He only knew he couldn’t stand this.
Alessandro heard the unmistakable sound of his helicopter then, roaring toward the meadow for its landing. Coming down fast to hasten this unacceptable ending.
Too late, he thought. It’s always too late.
He turned then, abruptly, and caught the look on her face. Resolute. Miserable. Brave and determined. He concentrated on miserable.
“Stay with me,” he bit out. An order this time, with no silk or seduction or even begging to sweeten it.
“Stay?” she echoed, as if she didn’t understand the word. “Here?” She shook her head, sketched that airy smile. “You can’t keep hiding away here, Alessandro. It’s time to go home.”
She was dressed for the outside world. No flowing dress, no tiny shorts, no skimpy bikini. She wore those white denim trousers that made him uncomfortably hard, another pair of wicked heels and a peach-colored top that flirted with her curves beneath a cream-colored scarf looped lazily around her neck. Her hair was slicked back into a sleek ponytail, and she had sunglasses perched on her head, ready to slide over her eyes. She looked casually fashionable, impenetrably lovely, and he knew it was armor.
He hated it.
“Come to Palermo with me,” he threw out without thinking, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t care how complicated that could become. He didn’t care if it started a damned war with the Falco family. He’d fight it with his own bare hands if he had to. He didn’t care about anything but her.
And if an alarm sounded deep inside of him then, he ignored it.
“You know that’s impossible,” she said fiercely. As if he’d finally struck a nerve. “You know I have to go.”
Alessandro remembered that night, so long ago now, when he’d told her he would chase her through the house if she wanted him to do it. That he would let her abdicate any responsibility for what happened between them, let it all be on him, if that was what it took. Was that what she needed?
But he couldn’t do it.
“I won’t hold you against your will. I won’t even beg.” His voice was low, but all of their history was in it. That dance. This island. All the truths they’d finally laid bare. “Come with me anyway.”
“This isn’t fair,” she whispered, and he shouldn’t have taken it as a kind of harsh victory that she sounded as agonized as he felt. As torn apart. “We agreed.”
“Just this once,” he said fiercely, “just this one time, admit what’s happening here. What’s always been happening here. For God’s sake, Elena—come with me because you can’t bear to leave me.”
Whole worlds moved through her gaze then, and left the overbright sheen of tears in their wake. And it wasn’t enough, that he knew she wanted him, too, that he knew exactly how stark her need was. That he could feel it inside of him, lighting up his own. That he knew he could exploit it, with a single touch.
He needed her to admit it. To say it. He needed all of this to matter to her. And the fact that he was uncomfortable with the intensity of that need—that it edged into territory he refused to explore—didn’t make it any less necessary.
A moment dragged by, too sharp and too hard. Then another.
“I’m not a good person,” she said finally. Her hands opened and closed fitfully, restlessly, at her sides. “And neither are you. A good person would never have allowed what happened between us in Rome to happen at all. I was engaged. And you knew I was with Niccolo when you approached me.” Her gaze slammed into his. “All we do is make mistakes, Alessandro. Maybe that’s all this is. Maybe that’s what we should admit.”
He started toward her, watching her face as he drew closer. He had never been so uncertain of anything or anyone in his life, and yet so oddly sure of her at the same time. So sure of this. He didn’t understand it. But like everything with Elena, from that very first glance, it simply was. Undefinable. Undeniable. But always and ever his.
“I know that you don’t trust me,” he said when he reached her, looking down into her troubled blue gaze. “I know what the name Corretti means to you. I know you think all manner of terrible things about me, and I know you’re waiting for the next blow.” He reached over to trace the vulnerable curve of her mouth with his thumb, making her tremble. “Come to Palermo. Have faith.”
He read the storms in her eyes, across her pretty face. And he forced himself to do nothing at all but wait it out. Wait her out.
“I don’t believe in faith anymore.” A great cloud washed over her, across her face and through those beautiful eyes, and left them shadowed. She pulled in a deep, long breath, then let it out. “But I’ll do it,” she said finally, as if the words were wrenched from her. “I’ll come with you.”