“Why do you challenge me so much?” he said with a smirk.
“It’s not a challenge, just a question. I wondered what the point of the wealth is if you have to pretend to be someone else all the time. It seems a little, well, stupid, that’s all,” she said with honesty dripping from her beautiful mouth.
“I don’t pretend to be someone else. It is part of me. I like my games. They keep me focused and sharp. I also have a passion for making money so this is what I need to do,” he replied as he frowned at his own words. True as most of it was, it could be a bit tiring at times.
“Really? Well, it must be very confusing to be so constantly juxtaposed.” She smiled and turned to the stage as the curtains drew back. “Anyway, what is the opera about?” she said over her shoulder, leaning over the front of the box.
“Lies and deceit, manipulation and murder, love, betrayal and death. The story of a woman giving everything she has for the love of a one man,” he replied, inwardly hoping she got the hint. She was going to have to deal with it all at some point. He only hoped she’d stay the course with him. Her back twisted in front of him as her shoulders shook with laughter.
“Oh, very apt. She sounds like one hell of a woman,” she replied, giggling slightly. He gazed at her hair and instantly felt overwhelmed with sadness or guilt. He was a fucking bastard to even contemplate doing any of this with her. She’d never understand. Why should she?
~
As the final curtain was closing, he drew in a steady breath. He hadn’t even noticed the opera because he’d been far too engrossed in her reaction to it. Her face and reactions had been constantly changing throughout the whole performance. She laughed, cried, swooned and at one point, she’d made herself come. He was surprised she hadn’t begged him earlier. She’d done well to hold herself together as long as she had, and he’d rather enjoyed examining the subtle movements she’d made with her hips while pushing her throat forward on the choker. Listening to her ragged breathing, though, had been like setting a fire alight in him and he’d almost dragged her outside. He’d watched her the entire time. More fascinating to him than any production was the way she’d let every emotion roll over her features with no fear of recrimination, no thought that anyone was watching and would use her weakness against her. Perhaps it wasn’t a weakness. Perhaps it was strength to not care what people could see. But it was his own reaction to her that surprised him the most. He felt a strange need to not hide from her, to tell her everything about himself, including his miserable and violent past. He couldn’t fathom the reasons why, just that she needed to hear the whole fucking truth from him. Was it way too early to tell her? Fuck, if he was her and heard the story of his life, he’d run ten thousand miles to avoid having to look into his soulless eyes. He’d never told anyone about his father - well, two people knew some of it but not the entirety. And then there was AP and the employment he’d fallen into. She’d never understand that, would she? No, who would apart from the other fucking participants?
Soulless… Was he anymore? He rubbed at his chest as she leaned over the balcony and scanned the people below. It ached again, and for the first time in a long time, he could sense his heart returning to him. That’s what the dull throb was, his heart. She was inching her way inside him and pulling something up from the depths of fucking nowhere. He just wasn’t entirely sure that he could release it to her. Sure she was the most delicious woman he’d ever met and there was no doubting her unwavering integrity, but could she really be the one? The one to see him, just the way nature intended him to be? He highly fucking doubted it.
He shook his head and resigned himself to the fact that she just wanted the performance, the Alexander White that the world saw regardless of her pleading eyes and heart-warming smile. So that’s what she’d get. He’d make the most of her affection privately, maybe even just fuck the life out of her and then get rid of her before she did any real damage.
His resolve was instantly shaken as she turned to him, smiling through her tears, and launched herself at him, kissing him with an unadulterated enthusiasm that left him feeling glorious and pure for the first time in his life. He wrapped his arms around her flawless body and squeezed tight as if he were scared to let her go. She released his lips and nuzzled her perfect face into his neck.
“That was indescribable, Alex. I‘ve... Oh my god, I’ve never felt such emotion. Thank you so much for bringing me. I will never forget this evening. I’m…” she whimpered into his neck, still sniffing back the tears.
“Yes, mesmerizing,” he softly whispered, stroking her hair and unhooking the chain. “I think you’ve had quite enough intense stimulation for one night,” he stated quietly as he breathed in her perfume and embedded it into his mind.
She looked into his eyes and smiled a beam of a thousand candles at him. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a few more intensities wouldn’t go amiss. I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.” She raised her brows at him.
“Disappointing is not a word I could ever use to describe you, Elizabeth,” he replied with a chuckle as he reached for her hand and headed toward the exit. “We have a table booked for dinner at an old friend’s. Are you hungry?”
“Absolutely, I’m starving. Emotions do that to me.” She winked. He smiled at her with warmth and cupped her beautiful face in his hand. If there wasn’t a hoard of people around him, he’d show her exactly what his heart was currently doing to him. Perhaps he should give her a taste of himself, something she could understand about him. It was a small start but she was worth it. Maybe she would see who he wanted to be. “I love that wink of yours. Come on. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
~
“Ciao, Alex. Sono content che tu sia tornado in citta,” Giuseppe said, wrapping his arms around Alex’s back.
“Ciao, Giuseppe. Ce presento Elizabeth Scott, la mia ragazza. E la prima volt ache visita a Roma,” he replied.
“Ah, well I’m sure Rome is enjoying her as much as I am. Elizabeth, welcome to my humble restaurant. Alex, you have done supremely well for yourself. I cannot remove my eyes from her beauty,” he chided, looking over his shoulder as he took her arm and walked toward their table.
“Bada a come parli vecchia amico, lei e cosa piu importante nella mia vita,” he said, raising an eyebrow at his old friend, suave bastard that he was.
“I do wish he’d stop launching into Italian when he doesn’t want me to understand something. It’s really quite disconcerting,” she said with a smirk.
“Yes, it is rather rude of him. Well, he’s just told me he’s in love with you, if that helps ease your mind.”
She spun around so fast that Giuseppe had to hold onto her to stop her tumbling to the ground. Did he really just say that to her? Fuck, he wasn’t ready for this, not yet. And was he? It wasn’t possible, was it? Stupid, sentimental Italian. Think quick, White. Shit.
Giuseppe just stood there with a shit-eating grin on his face. Bastard.
She looked deep into his eyes when she’d righted herself and searched for his reaction to the information. Of course he only frowned and felt his throat tighten, even though the tie was no longer there, still too lost for words to find a response. She saw the confusion instantly as he was clearly far too flummoxed to hide it, so he steeled himself for some sort of emotional retort. She lowered her eyes a little with a small giggle and then returned them to his. The fact that his confusion was amusing her actually helped him regain himself somewhat.
“I’m sure he’ll tell me that himself when he’s ready. However, thank you for your insight, Giuseppe. It was enlightening,” she said, changing her focus to Giuseppe and smiling with warmth and affection.
Alex turned his eyes to Giuseppe and glared at him. He simply threw up his hands and laughed.
“You Englishmen amuse me so much with your feelings. Your inability to just go with it astounds me. Where is the romance, Elizabeth? If you were mine, I’d shout it from the rooftops,” he said, continuing with his chuckling.
Alex clenched his fists and wondered how to respond, given the complete balls up he was currently in the middle of.
“Giuseppe, ho dannatamente bisogno di Cognac e al piu presto,” he snapped at his friend. What a fucking dick. What the hell did he say now? Giuseppe laughed and retreated to the bar to get some drinks as they sat at the table.
He found himself twiddling with the napkin and trying to do anything but look at her. Twiddling, really? For Christ’s sake. He fortified himself and looked up to see the most enchanting eyes twinkling back at him, smiling and biting at her thumbnail. His cock leapt up to attention.
“Is there something you’d like to say, Alex?” she said, fluttering her long eyelashes. Was there? “Elizabeth, I don’t know what came over Giuseppe. He’s normally so... rational. And stop nibbling your damn thumb, it’s distracting.”
“Really? That’s interesting,” she responded, lowering her hand to her drink. “Why do you think he said that then?” she said, now smirking.
“I’m really not sure. Perhaps he’s in love. Shall we ask him?” he replied, trying to deflect the conversation. “Here he comes now.”
Giuseppe put the glasses of cognac on the table, looked at their faces and quite unhelpfully walked away after telling them he would bring their food over when it was ready.
“Alex, please, you started this little game of yours. There is no room for backing down now,” she said, putting her lips to her glass. “This is very good,” she said as he watched her throat swallowing the amber liquid.
“You are not a bloody game to me, Elizabeth,” he replied, glaring at her. Did she really think that? Okay, maybe she was a little at first, but not now. She was far from a fucking game. He’d only been trying to provoke a reaction from her earlier, to show her how to control herself so that nobody hurt her.
“Oh, I think I am, Mr. White. I think you’re trying to control me and manipulate situations to suit yourself, to only allow me to be myself when I’m alone with you and to not ask too much from you. You have encouraged me to become more confident about myself, so guess what? You’ve got it. I’m reasonably happy to play your game because I think you might be worth it, but with one stipulation.”
“And that is?” He quirked his eyebrow. She’s negotiating?
“That you tell me what you actually said to Giuseppe. That is all I want, just true emotions.”
Of all the things she could have asked for, she had to pick the one thing he was struggling to give her. And she knew it. Oh, he knew what he’d said before was enough to let her know how perfect she was to him, but real emotions? Why the hell had he said those words to his old friend? He didn’t even know what to do with his emotions, let alone give them to her.
She watched him as he gazed impassively at her. She sipped at her drink and gracefully tapped her long slender fingers on the table. Where had this woman come from? She was relentless in her lingering stare. He had definitely underestimated her. The weight of her eyes felt like they were draining the very core of him out. He narrowed his eyes at her. He needed to get some fucking control back and damn quickly.
“Elizabeth, we have only known each other a short time and I have told you how I feel. You know I will give you anything you want. You are more important to me than anyone has ever been and-” She cut him off.
“Spit it out, White. Exact words only, please.” She grinned. She had him completely off kilter and she was loving every minute of it. He was so taken aback by her interruption that he almost knocked his drink over and couldn’t help but lift the corners of his mouth as he imagined how many times he had made others feel this way. He picked up the glass, downed his drink and brought his eyes to hers. Time’s up, White. Get on with it.
“I told him that he should be careful with his remarks, that you are my world. I suppose I insinuated that you are the most important thing in the world to me.”
She gazed back with the most magical smile he had ever seen from her. Her eyes sparkled with happiness and the soft sigh that escaped her mouth was the most erotic sound he could ever remember hearing. So much so that he was damn close to throwing her over the table. He gripped onto it in the hope of stopping himself.
“Thank you, Alex. That was beautiful and I’m very glad you said it, both to Giuseppe and me,” she said, reaching for his hand. He took it and grinned like a fucking schoolboy at her, feeling strangely lighter than air as the other more explicit visions left him. The sensation was unexpectedly satisfying and he found himself actually enjoying his own emotional statement.
“Have you both had enough time to extinguish the flames? Your pasta is almost certainly ruined but I am a fool for love,” Giuseppe asked calmly as he wandered toward them.
“Yes, Giuseppe, I think we have reached an amicable conclusion to our negotiations,” he said, winking at her.
“Yes, we have. Please, won’t you join us? I’d love to find out how you two met,” she said sweetly with genuine interest. His heart burned his chest. Christ, she really was perfect.
“I’d love to. Thank you. Shall we start at the beginning? How much do you want her to know, Alex?” he asked, clapping his hands and instructing a waiter to bring them some bread, olives and cold meats.
“As much as you’d like. She can know everything. But we’re going to need a lot more Cognac for this conversation I think.” He pinned her hand under his and stroked the back of it with his thumb.
She grinned at him and blew him a kiss. “But, Elizabeth, the man is known for his exaggerations so please don’t believe everything that comes out of his over exuberant mouth.”
Giuseppe’s hand flew to his heart in a show of mock horror. He was still a theatrical son of a bitch.
“You wound me, old friend. Now where to start,” he mused as he looked at the table as if searching for the memory. “Ah yes, well... The first time I saw Alex, he was stealing apples from my father’s store room downstairs, a scruff of a teenager with an eye for mischief. I liked him immediately. My family did not, and from there, and regardless of the fact that he spoke no Italian at all, he seemed to have no trouble getting us into all sorts of danger.”
He leaned back and watched as his old friend regaled her with over dramatised versions of events from his youth, some of which were true and others that were simply Giuseppe giving his all. Her body language was turned towards the man as he waved his hands about and enticed her with little snippets of information that she clearly lapped up, probably saving it for another time when she could ask for more. He knew it was coming, the inquisition she was slowly managing to make him accept, as if she had some right to know all about who he was. It was odd, but perhaps she did? He’d offered this to her, brought her here knowing his friend would tell her things about himself. Then he’d said he didn’t care how much she knew, that she could know it all, and for the life of him he couldn’t work out why the hell he’d said that. He’d probably take her to Pascal as well, where she’d no doubt gain more information. As long as she never met Aiden Phillips it would be fine. He could control everyone else.
Her face suddenly turned to him and beamed with laughter. He’d been so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t heard what they’d been talking about, but as he watched her full lips work around the words she was forming, he snapped back to reality.
“So did you really teach him how to pick pockets?” she said with a giggle and a wink. “Naughty boy.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Chapter 20
Elizabeth
I wake to the smell of fresh bread and coffee - coffee that is very much needed. Three hours of talking and drinking Cognac into the early hours of the morning has had quite an effect on my sobriety this morning. I liked Giuseppe immensely. He was warm and affectionate and really very funny. The tales of what the two of them had gotten up to all those years ago was fascinating, if somewhat disturbing in places. I still can’t quite come to terms with the fact that Alex had been poor, though - poor enough to steal? How did a man go from a young,
scruffy runaway to the Alexander White that everyone knew today? It just seems impossibly bizarre. And why had he run away anyway? From what? And why Rome, of all places?
When I looked at him for a better insight into the details, he’d closed up on me. He knew what I was asking and had shut the door immediately without apology or regret. Why he couldn’t just open up and let me in I didn’t know. Maybe there was something in his head he just didn’t want me to see, and given that there were few people who actually knew what I’d been told last night, I did at least feel like he was letting me in a bit.
Slipping from the bed, I wince a little as I feel the reminder of the evening’s entertainment as Alex so pleasantly put it. Entertainment? It was bloody torture, but what sweet torture. My orgasm at the opera was ridiculously erotic. I’ve never had one of those in public before. I’d done everything I could to hide it from him but the g-string had just been too much to bear when I sat down. The gentle, constant pressure of the roughened surface on my most sensitive spot had been like an unyielding trigger, pushing me into pleasure quietly every time I crossed my legs, refusing to let me back away from it, and the choker had only intensified the sensation further.
I’d imagined his hands on me as the woman had sung her heart out to a crescendo and then struggled to stop myself from collapsing back into my seat and showing him my rather frazzled state. No matter how much I tried to deny it, though, I was pretty sure he knew. I could see it in his eyes when he looked at me. They twinkled with amusement at my discomfort. Or maybe I was just so embarrassed by it that I felt he must know.
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