told him against her. No need to tangle her emotions any further. No need to make it that much worse.
No need to walk straight into another disaster as blindly as she had the first.
She climbed from the bed and started for the bathroom, aware with each step that she didn’t feel well—as if her body was finally taking all of the past weeks’ excesses out on her. As if it was punishing her. She had a slight headache. Her stomach hurt. Even her breasts ached. And she felt heavy, all the way through. Almost as if—
She stopped in her tracks and, for a moment, was nothing at all but numb. Then she walked into the bathroom, confirmed her suspicion and had only just come back out again and pulled on the first thing she could find—the long-sleeved shirt he’d been wearing the night before, as it happened—when Alessandro walked through the bedroom door.
He had his mobile phone clamped to his ear, a fierce scowl on his beautiful face, and Elena simply stood there, helplessly, and stared. Everything had changed. Again. She didn’t have any idea how this would go, or what might happen next.
And he still made her heart beat faster when he walked into a room. He still made her knees feel weak. All this time, and she hadn’t grown used to him at all. All of these weeks, and if anything, she was even more susceptible to him than she had been at the start.
She didn’t dare think about what that meant, either. She was terribly afraid she already knew.
“I don’t care,” he growled into the phone. He raked an impatient hand through his hair. “I’m running out of ways to tell you that, Mother, and I ran out of patience ten minutes ago. None of this has anything to do with me.”
He hung up, then tossed the phone on the bed. His dark green eyes narrowed when they found hers. He stilled, that restlessness she could see written all over him fading.
“Has something happened?” Elena asked, and she could hear the nerves in her voice. The panic. His gaze sharpened, telling her he did, too.