by Amy Gamet
“Then what was your thing?”
She laughed. “I was the one who always screwed everything up. You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me and the noticeable absence of my baby’s father.”
“Tell me about him.” He should’ve been sorry that he’d spoken the words, but he wasn’t. He wanted to know. Hell, he’d wanted to know since he first set eyes on her.
She cocked her head and stared at her glass. “Et tu, Matteo?”
“Yes, me, too.” He sensed the question caused her pain, but he couldn’t stop himself from wanting the answer. “You don’t have to tell me, of course.”
“I already did. I thought we were in love. It sounds stupid now because I know it wasn’t true, but then it was the only truth in the whole wide world.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Listen to me. I sound like a foolish young girl.”
“Relationships are always changing. Just because you are not in love at the end doesn’t mean you weren’t in love at the beginning.”
“He told me he wanted to marry me months before I got pregnant. I had no doubt in my mind that’s what would happen. We would get married, I would have the baby, and we would be a family. We’d live in Switzerland away from politics and my father and everything that was wrong in the world.” She took a deep breath and exhaled. “And then he left me.”
“Do you wish he’d come back?”
There it was, the question he really wanted answered, and his stomach clenched in anticipation of her response. She had already told him about her lover, but she’d left this part out.
They were alone in a strange town, stuck here for the night and sharing a bedroom. They’d already come very close to making love. Her answer had the potential to change everything between them.
The words of the priest who married them came to mind.
God works in mysterious ways to bring us the people we are meant to have in our lives.
Was he meant to have Grace in his life forever? In the short time he’d been here, he’d already come to care for her and Nico deeply.
He was falling for his wife.
She met his eyes and the tension between them sharpened to a fine point. “Sometimes,” she whispered.
There you go, you asshole. You just had to ask, didn’t you?
She wanted her lover back. Hell, she was probably thinking about him while he was ogling her in the mirror like some kind of peeping Tom, longing to stroke himself in the darkness and appease this desire for her that was becoming unbearable.
He was tired of jerking off in the shower. It was time for him to let go of this fantasy.
“I’m sorry, Matteo.”
“No need.”
“I need to use the restroom.” She stood up, taking a large black bag with her, and this time he knew what she was doing. He’d have a good long while to sit here and stew over her rejection.
It’s for the best, and you know it. His mind went back to the annulment he needed to get when this was all over. That woman was forbidden fruit, and he sure as hell had better remember that.
24
Breathe, Grace.
She rested her trembling hands on either side of the sink and closed her eyes. Her head was spinning with the first alcoholic buzz she’d had in nearly a year, she was hornier than she could remember being in her life, and that man out there was fishing for a reason to stick around.
He was sexy as hell and it was all she could do to keep from having a real honeymoon with her fake husband. Definitely not a good idea, considering he didn’t want to be stuck married to her forever.
So she’d lied.
She didn’t miss Nico’s father. Not ever. Sure, when she’d first come home with her broken heart she had, but after she learned he’d deliberately left her?
No way in hell.
She’d barely thought of him at all in the weeks since she’d married Matteo. When he did cross her mind, it was with a flash of annoyance or deep-seated anger, certainly not attraction and definitely not love.
No, all her desire was tied up with that man in the restaurant who’d bought her champagne and started asking her serious questions.
Champagne makes girls dance and drop their pants.
She could see him lying in the dark, watching her in the mirror night after night as she left herself uncovered for his pleasure. She could feel his mouth on her private places, her body shuddering with her intense climax, wishing he would fill her with his sweet cock.
But he hadn’t done it, all because he wanted his precious annulment.
You know he’s right about that. This is just a job to Matteo.
A deafening boom echoed through the walls and the bathroom went dark. Confusion mixed with a primal fear. She looked around at the inky blackness, not understanding what had happened.
Before she could even move her feet, she heard his voice in the darkness. “Grace!”
“I’m here!”
They reached each other and his hand found hers. “Come with me,” he yelled over the screams of people in the distance, pulling her out of the bathroom and into a thick wall of dust and smoke. There was some light here that managed to get through the heavy particles. Things crashed around them.
Matteo pulled her through the chaos toward the light. There were people everywhere, all trying to make their way out of the space at once, sharp pieces of the restaurant reaching out to scratch her, one slamming into her side, but Matteo kept pulling her, steady and strong. She could barely breathe by the time they reached open air.
Other people stood still in the street, but he pulled her through the crowd without slowing down. She wanted to ask him where he was going, but her lungs burned and all she could do was cough. Sirens wailed in the distance.
They went around a sharp corner and he stopped abruptly, pushing her backwards. “Get down!” He shoved her beside a rank dumpster and followed her down, pulling out a black handgun.
Where the hell did that come from?
“You stay here,” he said. “Make yourself as small as possible and don’t move.”
She cowered as he stood up and a shot rang out through the street, echoing off the buildings. He returned fire, the noise so loud she covered her ears. Several more shots and he was pulling at her. She uncovered her ears.
“Stand up, now. We have to run.”
Again she did as she was told, following him through the streets on her aching hip and feet that were sore from her high heeled shoes.
Finally, he rounded a building into an alleyway and stopped running. He turned to her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
The light from a streetlamp illuminated a dark stain on his upper sleeve and she gasped. “You’re injured.”
“Just a flesh wound.”
“We have to get you to a hospital.”
“We need to get you back to the hotel. That wasn’t just a random attack, Grace. Someone was gunning for you.”
“And you took the bullet.”
“I told you, I’m fine.” He tucked his gun inside his jacket and put his good arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay now. We lost whoever was following us, and we’re almost back to the hotel. Everything’s going to be okay.”
The started walking. “Was it a bomb?” she asked.
“Yes. There was a flash and a bang and all hell broke loose.”
She swallowed against a knot in her throat. “Another terrorist attack.”
“It looks that way.”
She felt as if her whole soul was trembling and she was suddenly so grateful her son wasn’t here.
“This is the hotel,” he said. “Come on.” They walked up several steps to the top of a loading dock, and he opened the door. “Service entrance.”
“How did you—”
“I studied the map this morning.”
They took the elevator to their floor and he again took out his gun. “Stay here while I see if anyone’s been in the room.”
“How can you tell?”
“I left a piece of hair on top of the door hinge.”
She nodded, incapable of words.
He reached on top of the door hinge and walked back to her. “Looks good. I’m just going to double-check.” He went in the room with his weapon at the ready, returning a minute later. “All clear.”
She walked to the room, noticing the blisters on the backs of her heels as she moved. She hadn’t even been aware of them before now. Her hip ached, and she suspected she had quite a bruise. When Matteo closed the door behind them, she’d never felt more relieved in her life.
She moved to the window and stared outside. So much had changed since the last time she stood in this very spot. Before she’d felt invincible. Now she knew she was vulnerable to attack.
“You’re okay now. We’re okay,” he said.
“Let me see your arm.”
She could see him in the glass, unbuttoning his dress shirt, then working the fabric over his wound. The lines of his abdominal muscles clearly visible in his reflection and her stomach clenched down low. He had a beautiful body, this man who’d just saved her life.
She bit her lip and turned around. A one-by-four-inch stripe of skin was missing from the outside of his left arm. She sucked in air, her mouth making a hissing sound as she moved to him, and she forced herself to examine the wound when she wanted to look away.
“You need medical attention.”
“I need a bandage.”
“It’s more than just skin.” She covered her mouth. He would have this mark on him forever, long after he’d left her life. “You need antibiotics, at the very least.”
“The bandage will be fine. The front desk probably has something.”
“I’ll call down.”
He was right. They had a small selection of first aid items that would take care of their immediate need.
“I’m going to call Trudy, too,” she said. “She can have my father’s doctor send along a prescription.”
“I don’t want to go out.”
“We’ll have it delivered.”
He gestured to his arm. “I’m going to wash this out.”
The bandages arrived and they sat on the bed as she covered his wound as best she could.
“You make a pretty good field nurse,” he said. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” She covered her eyes with her hand.
“What’s wrong, Grace?”
She shook her head. “People were shooting at us today. If that bullet had been just a couple of inches the other way…”
“Come here.” He held out his arm and she scooted next to him on the bed.
“You could have been hurt.”
“So could you.”
“But you could have been hurt for me.”
He stroked her hair. “That’s what I signed up for. Protecting you.”
She held out a hand to him, needing his touch, and he took it.
“What if something happened to you?”
“Something eventually happens to all of us. I’m good at what I do, and I want to spend my life making a difference for those who need me on their side.”
She rested her head on his good shoulder. “I need you, Matteo.”
This was a dance, each step choreographed to get them closer to each other, and her spine tingled with a heady mix of excitement and fear. “I need you to protect me, and I need you to touch me and make me feel safe.”
His eyes were locked on hers, his stare intense.
“I want to kiss you,” she said, lifting her chin and moving toward his mouth.
“Don’t.”
“Please…”
“I said no, Grace.” The deep tenor of his voice seemed to shake the air in the room. She jerked her head back.
“Why not?”
He seemed to be holding himself rigid and taut. She wasn’t crazy. She knew she wasn’t. The sexual chemistry between them was searing, and he must be refusing her kisses for a different reason altogether.
“Don’t you want me to kiss you?” she asked. She felt like she was falling, hoping his answer would save her like a bungee cord pulling her back to safety.
“Hell yes.” His voice was rough and gravelly. “But if we kiss, I’ll need to touch your sweet, smooth skin. I’ll need to touch your body—to feel it with my hands.”
Her breath came quickly and her heart beat faster.
“And if I touch you,” he said, “I’ll need to make love to your sweet goddamn body. I won’t keep myself from doing that again. It nearly killed me the last time, not to be inside you when you came.”
A hot flush bloomed over her chest and up her neck to her cheeks. She could imagine him making love to her, imagine how good it would feel.
“And if we make love there won’t be any annulment,” he said. “I’ll take a bullet for you any day of the week, but damn it, Grace, you’re in love with another man.”
“But—”
He stood. “I won’t stay married to a woman who’s in love with another man. And you shouldn’t ask me to.” He walked into the bathroom, closing the door between them.
25
Matteo let the steaming spray cascade over his head and shoulders. He was wired, full of adrenaline and angst, his thoughts shuttling between his desperate need to fuck his wife and their brush with death at the restaurant.
If they were being deliberately targeted, then whomever was after them likely knew where they were staying, too.
Yet the hotel room had been untouched, the telltale hair he’d put on the top of the door hinge still in place. No one had been here while they were gone.
He could relax, be less vigilant, at least for now. Tomorrow they would be back in the car, little more than a moving target for anyone who wanted to hurt them.
This sham of a marriage was going to be the death of him. His restraint could only take so much before it would tear like a tendon that was pulled too far. His cock was standing tall and rigid in the spray of water.
It was his fault for encouraging her, for taking her to dinner and giving her champagne. Hell, he’d been encouraging himself, too. He knew all too well that he wanted her and only the slightest temptation would find him caught between desire and his own morality.
He picked up the soap and unwrapped it, tossing the paper over the curtain to the floor before scrubbing his body with punishing strokes.
He wanted her in here with him, her hot, wet mouth open beneath his as he pushed her against the tile wall.
Put a thousand men in this position and nine hundred and seventy-five of them would be a hell of a lot happier than he was right now.
So kiss her.
You don’t have to have sex.
Just kiss her.
His cock was throbbing and he squeezed himself tightly. He wouldn’t be able to stop if she was willing, wouldn’t be able to control this desperate need to be inside her if she was begging him for just that.
He pulled on his cock, imagining her beneath him, his excitement needing no more encouragement than that visual provided. He pumped once into his fisted hand, desperate for the release that could free his mind from this damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. But he didn’t want to jerk off in the shower.
He wanted to make love to Grace.
A good, hard fucking that could erase this need for her body forever.
Yeah, like that’s going to happen.
One taste of that woman and he’d only want more.
Angry with himself, he dried off and dressed in the dark before reentering the bedroom. She was in one bed, under the covers. He slipped into the other and stared at the ceiling.
He lay awake for hours, planning what he’d do now. When they got back to the house, he would move his makeshift bed to the other side of the room so he would no longer be able to see her with the baby at night.
He’d be polite and courteous to her, but he would work to keep the conversations impersonal and avoid being alone with her whenever possible.
No more dinner dates.
No more fucking champagne.
It was the only way he was going to make it until the election without having sex with her.
Many, many times.
When sleep came, it was fitful and full of dreams of her, so that when she walked from her bed to the bathroom several times, he thought he must be dreaming.
Then he heard her whimper.
He threw the covers back and went to the bathroom door. “Are you okay?”
She cleared her throat. “I’m fine.”
He walked back to his bed and sat on the edge, confused.
Was she upset about the attack in the restaurant? Sometimes he forgot regular people weren’t used to this shit. Of course she would be upset.
She came back to the room and climbed into her bed.
“I know how hard it is. You experienced quite a shock tonight,” he said.
“That’s not the problem.”
“Then what is it?”
She sighed heavily. “If you must know, I had my pump with me in my bag at the restaurant.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” She rolled over in her bed.
She’d said that was painful. “Is there anything else you can do?”
“I’m not having this conversation with you.”
“Why not? I’m only trying to help.”
“Because you don’t get to have it both ways, Matteo. You don’t get to turn me down and close the door on me and make me feel like day-old bread, then turn around and be my helper again. You don’t want me? Fine. Just leave me the hell alone.”
“You’re in pain. I hate to see you hurting.”
She sighed heavily. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, drop the saintly protector bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit. I want to help you.”
“I hate to ruin your hero complex, but unless you have a hungry infant, there’s nothing you can do.”
Unless he used his mouth on those luscious tits of hers. His cock leaped to life.
Oh, fuck.
Hero complex. Screw her.
That’s the problem, remember?
He ran a hand through his hair. There had to be another way to help her, though the visual of his first idea was forever burned in his brain. He pulled out his phone and went to his browser. You could find anything on the Internet.
