Matilda had put her hand on his arm, but the touch was more than he could bear just now, so calmly he removed his arm from underneath her hand. ‘Excuse me, cara. I just need to go and see where our son went.’
Then, without waiting for her to reply, Enzo turned and strode out of the room.
* * *
Much later, Matilda stood in the corner of the crowded ballroom, surveying all the people, searching for a tall, dark figure and not seeing it.
Something was wrong. She’d known it the moment she’d stepped into the ballroom with Enzo and felt the tension begin to gather in him, getting tighter and tighter as time had gone on.
She’d tried to ignore it, told herself that whatever was bothering him she’d ask him about it later, but then he’d suddenly excused himself on the pretext of looking for Simon and he hadn’t come back.
Was it her? Something she’d done? Something to do with what had happened between them upstairs? Had he decided he didn’t want her to be his after all?
‘You’re looking pale,’ her ridiculously handsome brother-in-law said, coming to stand beside her. ‘Is everything okay?’
And that was another strange thing, the icy waves that had poured off Enzo the moment his brother had taken her hand. If she hadn’t thought better she would have said that he was jealous. Which was odd, because what did he have to be jealous of?
She liked Dante and, yes, he was gorgeous, but she didn’t want him. He didn’t look at her the way Enzo did, as if he wanted to eat her alive, the fire of his ferocious soul burning in his eyes. Dante was all lazy, sensual charm, while Enzo was all demand, all possessive heat. She liked that.
No, she loved it.
You love him.
Ice water trickled down her back. Insanity. She didn’t love Enzo. How could she? She barely knew him.
‘I’m fine thank you.’ She put down the wine glass she’d been carrying, though she’d drunk nothing from it. ‘I was just wondering where Enzo had got to.’
Dante gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Don’t children get fractious around bedtimes? Perhaps my nephew is giving him a run for his money.’
‘He might. But Simon’s always very good about bedtimes when Enzo’s around.’ A nervous feeling sat in her gut. ‘Maybe you’re right, though. Maybe I should go and find him.’
‘Matilda,’ Dante said quietly. ‘Be careful of Enzo.’
She stilled and looked at him in shock. ‘Be careful? What are you talking about?
Dante’s dark eyes were very direct. ‘He’s a man who’s lost a great many things. Things he’s been trying for years to get back.’
‘Yes, I do know that.’
‘Our mother left not long after we were exiled,’ Dante went on in a low voice. ‘And she took me with her, leaving Enzo with our father. He never speaks about the years he spent with Dad, but Luca Cardinali wasn’t an easy man to live with. And, after he died, Enzo was alone for a long time.’
Something shifted inside her, a tight, hot feeling. She remembered the bitterness lacing his voice as he’d told her about his parents, the heat of anger running like a current underneath it.
She’d asked him weeks ago what he had to be angry about and, well, maybe the roots of it lay there. In his past.
‘That sounds awful.’ Her voice was thick but she didn’t bother trying to hide it.
Dante’s gaze was as sharp as his brother’s all of a sudden. ‘You care for him, don’t you?’
It’s more than care. You love him. You’ve been in love with him ever since you met him. That’s why you ran from him.
The ballroom blurred in her vision, her eyes suddenly full of tears, her chest hollow. She didn’t want to be in love with Enzo Cardinali. He wanted her, and he’d told her he was going to keep her for ever, and that would be enough for her. Carefully, she hadn’t thought about that doubt tugging at her. She’d pushed it aside and told herself that belonging to someone was all she’d wanted.
But it won’t be.
‘Yes,’ she said, her voice hoarse. ‘I do care.’ Because it was true and, even though she wanted to keep on denying it, she couldn’t any longer.
And maybe Dante saw it, because something in his eyes softened. ‘Good. Because he’s not an easy man to care for and he needs someone strong.’
Someone strong. Was that her?
She wanted to ask him more questions, but someone caught Dante’s arm and he was led into a conversation with some other people, leaving Matilda on her own.
Her heart felt sore, as if someone had stepped on it.
Enzo, left all alone by his mother to his power-hungry father. Neither of them had cared about him, that was the subtext, wasn’t it? His father had wanted a throne more than a son, and his mother had simply...abandoned him.
His family had fractured completely. Like hers.
Suddenly all she wanted was to find him, to see what was wrong, whether he was all right, so she shoved aside thoughts of love and gave the ballroom another search. But he definitely wasn’t there so she slipped out and went upstairs to Simon’s bedroom.
But her son was already in bed, sleeping soundly, no sign of Enzo.
He wasn’t anywhere in the upper levels of the villa, so she came back down and searched the lower floor.
She didn’t see any sign of him until she pushed open the door to the library and there he was, standing beside the fireplace, one hand on the mantelpiece, the other in his pocket, looking down at the unlit grate.
The expression on his beautiful, fierce face was unreadable, but there was something about it that made her aching heart tighten even further.
‘What do you want, Matilda?’ He didn’t look round. ‘Simon is in bed.’
‘I know. I just saw him.’ She closed the door quietly and came over to where he stood. ‘I only wanted to find out where you’d gone. You left rather suddenly and—’
‘I’m fine.’ The words were flat. ‘I only needed a couple of moments to myself. Go back to the party.’
She should. But of course she didn’t.
Dante had told her that he’d been alone for a long time, that he needed someone. And she knew what loneliness felt like; she felt it every day. She could be that someone that he needed, couldn’t she?
He wanted her after all, had told her that she belonged to him. So why not? After all, he’d given her something she’d needed herself up there in that bedroom, so maybe it was time for her to return the favour.
Matilda didn’t move. ‘What’s going on, Enzo?’
‘There’s nothing going on.’
‘Yes, there is. You were standing in the ballroom glaring around and looking like you wanted to chew through concrete.’
There was a brief silence.
He turned his head and looked at her, golden eyes icy, a wall behind them. ‘And?’
She ignored the cold note in his voice. ‘You were giving a very good impression of jealousy back there. In fact, you looked like you wanted to kill your brother. Is that the issue?’
‘I wasn’t jealous.’ His voice didn’t change. It was cold, hard. ‘Was there something important you wanted to talk to me about, Matilda? We have guests, don’t forget.’
But she knew what he was doing: he was shutting her out, putting some distance between them. The idiot. He wouldn’t let her do this to him, so why did he think she’d let him do it to her?
She closed the distance between them, coming to where he stood, looking up into his icy, golden gaze. ‘Is it me?’ she asked bluntly. ‘Did I do something?’
‘No, of course not. Why would you think that?’
‘Because something’s wrong, and you’re not telling me what it is, so why wouldn’t I think that?’
The expression on his face shut down. ‘Go back to the party, Matilda.’
He was so tall standing there in fron
t of the fireplace, dark and stern in his black suit. Austere and beautiful too. Of the lazy heat she’d seen burning in his eyes upstairs in the bedroom, there was no sign.
There was nothing but cold there now.
Determination settled down inside her. Well, she wasn’t going to let him freeze her out. She was his. She belonged to him. He’d put that ring on her finger upstairs and that meant something.
He needed someone. She would be that someone.
Matilda lifted a hand to his face, half-expecting his skin to be cold, considering the chill radiating off him. But it wasn’t. When she laid her fingers against his sharp jaw, the heat of his skin just about seared her fingertips.
He didn’t move, but a muscle leapt under her touch. ‘What are you doing?’ His voice remained frigid yet she could see some of that familiar heat beginning to glow in his eyes. ‘Go back to the party.’
‘No.’ She pressed her fingers against his hard jawline. ‘Not until you tell me what’s going on.’
He stayed very still, the glow in his eyes beginning to get brighter, his gaze becoming more focused, more intense. And still he said nothing.
‘You don’t have to be jealous, Enzo.’ She searched his face. ‘It’s not Dante’s ring I’m wearing.’
‘It’s not Dante I’m concerned about,’ he snapped, the ice in his voice finally breaking.
‘Then what?’
Enzo reached up and circled her wrist with his long, strong fingers, holding her tight. His gaze was hot now, nothing cold about it, and it burned fiercely and bright. ‘What do you want from me?’ he asked suddenly, harshly. ‘I can’t make you laugh like he can. I can’t make you smile like he can. I can’t and I won’t. But I can give you everything else.’
Matilda’s breath caught at the anger in his eyes. ‘I don’t want anything else,’ she said, even though it wasn’t the truth.
‘Then stop looking at me like you do,’ Enzo said roughly. ‘Because there’s nothing more I can give you.’
There was a tense silence, electricity crackling between them, and it was as if she could feel every whorl of his fingertips pressed against her skin.
‘I’m not looking at you like that.’ She stared hard at him. ‘All I asked was what’s wrong? But someone wanted more from you, didn’t they, Enzo? Who was it?’
His golden eyes pinned her to the spot, so fierce. Yet his thumb was moving unconsciously on her wrist, stroking her gently, igniting fires all over her skin, making embers she’d kept banked after their moment in the bedroom upstairs flare into need again. ‘Why should I tell you?’ he demanded. ‘Why should I tell you anything at all?’
She met him stare for stare. ‘Because I told you everything upstairs in the bedroom. And then I got down on my knees for you and gave you more.’
Enzo’s gaze intensified. ‘My father wanted power,’ he said abruptly. ‘And when I couldn’t help him get it, he pretended I didn’t exist. And my mother... She was so unhappy after we were exiled and nothing I did made it better. She drank. A lot. So one day I emptied all her wine out, thinking that would help.’ His jaw clenched beneath her hand. ‘She was furious. Told me that it wasn’t her happiness that I cared about, only my own, that I was no better than him. That I always wanted more than—’ He stopped. ‘But it was them who wanted more, not me. And I wasn’t enough.’
Matilda’s throat tightened, her heart feeling full and painful inside her chest. She could hear his anger, could hear too the pain running underneath it.
It made her angry, because she knew what rejection felt like. The situation wasn’t exactly like her own, as her aunt and uncle hadn’t wanted her at all, but the hurt was the same.
‘You’re enough for me,’ she said fiercely. ‘You’re more than enough. I want you just the way you are.’
The gold in his eyes flamed, heat rising. ‘But you deserve better, Matilda.’ His voice had gone rough. ‘You deserve more than anything I can ever give you.’
Something lurched inside her, but she ignored it, shoving it aside as if it didn’t mean anything. Because this wasn’t about her.
She lifted her other hand so she cupped his face, pressing her palms to his skin. ‘You told me that I was yours, that you would never let me go. And I don’t want you to, understand? I want to be yours.’
He didn’t move, simply looked at her with that intense, hungry expression.
‘And you don’t have to make me laugh,’ she went on, just as intense. ‘You don’t have to make me smile. Just give me what you can and that will be enough.’ She stroked her thumbs along the tight line of his jaw. ‘It’ll be more than enough.’
Enzo said nothing, but the blaze in his eyes just about burned her to the ground.
That was all the warning she got.
He bent his head and covered her mouth with his, kissing her hard and hot, with all the demand he couldn’t seem to articulate.
And she met it, kissing him back, meeting him fire for fire, sliding her hands from his jaw to around his neck, arching her body against the rock-hard heat of his.
He growled, his hands on her hips, suddenly propelling her back until she was pushed up against the bookcases beside the fire, the shelves digging into her spine.
She didn’t care.
She bit his lip, giving him a taste of her teeth, making him growl again, a deep, guttural sound in his throat as he pressed himself against her.
‘Yes,’ he murmured roughly against her mouth, his hands jerking up the skirts of her silver gown. ‘This is what you need from me, cara.’ His fingers pushed between her thighs and under the lace of her underwear, finding her slick, hot flesh, stroking her. ‘This is all you’ll ever need.’
And it was easy to believe that he was right when his fingers were touching her, sliding all around her wet sex and finding the tight little bundle of nerves where she was most sensitive, teasing it lightly.
Making her tremble, shake and shift against his hand, pleasure jolting like electricity along all her nerve endings.
And when he slid one finger inside her, tearing a groan from her throat, there was absolutely no question at all. This was all she ever needed.
Him. Touching her.
‘Enzo...’ she gasped, lifting her hips against his hand. ‘More.’
He shoved her skirt up all the way, his golden eyes holding her pinned against the bookcases as much as his hot, strong body was, pulling his trousers open and freeing himself. Gripping one of her thighs, he urged her leg up and around his lean waist, and she felt herself open for him, the stretch of her muscles adding to the eroticism of the moment.
Then, still looking at her, he thrust inside her, deep and hard.
The pleasure was indescribable.
Matilda moaned, arching at the bookcases digging into her back, unable to drag her gaze away from the burning look in his beautiful face. Because, whether he knew it or not, he was demanding things from her again and this time she wanted to give them to him. She wanted to give him everything.
Because she loved him.
‘Yes,’ she said huskily, answering the look in his eyes, her heart full and aching. ‘Take whatever you need. I’m yours, Enzo. You know that.’
And something shifted in his expression, the gold of his eyes burning impossibly brighter, like that of a predator preparing to come in for the kill.
Then he made a savage sound and jerked at her silver gown, ripping open the delicate fabric around the neckline and baring her breasts.
She shivered as cool air moved over her skin, the feel of him inside her combining with the fierce heat of his gaze, becoming something hot, volatile. A chemistry that could explode at any moment.
He cupped one breast and she gasped at the heat of his palm against her skin, then gasped again as he dipped his head, his tongue flicking over her rapidly hardening nipple. Then he did it again and again, befo
re sucking her nipple entirely into his mouth.
He began to thrust inside her, timing each one with the pull of his mouth on her breast, honing the pleasure into something bright and agonisingly sharp. Cutting her into shreds.
But she didn’t fight it. She gave herself up to it, and to him, because that was what she’d promised him. If this was all he had to give then she would take it.
It’s all you’ll ever have.
Then it was all she’d ever have. And she was okay with that.
But she couldn’t think any more as she arched in his grip, her hand lifting, pushing her fingers deep into the silk of his hair, rocking against him as he continued to suckle on her.
‘Tell me this is all you want,’ he demanded, his mouth brushing against her skin. ‘Promise me you won’t ask for anything more.’
‘No,’ she moaned, closing her eyes against the intensity of the pleasure. ‘I won’t.’
He shifted his grip then she felt him take her hand and guide it down between them, down to where they were joined. Then he placed her fingers over her own slick flesh and pressed them down. ‘Say the words, Matilda.’
She shuddered as the pleasure became even sharper, even more agonising, lightning flashes behind her eyes. ‘I promise I won’t ask for anything more,’ she said hoarsely. ‘This is all I want.’
‘Look at me.’
And she forced her eyes open, clashing with the brilliant gold in his.
‘You’ll never regret it,’ he said hotly and darkly, like a vow. ‘I promise you that.’
Then he pressed her fingers down and began to thrust, harder, deeper, the relentless pull of the pleasure tugging her in and dragging her under.
She closed her eyes and let herself drown in it.
And ignored the way her heart ached.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘NO,’ ENZO SAID, surveying Matilda from the comfort of the plush white sofa he was sitting on. ‘Not that one.’
She was standing in front of him, examining herself in the big gilt mirror leaning up against the wall of the dressing room, the wedding-dress designer kneeling at her feet and fussing with the hem of the gown she was wearing.
Demanding His Hidden Heir (Mills & Boon Modern) (Secret Heirs of Billionaires, Book 26) Page 14
