“It’s all just business,” she jeered.
“Yes,” he bit out. “It was.”
Octavia fumed at him across the peaceful baby sleeping between them. Their trigger.
Her mother, at least, had held Lorenzo. Her expression had even softened a bit. While Octavia had stood there waiting for her father to say something like, Good job. Thank you. I’m so proud of you. So pleased for you.
But there’d been nothing.
She’d spent the next hour realizing what a tremendous fool she’d been for ever imagining she could earn something from him beyond a flickering glance of disappointment. When he had dismissed her son as something he didn’t want to see for years, she had reached her limit.
The fact that Sandro had hustled her out of there before she really told her father what she thought of him was infuriating. She had nearly a quarter century of resentment stockpiled and was eager to let it out.
“I have a right to be angry,” she told him when she entered their suite after tucking Lorenzo into the proper nursery they’d had fashioned for him across the hall.
“Because I signed contracts a year ago that you don’t like?” He set aside his phone with a rattle onto the night table and shrugged out of his jacket, tossing it over the back of the nearest chair.
“Because you won’t let me be angry!” She kicked off her shoes in the middle of the floor and began pulling out her earrings, dropping them into the dish on the vanity table. “I don’t care about the stupid contracts and how you and my father planned to transfer control of his all-important fortune. All I ever wanted was to make my father proud.” Her necklace went into the dish and she picked up her hairbrush, waving it wildly as she railed, “He wanted a son and I couldn’t turn into one, but I gave him a boy and all he said was, ‘Give me another one.’ I had a right to tell him to go to hell, Sandro. Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you let me be angry?”
Her arm shot straight in punctuation and the hairbrush slid out of her grip. It skittered across the bedroom floor, landing near her shoes.
His mouth tightened as he stared at it. With a jerky nod, he said, “Si. He is insufferable. You were right to tell him you won’t see him again.” He pulled his tie loose and unbuttoned his collar, something flashing in his eyes that was both keen and sharp. Dangerous. “Come here, then.”
She stayed where she was, suddenly wary. “Why?”
“I’m not going to have you tossing lamps and smashing mirrors, cara. If you’re angry, come here. Take it out on me.”
She choked out a laugh. “What do you mean? Hit you? No!”
“Do whatever you need to release this energy. I’ll make sure you don’t damage anything.”
“Because you don’t want me acting like your mother, screaming and yelling, calling him to swear and hanging up?”
“Precisamente.”
“You just have to control everything, don’t you?” She was annoyed now, on top of her anger. “I want to yell, Sandro. I want to...” She lifted helpless hands and shook her fists in fury. She hadn’t been this pent up and determined to let go since boarding school.
“I can see that.” He finished opening his buttons and dragged his shirttails from his pants. “Come here.”
There was a note in his voice on top of the command, one that said he was anticipating sex. It affected her, always, but fueled her fire tonight. She was so angry. Angry at her father, but angry at Sandro. At that unwavering control of his. She wanted to batter against it, break it down and break through to the man behind the armor.
Did nothing affect him?
Picking up the emerald drape of her skirt because it was too long now that she was out of her shoes, she swept toward him, ignoring self-preservation instincts and heading for the heart of the battle.
He opened his belt, pulled it free and dropped it away, gaze never leaving hers.
He was so tall. She wished she wore her shoes. She wanted to... Oh, he frustrated her. Reaching out, she splayed her hands on his bare waist, felt his muscles tense under her touch and dug in her nails, dragging her claws over his skin.
He bit out a curse cut by a sharp laugh, gaze flashing as he caught her wrists and pinned them behind her back, mashing her against him so she could barely move.
“You’re not going to let me explode, after all?” she asked, shaking back her hair.
“Explode,” he invited. “I’m here to absorb it.”
She wriggled, testing his grip.
He smiled, not even exerting himself a little bit as he easily restrained her. He was that much stronger than she was. It was maddening, but inflaming, too, making her that much more determined to get a reaction from him. A strong one.