But then she understood, and that was worse.
It was the end of the world as she knew it, right there and then.
Elena couldn’t stop pacing.
Alessandro’s penthouse spread out over the top of the Corretti Media tower, three stories in all. It was magnificent. Glass, steel and granite, yet decorated with a deep appreciation of color and comfort. Lush Persian carpets stretched in front of fireplaces and brightened halls. Stunning, impressive art hung on the high walls, all bold colors and graceful lines. He favored deep chairs, dark woods, and all of it somehow elegant and male. Uniquely him.
And she couldn’t enjoy any part of it. She could hardly see it through her panic.
“Of course he’ll see the pictures,” she said, not for the first time, worrying her lower lip with her fingers as she stared out the great windows. “You can count on it.”
Alessandro was sprawled on one of his couches, a tablet computer in his hand. He shot a dark, unreadable look in her direction, but he didn’t answer. But then, Elena was really only talking to herself.
He’d dealt with the paparazzi as best he could. He’d stepped in front of her, concealing her from view. He’d alerted his security, then whisked her up to his penthouse and hidden her away from any more cameras.
“Jackals,” he’d snarled when the elevator doors finally closed again, leaving them in peace once more. “Nothing but scavengers.”
But it was too late. The damage was already done.
Elena’s head had spun wildly. She’d let him lead her out of the elevator bank and into his opulent home, and as soon as he’d closed that heavy penthouse door behind them she’d grabbed hold of the nearest wall and sunk down to the floor. Six months of fear and adrenaline and grief had coalesced inside of her and then simply … broken open. Flooding her.
“Don’t you understand?” she’d cried. “Niccolo will see those pictures! He’ll know exactly where I am! It will take him, what? A matter of hours to get to Palermo?”
Alessandro had gazed down at her, an enigmatic expression on his hard face.
“He won’t go through me to get at you,” he’d said. “He’s a coward.”
“I’m thrilled for you that you don’t have to take him seriously,” she’d thrown at him. “But I do. Believe me, Alessandro. I do.”
“Elena.”
She’d hated the way he said her name then, the way it coiled in her, urging her to trust he’d somehow make this go away. To have faith.
“You can’t make this disappear simply because you command it,” she’d told him, caught between weariness and despair. “You have no idea how devious he is, or how determined.”
“If you must insult me,” Alessandro had said then, “please spare my security detail. Aside from today’s disaster, they’re very good at their jobs.”
“For how long?” she’d demanded. “A week or two? Another forty days? When will you tire of this—of me?” She’d stared up at him, daring him to contradict her. Daring him to argue. “Because when that day comes, as we both know it will, Niccolo will be waiting. If I have faith in anything, it’s that.”
Alessandro’s expression had shuttered, but he’d only held her gaze for a strained moment before turning on his heel, murmuring something about unavoidable paperwork and walking out. Leaving her there on his floor to drive herself out of her head with worry and the cold, hard fear that had spurred her on all this time.
The fear she’d set aside when she’d been on Alessandro’s island. When she’d been safe.
She had to leave, she thought now, frowning out the towering windows at the coming dark. She had to run while she still could. That was the obvious conclusion she’d been circling around and around, not wanting to admit it was the only thing that made sense.
Because he’d been right. She didn’t want to leave him. She loved him. It was that simple and that complicated. It always had been.
She turned to look at him then. He was so impossibly, powerfully beautiful. He’d stunned her from the start. And now she knew how that proud jaw tasted. She could lose herself for hours in his hard, cynical mouth. She knew what he could do with those elegant hands of his, with every part of his lean, hard frame. She knew that he felt deeply, and darkly, and that there were mysteries in him she desperately wanted to solve. She knew he’d comforted her, soothing something in her she’d thought ripped forever raw. She knew what it was like when he laughed, when he teased her, when he told her stories. She wanted all of this to be real, for him to be the man she so desperately wanted to believe he was.