She yanked her hand away, as if her palm was on fire. It felt like it was. It felt like she was.
But Alessandro was a dream and it was time to wake up. She had to stop prostrating herself to impossibilities. She had to stop dreaming about what she thought she ought to have, and concentrate instead on what she did have. And that wasn’t him.
“I appreciate this more than I can say,” she said in a low voice, stepping back from him and tucking the envelope in the pocket of her jacket.
“All I asked was that you have a little faith,” he gritted out. “Was that really so hard, Elena? Did it warrant you running away from me mere hours after our wedding?”
“We have sex,” she said evenly, because it was time to accept reality. “That’s all it is, Alessandro. That’s all it ever was.”
“You’re still such a liar,” he said in a kind of wonder.
“It’s not real,” she continued, determined to make him see reason. “It’s chemical. It fades.”
“We do not just have sex,” he said, moving toward her then. “What we have, Elena, is extraordinary. It was there from the moment we met.”
He reached over and slid his palm along her jaw, her cheek, anchoring his fingers in her hair. That same fire roared in her, that easily. That same old connection that had caused all this trouble. And he knew it. His mouth curved.
“You can’t—” she began, but he only pressed a finger over her lips and she subsided, her heart pounding.
“And if you want something real,” he said in a low, stirring voice that did nothing to conceal his temper and seemed to echo in her bones, her veins, her core, making something like shame twist in her, low and deep, “then you’re going to have to treat me like I’m real, too. Not something you have to bend and contort to get around. Just a man, Elena. Nothing more or less than that.”
That thudded into her, hard. She wrenched herself back, away from his touch. She fought for breath.
“You’re a man, yes,” she threw at him. “I know that. But your only form of communication is in bed—”
“Do not,” he interrupted her furiously, “do not claim I can’t communicate when your version of a discussion involves sneaking off for a plane ride and two hours’ drive.”
“You don’t understand!” She hardly knew what she was saying. She was panicked. Cornered. “I loved you so much I was willing to do anything. I wrecked my engagement. I betrayed my family. I lost myself—anything to have you. But that’s not love, Alessandro.” She shook her head wildly. Desperately. “It’s an addiction. It’s just sex.”
“Thank you,” he said grimly, “for using the past tense. Keep sticking your knife in, Elena. Twist it, why don’t you.”
But she couldn’t stop. It was as if something else had taken control of her.
“We never should have met,” she told him. “We were never meant to meet. It was a complete disaster at first sight.”
“It was love at first sight,” Alessandro snapped at her. “And you know it.”
That was like a deep, terrible rip, so far inside her she didn’t think she could survive it.
“Don’t you dare say that!” she hurled at him. “Don’t you dare pretend!”
“I love you!” he thundered, the words ricocheting from the stone walls of the village, the rocky cliffs, the thick fog and the water below.
Or maybe that was only in her head. Maybe that was her heart.
Alessandro found her gaze, held it. Frustration and determination gleamed there in all of that dark green, along with something else.
Sincerity, she thought, from some stunned distance. He meant it. She heard a small noise, a kind of gasp, and only dimly realized she’d made it.
“I love you, Elena,” he said, his voice serious. Certain. “Since the moment I saw you, I’ve never been the same.”
“You …” But she couldn’t seem to speak.
“There were no contracts,” he said then, fiercely. “No discussions about assets or settlements. No prenuptial agreement. I simply married you, because I can’t be without you. I can’t let you leave me.” His dark eyes flashed. “I can’t.”
She tried to say his name, formed the syllables of it with her mouth, but no sound came out.
“I have a great darkness in me,” he said then, intently. “I can’t pretend I don’t. But it’s not going to win. It can’t, if I have you.”
She shook her head, as if she could shake this off. As if she could push him back into those neatly labeled boxes she’d set out for him. She had to do it, or she might die where she stood. She didn’t question that—she simply knew it.