“That arrangement was based on the premise that you were still engaged to Niccolo Falco,” he’d said, cutting her off. “Working for him, in fact. A spy.” He’d smiled. “You are none of those things, cara.”
“Most importantly, I’m not pregnant,” she’d argued, with a stubborn tilt to her chin. “What you thought about me until yesterday is irrelevant, really.”
“Do you think he’s still searching for you?” he’d asked calmly when he’d wanted nothing more than to put his mouth on her—to remind her how they were anything but irrelevant. And despite that black punch of murderous rage that slammed into him at the thought of Niccolo.
“I know he is,” she’d said with a shrug. “He sends me an email every week or so, to make sure I never forget it.” She’d smiled then, but it was far too bitter. “It was a good thing I stopped waitressing and took the yacht job. He was in Cefalù only a few days behind me.”
He’d had to force his violent fury down, shove it under wraps, before he’d been able to say another word—and even then, the dark pulse of his temper was in every clipped syllable.
“Do you really believe I will simply let you go like this?” he’d asked. “Wash my hands of you and go about my business while that bastard runs you into the ground? What makes you think that’s a possibility?”
Something he hadn’t been able to identify chased over her face then, but had echoed in him all the same.
“It’s not your decision,” she’d said after a moment. “It’s mine.”
They’d stared at each other for a long while.
“You must know I can keep you here,” he’d said quietly. “No one comes or goes from this place without my permission.”
“You won’t do something like that,” she’d replied with conviction, her eyes meeting his. Holding. “You’re better than that.”
And, damn her, he’d wanted to be.
He’d reached over to take her hands in his, threading his fingers through hers, then pulling their joined hands up to his mouth. She’d sighed, her eyes filling with all of that heat and passion that had delivered them here in the first place. And he’d willed her to relent. To bend. To yield.
To want to hold on to him the way he needed to hold on to her.
“You’re the one who wanted forty days,” he’d said, searching her face, trying to see what he needed to see written there. “There’s almost a whole week left.”
She’d shaken her head. “Playtime is over, Alessandro.”
“Forty days,” he’d repeated, because he hadn’t known what else to say, how else to convince her. She couldn’t leave. This wasn’t over—it had only just begun.
“Alessandro …”
“Elena. Please.” He hadn’t recognized his own voice, much less what coursed through him as he’d said it. “Stay.”
He’d begged. There was no other word for it.
But she’d looked up at him then and he hadn’t cared at all that he’d bent in a way he’d previously believed impossible. He’d only cared that it worked.
“I’ll give you forty days,” she’d said when he’d begun to lose hope, her eyes changing from blue to gray. “But that’s it. This can’t go on any longer than that.”
He’d only moved closer to her, and then he’d taken her mouth with his, answering her as best he could.
It had all gone by too quickly, he thought now, glaring out his window at the sea as if it had betrayed him. As if nature and time had conspired against him. He sensed her come into the master suite before he heard her, that familiar spark of lightning down his spine and straight into his sex—and that fist in his gut seemed to burrow deeper.
“Are you ready?” he asked without turning around. He had to fight to keep his voice level, to keep his temper under control, and it was much harder than it should have been. How could he lose her when he’d just found her? “The helicopter will be here any moment.”
“Of course,” Elena said, back to that smooth voice he loathed. “I packed everything that’s mine.”
“And my staff packed everything else,” he said evenly. “What use do you imagine I have for the clothes you wore while you were here?”
She didn’t answer. He shoved his hands into his pockets so she wouldn’t see that he’d balled them into fists. He knew she was still standing there—he could feel her—but the silence stretched out between them, sharp and treacherous. He didn’t know what to do, or say.