Skye watched the man leave, perplexed, and then turned her attention to Matteo. He hadn’t moved. His attention was still on Skye’s face, watchful and attentive. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
She knew what he meant and didn’t bother to obfuscate. ‘You chose it,’ she said with a shrug. And now she lifted the ring out, holding it between her forefinger and thumb. ‘I used to love it for that reason alone.’
‘But it’s not what you would have chosen?’
‘I would never have wanted to choose my own ring.’ She fixed him with a determined gaze. ‘In hindsight, it should have told me how little you knew me.’
His lips twisted with mockery. Directed at her, or himself?
He reached across, retrieving the ring from her hands and sliding it back onto her ring finger. ‘Wear it until I arrange a replacement.’
Her blood bubbled and swirled. A replacement spoke of such permanence. And in the meantime?
She stared down at the enormous diamond—a diamond that had kept her company all the time she’d been married to Matteo, a diamond she had thought she would wear for ever, and felt a hint of disloyalty. ‘Perhaps we can have it turned into a pendant. If it’s a daughter, she can have it for her sixteenth birthday.’
His eyes held a sparkle she didn’t understand. ‘Certainly. Or we can sell it for our son’s first car.’
‘God, this is really happening, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, cara. It is.’
‘You seem so glad about that.’
He shrugged. ‘Having not planned it does not make the news less welcome.’
‘You didn’t want children.’
‘You are so sure of that?’
She nodded. ‘You said so.’
A frown pulled at his features. ‘You are twenty-two years old, Skye. I cannot think what I was doing at twenty-two, but it was not raising a child.’
‘You were running your business,’ she pointed out. ‘In fact, you had been doing so for several years.’
‘You remember so clearly.’
Her cheeks flooded with peach. Of course she remembered. She remembered everything he’d ever said, as though he’d imprinted his words against the iron of her soul, branding her for all time.
‘So it’s not like you were out being all irresponsible or anything. You were working hard.’
‘I was doing both,’ he said seriously. ‘I worked hard. Played harder.’
Jealousy fired through her and she hated it. For one thing, she’d still been a child when he had been twenty-two. There was no way she could be threatened by the fact he’d had relationships before her.
The waiter appeared silently, and another waitress behind him who carried a tray with champagne flutes; champagne and a platter of food.
‘Compliments of the establishment,’ the waiter murmured, placing the food and drinks down, bowing low and then disappearing.
‘I suppose it would be rude to tell him we don’t want champagne?’
He ignored her question. ‘I didn’t think having children made sense.’ He shrugged. ‘But that decision is now out of my hands.’
She tilted her face away, staring out at the Grand Canal and the hustle and bustle of Venice in the afternoon.
It was a city like no other.
Its character changed so completely depending on what time of day it was. Now, in the early afternoon, the strada were crowded with tourists, big and happy, wearing hats and cameras and beaming smiles, talking loudly and laughing and eating as they walked, making their way back to the cruise terminal, ready to continue their tour of Europe.
Come night time, the streets would be filled with Venetians, promenading elegantly, speaking quietly, their voices taking on a musical quality as they lulled against the canals.
‘Of course it’s not...ideal,’ she said jerkily. ‘I meant what I said when I came to see you. I want a divorce.’ Her voice wobbled and she forced herself to be calm, digging her nails into her palms. ‘But I can understand why you want to give this a chance.’ She swallowed. ‘So I think we should try this. Try to make it work. For the baby’s sake.’
His eyes held a quality that filled her with something strange. Emotions were rioting beneath her skin. ‘A real marriage?’
‘No.’ Her smile was wistful. ‘It will never be that. We’ll both know that it’s just for our son or daughter. But I’ll stop fighting this. I’ll try to make a life here. A life outside of you.’ She breathed out softly then turned to face him. ‘But if I’m miserable, I’ll go. And I will trust that deep down, beneath the way you are, beyond being ruthless and determined and cold, there is a good man who will be reasonable and treat me with respect, for the sake of our child.’ She tilted her chin at a defiant angle, and Matteo was silent. The champagne bottle sat between them, mocking the seriousness of their discussion with its frothy enthusiasm.
‘So pragmatic,’ he murmured after a long pause. Was Skye imagining the way his words were deepened by emotion?
‘I took a page out of your book,’ she volleyed back.
‘You perfected it, it would appear.’
* * *
Matteo stared out at the canal, his expression sombre.
How could he argue with such impeccable logic? He couldn’t. For all his bluster and bravado, had he really expected he’d keep Skye locked up in his house forever? Had he thought he could threaten her with a custody battle and that she’d give up her life and freedom to be in a marriage that made her miserable?
It wasn’t as though he could outgun her on the legal side. She had endless resources and a great reputation. If anything, attacking her in the courts would backfire badly, given her age and philanthropic history. And his reputation as a cold, heartless bastard.
‘Matteo? You’re a thousand miles away.’
He blinked, drawing his attention back to Skye. She was lifting a final spoonful of the dessert to her lips. Lips that were pink and full and that drew his gaze as a flower did a bee.
His stomach lurched. Desire, unfathomable, irrepressible desire, swarmed him.
‘I was thinking about the bridge,’ he said after a moment’s pause.
‘The Rialto?’
He nodded, a gruff shift of his head. ‘You know, it took a heap of money to build. They had to get funds from lots of different sources. There was even a sort of early iteration of the lottery that raised money for its construction.’
Skye tilted her head to the side. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘I was thinking that sometimes taking a gamble on something pays off. Sometimes it can lead to something unique and lasting.’ He turned his attention back to her. ‘Don’t you think?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
SKYE SHIFTED UNCOMFORTABLY in her seat, keeping her discomfort hidden from her husband’s all-seeing gaze.
Only, Matteo did see the way she winced, and leaned forward. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing,’ Skye said, a tight smile on her face. ‘I just walked too far today, that’s all.’ This day, and every day for the last week, since they’d taken to strolling around Venice each morning, afterwards stopping somewhere new for lunch.
Conversation was limited to unsensational topics, like the weather or current events or politics; nothing that they disagreed on. Nothing that could remind Skye that they were enemies, really, beneath the romance of Venice and the fact they were going to become parents.
But deep down she knew they were pretending again. At least they both knew the rules this time.
And Matteo seemed determined to stick to them. After the night on the terrace, he hadn’t said or done anything out of line. Not a word of seduction, not a hint of flirtation. He’d been the perfect gentleman.
‘You’re in pain?’
‘No, no.’ She winced again. ‘Just a little. It’s my lower back, that’s all. It’s an occupational hazard of the whole pregnancy thing.’
‘We’ve been pushing it.’ His words were tinged with self-recrimination. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s hardly your fault,’ Skye said, her brows drawn together. ‘I’m the one who keeps suggesting we go out.’
He held his expression neutral but there was a hint of something she didn’t understand that danced in the edges of his eyes. ‘I was foolish to let you walk so much.’
‘Let me?’ Skye countered. ‘Remember that whole “me being an autonomous human being” thing? Remember how I have that small thing called free will?’
Again, his eyes flicked with something she didn’t understand and then he stood, moving around the dinner table, extending his hands to her.
‘What is it?’ She looked at him, lifting her hands into his, the brightness of her diamond glinting in the pale light of the room.
‘Let me help you.’
‘I’m fine,’ she demurred, instantly pushing against whatever help he had in mind.
‘What’s the matter, Skye? Are you afraid of what might happen if I touch you?’
She swallowed past the lump in her throat, her eyes holding his. She was terrified.
Terrified of how badly she wanted him. The week they’d spent trawling all over Venice, exploring it anew, had been like the honeymoon they’d never had. It was the other piece of the puzzle. After their wedding, they’d had sex. A lot of sex. And she’d thought that was intimacy. But walking side by side, not touching, just talking, had been different.
It had been a form of torturous foreplay and, yes, she was afraid of what would happen if he touched her. But she stood anyway, not blinking, not doing anything to convey that fear.
‘Lie down.’ He nodded towards one of the long couches that sat opposite them. She nodded, moving across the room with the grace that was innate to her.
‘You don’t have to do this...’
‘You’re uncomfortable because of my baby. Of course I have to help you. It is my duty.’
Again, his insistence on his duty filled her with a cold ache—it served as a reminder of the fact he viewed her as an obligation. A responsibility. She kept her face averted as she lay down on her stomach, tilting her head to look out towards the view. She could see only the flower pots, an explosion of geraniums in the pale moonlight.
His hands on her back were gentle.
He knelt at her side and ran his fingers over her with just enough pressure to bring a sense of immediate relief.
‘May I lift your shirt?’ The words were throaty and deep.
Skye’s eyes were drawn to his. ‘Yes.’
He pushed the fabric up slowly and she held her breath. It was just a few inches, enough for him to be able to massage her naked flesh. But it was skin-to-skin contact and it rocked her world. She bit down on her lower lip and shut her eyes, surrendering to the sensations that were rioting through her.
‘What’s this from?’ He drew his finger over her skin, tracing a very pale imperfection that ran in a semi-circular shape.
‘A dog bite,’ Skye murmured, sleepy and relaxed. ‘When I was twelve.’
She didn’t see him frown. ‘It only bit you here?’
Skye stifled a yawn. ‘Yes. He was old and quite crazy, really. He’d got a fright and I was sitting on the floor, right beside him. He gave me a fright, let me tell you.’
‘I didn’t know you had a dog.’
‘He wasn’t mine,’ Skye murmured, shifting a little. Her back was feeling much better but she didn’t tell Matteo that. He continued to move his palms over her flesh and she didn’t want him to stop. Ever. ‘He was my great-aunt’s.’
Matteo’s hands were still for a moment. ‘She raised you after your father died?’
‘Yeah.’ Another yawn. ‘She had seven dogs. Apparently she had a penchant for taking in strays. I was her last, though.’
‘You were hardly a stray,’ Matteo pointed out. ‘Are you close to her?’
‘She passed away three years ago,’ Skye said crisply, closing the conversation out of habit.
‘Were you close to her? Before she died,’ Matteo pushed, either not comprehending her cues or not caring about them.
Skye tossed the words around in her mind, making sense of them, listening to them as if she were an outsider. ‘She raised me,’ Skye said after a long pause. ‘I’m very grateful to her.’
But Matteo wasn’t fooled by Skye’s selective choice of language. She was hiding something, and that rankled. More than it should, given their relationship, or lack thereof. What had he expected? That she’d suddenly open up and confide all her deep and dark secrets to him?
She certainly wouldn’t now. But how come they’d never discussed this before, when they’d first married? Why hadn’t he asked more questions?
Because he hadn’t wanted to know.
Skye had simply been a means to an end, not a person with her own thoughts, feelings, history and sadness.
The realisation wasn’t new, yet it sat strangely in his chest, like an accusation lined with barbed wire. He’d looked at her and seen the hotel.
He gazed down on his wife and a tight smile cracked his lips as he saw that she had fallen asleep. With her dark hair and pink cheeks and pale skin, her red lips shaped like two perfect rose petals. She was his own Snow White.
Only he was no Prince Charming. Prince Charming would never have married her for a hotel. To avenge a theft that had taken place years earlier. And he certainly wouldn’t have blackmailed her into staying married.
His smile faded as he reached for her gently, lifting her as though she weighed nothing, and cradling her to his chest.
She stirred a little, lifting a hand to him, but then she relaxed, a smile on her face.
He lifted his gaze, staring straight ahead as he carried her through the house and up the stairs, to the solitude of her own room.
* * *
Skye’s dreams were of Matteo. Of the night they’d met—the night she’d fallen in love. Her dreams were of their conversations, the words he’d offered her that had been more special than gold dust. ‘I don’t believe in fairy tales,’ she’d told him the day after they’d met, when the mirage of a fairy tale had hovered on her horizon. She hadn’t dared try to grab it. Reaching for perfection resulted in pain.
‘Even when you’re living one?’ he’d pushed, pressing his lips to her cheek so that her stomach had lurched, her heart had thumped and her body had gone into sensory meltdown.
‘There’s no such thing.’ She’d learned that lesson years ago. Her mother had deserted her. Her father had never bothered to get to know her. Her great-aunt had avoided affection as though it were a sign of personal weakness to care for another human. Boarding school had been more a prison than a Hogwarts. ‘There’s just real life.’
‘But sometimes real life can be every bit as perfect as a fairy tale, no?’
Her dreams were of their first kiss, his proposal, their wedding, their first time together. All the times thereafter. The fairy tale she’d thought she was living. A fairy tale that had been a nightmare, in all ways but one. He’d betrayed her and he’d broken her heart, but his body called to hers. Nothing would change that.
She moaned in her bed, arching her back, and she could feel the ghost of his hands on her. A phantom touch that was a torment because it was not real. She stretched her hands out, instinctively seeking him, and not finding him. She reached for him and didn’t connect with flesh.
The sense of loss was instant and it was sharp. She stood on autopilot, still groggy from sleep, her body in complete charge. She moved through his home with no idea of the time. It could have been midnight, or it could have been the early hours of the morning. It didn’t matter.
She contemplated knocking on his door, but didn’t. She pushed it inwards, hovering on the threshold.
There was no such thing as fairy tales. She’d been right. That wasn’t what this was. But he was her husband and in that moment she needed him with a ferocity that wouldn’t be quelled. He was asleep in bed. She tiptoed across the floorboards and then rolled her eyes.
Was she afraid of waking hi
m? Wasn’t that kind of the point?
Still, she crept towards the bed, pausing for a moment to study him.
He was a stunning specimen of masculinity but, asleep like this, she felt all his vulnerabilities as well. She could see the man he was and the boy he’d been. She could see all the parts of him and her heart lurched with recognition of the fact that she loved all those parts. His arrogance. His determination. Even his ruthlessness. For these aspects all made Matteo who he was.
She moved quietly but quickly, shedding her clothes, thinking she should have done it before she made her way to his room, then she pushed the sheet back and straddled him, dropping her mouth to his and kissing him.
He made a low moan from deep in his throat and his hands lifted, catching her face and holding her still so that his eyes could latch to hers. His room was dark but there was enough light cast by the moon and the lights beyond the villa for them to see one another. He stared at her for a moment, at her face, her lips that were parted in expectation, her eyes that were hooded with desire and her body that was naked, needing him.
‘I want you,’ she said simply and he groaned once more, dropping his hands to her hips and positioning her so that she could slide onto his length and take him deep inside.
She tilted her head to the ceiling at the feeling, so welcome, so familiar, so perfect. Her body was on fire. Every nerve ending was dancing inside her, quivering with the rightness of his touch. She dropped forward, bringing her mouth to his, kissing him hungrily as he moved inside her. She rolled her hips, her rhythm desperate and fast, her needs insatiable, and he laughed softly, nodding against her head.
‘I know.’
He caught her at the waist and rolled her easily, breaking their bodies apart. And, though it was a brief separation, it was enough for Skye to issue a sound of complaint that had him laughing once more, softly, a short sound that filled her with impatience. But then he was back, moving into her deeper, harder, his body taking control of hers and commanding their desire; building it up, wrapping it around them, making her tremble and writhe beneath him as pleasure built and built inside her, stretching like a coil that wouldn’t be contained.
Bound by the Billionaire's Vows Page 10
