The Last Di Sione Claims His Prize Page 12

  “Oh, Alex, what a terrible burden.”

  “What a terrible burden I put on him. A child. But I was so angry, Gabby. I blamed him. He was what they were arguing about. And so… I chose comfort over truth. I chose to do what was easy, not what was right. Had I been any sort of man…”

  “You weren’t,” she said, her chest tight. “You were a boy.”

  He shook his head, lowering it. “Not so much a boy.” He looked younger when he said it. She felt like she could see him, as he’d been then. Young and trying so hard to be brave. To uphold the honor of his family in the only way he knew how.

  “Yes,” she said, her throat aching. “You were.”

  “He was entitled to that money. To come to the funeral of his father. To be acknowledged. I robbed him of that. Until we needed him. When my grandfather needed a bone marrow transplant I let everyone know about Nate’s existence. He was Giovanni’s only hope, you see. I…I cannot forgive myself for those things, Gabby. I cannot. They reveal that underneath everything I have tried to fashion for myself I am nothing more than my father’s son. A man who uses people. A man who thinks nothing of putting others through hell in order to preserve his own comfort.”

  “That isn’t true, Alex.”

  He curled his hand into a fist. “Yes, it is. There’s a reason I’m telling you this.”

  “What’s the reason?”

  “Because I need you to understand. I need you to understand that I’m not a saint. That while I make a habit of practicing restraint, in the end I will only fail. In the end, I will reveal myself to be nothing more than what my blood has dictated I should be.”

  “We’re more than blood, Alex, don’t you think?”

  “Are we?”

  “You said yourself your grandfather took care of you. Your father is his son.”

  “In which case I have to ask myself if it was my mother. If some people are destined to drag down those who they love. Just another reason to stay away from me.”

  Her heart thundered, and she felt dizzy. He was so convinced he was toxic. And that was why they couldn’t… She wasn’t even entirely sure what they couldn’t. Knew only that he was saying they couldn’t, and she knew whatever it was that she wanted to. “But what about what I want?”

  “You don’t know what you want.”

  She blinked. “Of course I do. I’m a grown woman, Alessandro. You don’t know what I want more than I do.”

  He got out of the chair, dropping to his knees so that he was down in front of her. He lifted his hand, brushing his thumb over her lower lip. He looked raw. Desperate. And she had to close her eyes, all of her focus going to that slow, sensual touch. “Gabriella, I have seen so much more of the world than you have. Believe me when I tell you that I know what you should want. What will keep you safe.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head.

  “It cannot happen,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if he was telling her or himself. “I cannot kiss you again,” he continued. “If I did, I would only sin greater.”

  She opened her eyes, looked down at him. At the creases on his forehead, the deep grooves that bracketed his face. Those lines made him all the more devastating. Without them, he would be too beautiful. But those lines—the evidence of years lived—gave him texture. Took him from mere beauty to devastating.

  She ached. For him. With need for him. “All sins can be forgiven, can’t they?”

  “Not all, Gabby. My life—my childhood—is a testament to that. Some sins cause damage that is irreparable. That wound so deeply they will never heal. Ask my half brother about that. I would tell you to ask my parents, to ask my mother, but she’s dead.”

  “But, Alex… If we both want each other…”

  “You don’t even know what it means to want, Gabriella.”

  Her chest felt tight, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. “That isn’t fair, Alex, you don’t get to tell me that I don’t know what desire is when you’re the one who showed it to me. When you’re the one who made absolutely certain that I learned what it was.”

  “I have already hurt you.” He shook his head, his tone filled with regret. “I would not like to do it again.”

  “Then don’t.” She was on the verge of begging for something she had never imagined wanting with this much ferocity.

  “I won’t.”

  “Must you be so honorable? Must you choose this moment to be a man of your word? To be sincere?”

  He nodded slowly. “If there is any moment where I must choose it, it is this one.”

  She slid out of her chair, joining him on the floor. She took his hands in hers, leaning forward, touching her lips slightly to his. “But if you didn’t?” she asked, her mouth brushing his as she spoke the words.

  He reached around behind her head, sifting his fingers through her hair and drawing her head back slightly, his dark eyes intent on hers. “If I did not, Gabby,” he said, his special nickname for her sending shivers along her spine. “If I didn’t, then I would lean in and I would kiss you, more deeply than you kissed me just now.”

  “What else?” she asked, knowing she would burn for this. Past the point of caring.

  “I would run my tongue along the line of your top lip before delving inside. I would taste you. So deep and long neither of us would be able to breathe. We wouldn’t want to breathe.”

  She was shaking now, trembling with need. “Alex,” she whispered.

  “I would pull your T-shirt up over your head, so that I could see you,” he said, resting his palm on her stomach, his touch scorching the material of her shirt. “So that I could feel how soft your skin is.” He left his hand there, his other still buried deep in her hair. “Then I would remove your bra. Get a good look at those beautiful breasts. They are beautiful. You are beautiful. I have said it many times to you now, but I need you to understand how true it is. It is the deepest truth I know, Gabriella. Your beauty. As real as the night sky.”

  Tears filled her eyes and she made no move to wipe them away.

  “I would trace your breasts with my tongue,” he continued, “before moving down to kiss your stomach. Then I would strip off your pants, your underwear. For a moment I would just…look at you. I would be afraid to blink for fear that I would miss a moment of that beauty. I would taste you, tease you, touch you, until you were sobbing in my arms.”

  Gabriella closed her eyes, going still beneath his touch, focusing all of her attention on the pressure of his hand against her stomach, on the erotic words that were flowing from his mouth and over her like heated oil. “What then?” she asked.

  “Oh, my darling, I would send you to the moon and back. I would make you scream with pleasure. Then, and only then, I would enter your body, slowly. I would be as careful with you as possible. But I fear it would not be as careful as I ought to be. Because by then…then I would be desperate for you. Beyond thought. It is important that I make you scream before that, because I will not last long once I’m buried deep within you.”

  She let her lips fall open, her head drawn backward. “Yes,” she said, the word a sigh.

  “It would be heaven,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “To feel you all around me. You would be so tight, so hot and wet. For me. Only for me, Gabby. It would only be for me.”

  “Of course,” she said. “It would only ever be for you, Alex.”

  She found herself swaying forward, her heart beating so quickly she thought she might faint.

  Suddenly, Alex released his hold on her, standing up and putting as much distance between them as possible in one fluid movement. He was breathing hard, and she could see the press of his arousal against the front of his slacks. Could see that what he said was true. That he wanted her with a ferocity that he could not deny. That he would in fact love nothing more than to do everything he had just said.

  And she wanted it. So badly that it echoed inside of her. An empty, aching need that only he could ever fill.

  “We cannot, Gabby,” he said.<
br />
  “Why?” she asked, the word torture.

  “Because I have committed so many grave sins already. I have hurt so many people. Gabriella, I will do nothing but hurt you. And it is the last thing on earth I want to do.”

  That was why she let him go. That was why she didn’t press. Because of the desperation in his voice. Because of how much he wanted to turn away from this. Because of how difficult it was for him. She would not add to his torture. Not after what she knew about him. Not after what he had told her about his parents, about his brother.

  So she did nothing but nod slowly. Did nothing but watch him turn and walk out of the room all the while she sat there, shaking.

  She felt cold suddenly. Where before she had only been hot.

  She thought back to an earlier conversation they’d had as she sat there on the floor of her library, shivering. She had told him that one was much less likely to get scarred if they stayed in here. She almost laughed. Because she would never forget this. His words, his touch, was branded into her, a scar that would never heal. One that she had acquired—of all places—on the library floor.

  It had been her place. The place she had always felt safe. Her refuge.

  But it was his now. Irrevocably.

  She was afraid it was the same for her.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  GABRIELLA AVOIDED HIM for the entire plane ride. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. He didn’t know what he had been thinking. Confessing those things to her. Saying those words to a virgin.

  To a woman that he could never touch. Not any more than he already had.

  So, he had allowed her to avoid him. On the plane, then again in the car as she had stared out the window, gazing at the unfamiliar city skyline. And he had watched her reflection in the window, uncaring about the buildings that had become so familiar and mundane to him. New York City failed to enthrall him. What fascinated him was seeing them through her eyes. Wide and glistening as she took in everything around her, her mouth open slightly. Her lips looked so soft. He would give a good portion of his fortune to kiss them again.

  He continued to think about her lips as they arrived at his penthouse in Manhattan. Normally, after this much time away from work he would go directly into his home office and set about catching up. But tonight… Tonight it simply didn’t appeal.

  The first thing he did when they arrived was set the painting up in the living room, taking a step back and looking at it for the first time since they had taken it from Isolo D’Oro.

  “It’s beautiful,” Gabriella said, looking around the space, then at the painting. “All of this. I can’t quite believe that I’m here.”

  “Yes,” he said in agreement. But he didn’t mean the view or his penthouse were beautiful. He meant her. Always her.

  So then he looked at the painting to avoid looking at her. Close study of Gabriella’s features could only lead to ruin. He had been so taken with the woman in the painting upon first viewing that he hadn’t noticed much of the surrounding objects. For the first time he noticed that everything on the table of the vanity was painted in loving detail. That it was all very purposeful. The woman was wearing a necklace, the reflection of which could barely be seen in the mirror. Emeralds, and white diamonds. On her finger, almost entirely concealed by the tumbling locks of her dark hair, he could just make out the hint of a ring. There was a box, ornate and beautiful, certain to contain more jewelry. A tiara, set next to a beautiful bracelet. His breath caught, and he took a step closer. There was a book set on the vanity, as well.

  That meant…

  He moved closer still, scanning the surface of the table. Yes. There they were. A small pair of earrings.

  “The Lost Mistresses,” he said.

  “What?” Gabriella asked.

  “This is all of them. The artifacts my grandfather sent us after. They are all in this painting. The painting is the last one.”

  He turned to look at Gabriella. She was staring at him, her dark eyes wide. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that I don’t think you’re being fanciful when you thought there might be a deeper link between our grandparents.”

  “But the painting… It was by someone called Bartolo.”

  “I know. But there is something. At one time your grandmother was in possession of every one of these objects. They were the dearest things to my grandfather’s heart at another time.”

  “Alex…”

  At that moment, Alex’s phone rang. It was his half brother, Nate. Things were better between the two of them in recent years, but they had never been close. It surprised him that the other man would call him for anything.

  “I have to get this.”

  *

  Gabriella watched Alex as he paced out of the room, his phone pressed to his ear. It was strange to be here. In his house with him. Not domestic—because she doubted anything with Alex could ever feel domestic—but intimate. Of course, he hadn’t stayed in the room with her to take his phone call. A stark reminder that they didn’t really share much about their lives.

  She looked back at the painting, looking closely this time at the objects in it. Alex’s grandfather was Giovanni Di Sione. As far as she knew he had no connection to the royal family. No connection to Isolo D’Oro. If not for this painting… On its own it was coincidental. Combined with these other objects…

  Alex came back out of the room he had just gone into, his dark jacket on, his expression purposeful. “I have to go out. I will be back as soon as possible. You can help yourself to any of the food in the fridge. Or any of the alcohol.”

  “You don’t have a library. What am I supposed to do?” She was only half teasing.

  “You’ll have to watch a movie, cara mia.”

  She did her best to keep busy while Alex was gone. But one hour turned into two, which turned into three. Then four. Before she knew it she was dozing on the couch, feeling rather sulky, and a little bit concerned. She should have asked him for his mobile number. So she could at least make sure he wasn’t lying dead in an alley somewhere.

  And once that thought was in her mind, she couldn’t shake it.

  Surely Alex was dead in an alley. Or if not dead, perilously close to bleeding out onto the cracked concrete sidewalk.

  The idea made her stomach hurt. It was also ridiculous. Still, now that it had taken root, there it was.

  She walked across the expansive living area and opened one of the bedroom doors to reveal a large bed with a black bedspread. She frowned. Not quite sure which room belonged to Alex. She opened the door next to it and saw another bed that looked almost exactly the same.

  She let out an exasperated sigh and walked deeper into that room, letting her fingertips trail over the lush bedding. She was tired. She hadn’t unpacked any of her things since she wasn’t sure which room she would be staying in. She had changed into her sweats to get a bit more comfortable but she wasn’t going to go hunting for her pajamas.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, bouncing slightly on the mattress before lying back. She looked over at the clock, the glowing blue numbers showing that it was well after midnight.

  She suddenly had a thought that was even more disturbing than the idea of Alex dying in an alley. Maybe he was out with a woman. Why else would he stay out all night? If the issue wasn’t that he couldn’t make it home, then he wasn’t here because he didn’t want to be home.

  The only reason she could think that a man would want to stay out all night was if he was with a woman.

  He might be doing the things with her that he wouldn’t do with Gabriella. Acting out those words he’d said to her, so deeply erotic. As if he’d woven a fantasy together that was spun with a desire called up from the very depths of her soul. Desire not even she had realized she possessed.

  She hated whoever the other woman was. A woman who would—even for a night—capture all of Alex’s attention. Not just a piece of him.

  Not just his smile, or the glint in his eye. Not just his ro
ugh, perfect voice, or promises he could never keep. But his body. No barriers between them.

  She would touch him everywhere, this mystery woman. Her hands beneath his clothes, learning secrets about him Gabriella would never, ever know.

  She burned. She didn’t know that jealousy would burn from the inside out. Scalding her. Making her feel raw and restless and angry. She had never been jealous before.

  There had never been a man before.

  She had been too busy burying herself in dusty books. Wrapping herself in a blanket of safety, insulated by the shelves of her library. By the family estate.

  Protecting herself from more rejection.

  What she’d said to him had been true. Her own parents didn’t truly want her. Didn’t really choose her. It was difficult to believe that anyone else would. She was invisible. That was the best case scenario. The worst was that she was in the way.

  She swallowed hard, closing her eyes tight and curling her knees up to her chest.

  The next thing she knew, she heard heavy footsteps coming into the room. Her eyes snapped open, locking onto the clock. It was after three now.

  She was on her back, moving into a sitting position. “Alex?” she asked, her heart thundering heavily.

  “Gabriella?” Her name sounded strange on his lips. As though he were convinced she was some sort of apparition.