Yes, God, yes.
She couldn’t deny it. She couldn’t escape it. She wanted to be his. Despite the fact that he was broken, damaged in ways she didn’t know if she could heal, and despite the fact that she already had a fiancé lying in a coma in a hospital bed, she wanted to be Nero’s. He’d released something inside her, a passion she’d kept trapped for a long time, allowing her a freedom she hadn’t known was possible. And even more than that, even simpler, he saw her and accepted her as she was, not what he wanted her to be. Something that no one else did.
The wood beneath her cheek had rubbed her skin raw, and she knew she was going to have marks at the tops of her thighs from the edge of the desk, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about any of it.
“Yes,” she said simply, and her voice didn’t shake, not this time. “I’m yours.”
He made a guttural, satisfied sound, his fingers gripping her wrist, dragging it down and beneath her, guiding it between her thighs.
“Touch yourself,” he ordered. “Make yourself come for me, Phoebe.”
So she did, sliding her fingers over her own slick flesh as he pulled his cock back then thrust back in, slower this time and yet no less hard, tearing raw sounds of pleasure from her.
It didn’t take long.
On the third thrust she felt the climax break over her, and she sobbed against the wood, her finger stroking her clit over and over, the aftershocks making her buck and jerk beneath him.
She was only half-aware when she felt his thrusts begin to get wilder and out of control. When his big body stiffened and a roar broke from him, one hand coming down hard on the desk beside her head, bracing himself as the climax took him, too.
It seemed to take forever to come back to herself and even though his weight on her was uncomfortable, the edge of the desk digging into her even more, she didn’t move, quite happy to stay right where she was.
But he shifted, withdrawing from her, clothing rustling, then his hands on her, easing up her knickers and smoothing down her skirt, covering her up again. Then, with gentle insistence, he helped her up and turned her around. She tipped her head back to look up at him, leaning against the desk because her legs felt too wobbly to support her, and her chest went tight at the expression on his face.
His features were set in hard, grim lines, and he didn’t say anything, only looked at her for a long, silent minute. Then he turned, moving over to where all the stuff he’d swept from the desktop had fallen, and bent to pick up a keyboard. Bringing it back, he set it on the desk, his finger hovering above one of the keys as if he couldn’t bring himself to push it.
“Nero?” She wanted to touch him, to soothe him somehow, but instinct told her if she did that, he wouldn’t push that button.
He glanced at her, his expression curiously blank. Then abruptly he looked away, his attention on the screens behind her, and pressed the button.
Flickering white light suddenly illuminated his face, and she knew that he’d turned the screens back on.
What was he doing?
His fingers moved on the keyboard a couple more times, then his dark eyes shifted to hers once more. He didn’t speak, looking at her intently for a second then back at the screen behind her. His meaning was clear; he wanted her to look at something.
She swallowed, trepidation curling through her. Because she knew—she knew—that whatever it was he wanted to show her, it wasn’t going to be good.
He stepped back from the desk and without a word turned around, moving a few steps toward the door. But he didn’t go out, he remained standing there with his back to her and the wall of screens. Waiting.
Phoebe took a silent breath. Part of her didn’t want to see, didn’t want to look. Surely, she had too much on her plate as it was without whatever the truth was about Nero de Santis?
But deep in her heart, she knew she wasn’t going to turn away from this.
She had to know the truth, no matter how terrible it might be.
Phoebe turned around and faced the screens.
They had all gone dark except the middle one, and on that she saw what looked to be a news story. At first all she could see was the picture of an emaciated young boy being led from a broken-down apartment building by some official looking people. He had shaggy black hair and his dark eyes were huge in his sunken face. He was looking at the camera with absolute terror while around him was a wall of reporters and TV cameras and press photographers.
The headline screamed, “Billionaire’s Long Lost Son Found Living in Secret Room!”
Phoebe frowned, staring at the boy in the picture, not really making any sense of it. Why was Nero showing her this? What did it mean?
Then recognition hit her like a bucket of icy water on a hot summer day.
Oh God. The boy in the picture. It was Nero.
Cold fingers trailed down on her spine, and there was a moment where she second-guessed herself, because surely it wasn’t him. The boy looked so small. So fragile. Nothing like the tall, massively build man standing so silently behind her.
And yet . . . She began to read the story, her heart getting tighter and tighter the more she read.
A fifteen-year-old boy was found today living in a boarded-up room in an apartment in Queens. His mother was reported as having kept him there for ten years, claiming she had to keep her son a secret in order to protect him from the boy’s violent stepfather. She also claimed he is the illegitimate son of Cesare de Santis, the billionaire CEO of defense company, DS Corp
A woman has been arrested on child-abuse charges.
Cesare de Santis could not be reached for comment.
The words began to swim in front of her eyes, and she had to blink hard, her throat aching, her chest feeling like there was a heavy stone sitting on it.
Nero had been kept locked away in a room for ten years. Ten years. By his own mother. She could hardly believe it. Yet there it was, the proof, right in front of her eyes.
Phoebe couldn’t look away from the picture of the boy. He looked . . . ten, not fifteen, and yet, that’s how old he’d been when he was found. A starved, emaciated boy, who’d been shut up, who’d been kept a prisoner all that time.
“Sometimes I used to wish I could fly . . . like the birds. . . . “
A tear ran down her face, then another and another. And she didn’t stop them, letting them fall for a few moments, crying for him because she was sure he hadn’t cried for himself.
“Don’t.” His voice was hard and rough-edged.
She bent her head, tears falling onto the desk. She’d thought she’d been silent, but clearly not. “Why not? Shouldn’t someone cry for you?”
“Not you.”
“Too late.” She swiped at the tears, inhaling shakily. “I don’t know what to say. Nero, what happened to you . . .”
“It’s done. It’s over.” Hard and flat, as if saying it with enough certainty would make it true.
Phoebe brushed at her cheeks and turned around.
He was still standing with his back to her, his posture so stiff it was as if he was bracing himself for some kind of impact.
Or he’s protecting himself.
Well, of course he was. That’s why he never talked about the fact he’d hadn’t left his house for years. Why he’d never admitted it.
Because he didn’t want to think about it. Because he was trying to protect himself from the truth.
Oh God, she’d had no idea. That he was broken, yes, but the extent of the damage she’d never have guessed at. He was lying to himself. It wasn’t over and done with, because if it was, he would have left this house a long time ago.
Her heart cracked a little in her chest, another tear trailing down her cheek. “But it’s not done, is it?” she said thickly. “Not when you’re still trapped in that room.”
The silence that fell was so dense it felt like she was standing on the bottom of the ocean.
Abruptly Nero turned to face her, his jaw tight, his eyes deep and da
rk as black holes. “That’s bullshit,” he spat. “I got out. I got well. I got a job and I made some fucking money, and I did it all without anyone’s fucking help.” His big hands had curled into fists. “I put it behind me, and now it’s over.”
He sounded so sure, fury threading through his voice. Yet underneath that fury, she could hear his desperation. He was clinging to the lie for all he was worth.
Her chest was so tight she could hardly breathe, but she pulled herself together. Looked him in the eye. Maybe it was cruel and maybe it was wrong, but someone had to make him see the truth. “Nero, you live in this room, your office, and your gym,” she said clearly. “You’ve only just been able to make it to the dining room. And you haven’t left this house in ten years. That’s how long you were in that room for. So no, you haven’t put it behind you.” She paused, holding his gaze. “You’re still in there.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw, his knuckles white. “The press were insane,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her. “And once they discovered I really was Cesare de Santis’s son, they got even worse. Being around more than a couple of people at a time was difficult, but the media following me . . . My fucking father bought me a house since he thought throwing money at the problem of me being his son would make it all go away. And I found when I shut the door, I could shut them all out.” His chest heaved, as if he was trying to get a breath and couldn’t. “So yeah, I like being in my goddamned house. There’s no fucking law against that, is there? I mean, Christ, if the press were all over you 24/7, isn’t that what you’d do?”
Her stomach lurched. Was that how it had started? With the press? She could well imagine it, a kid whose entire world had been one small room in a house, suddenly rescued and thrust into the limelight. And him being the son of Cesare de Santis would have made it even worse. No wonder the press had hounded him. After all that time by himself, having crowds of people all around him must have been terrifying.
So . . . had he just walked into his new house, shut the door, and never left? Retreating further and further into that house until he’d trapped himself in these four rooms?
“I suppressed all the news,” he went on, the words spilling out of him as if he couldn’t keep them all inside. “They say the internet is for fucking ever, but it’s not. Not if you know how to hide things. And I do. I made sure all those goddamned news stories would never be found so that people couldn’t search on me. So that they’d leave me alone.”
Ah, so that’s why she hadn’t been able to find anything on him. He’d deleted everything or at least hidden it.
She stared at him, at the hard glitter in his eyes, the muscle leaping in the side of his jaw. The tension that was virtually screaming off him.
He was still hiding from it. Even now.
Phoebe pushed away from the desk and walked slowly toward him, emotion a massive rock sitting on her chest. Because it was obvious what she had to do. He’d pushed her to confront her own demons and now she had to push him. Or else, a few rooms in his house would be all he’d ever see.
Perhaps some part of him knew exactly what she was going to do, because he took a step away from her, his shoulders going back, his nostrils flaring like a bull before a red flag.
But she ignored the warning signs, going straight up to him and reaching out, taking his face between her palms and holding on tight. Then she looked straight into his night-dark eyes. “It’s been fifteen years, Nero,” she said. “There are no press outside. Not anymore. Is that what happened? Did you walk into the house your father bought you and never came out again?”
He stiffened, his mouth going hard. He tried to pull away, but she held on tight to him. “That is what happened,” she went on, not giving an inch. “You did close that front door. And look at you . . . You can’t even go to the dining room without breaking into a sweat. You’ve stayed behind that door ever since.”
His big body shuddered, the look in his eyes full of something raw and hot and terrifying. But she didn’t let him go, and she didn’t look away. “You’re lying to yourself, Nero. You don’t stay here because of the press or because you don’t need to go outside or any of those other excuses. You stay because you can’t actually leave.”
His lips peeled back in a snarl. “I can leave whenever I fucking want to!”
“Then, why don’t you?” She moved in closer, her body inches from his. “Why don’t you walk out that front door right now? You can, you know. No one’s stopping you.”
He made a growing noise in his throat, jerking his head from her hands. “Don’t tell me what to fucking do.”
She could feel the warmth of his skin against her palms, the pain of his past in her heart. He was desperately holding onto his delusion, she could see that, and it broke her heart a little more. “You’re lying to yourself,” she said quietly. “And I think you know that. The truth is there. You just don’t want to see it.”
His head went back as if she’d slapped him, and he took a sharp step away from her, denial in every inch of him.
Then, jarringly, his phone buzzed.
Nero reached for it, dragging it from his pocket and answering, his gaze never leaving hers. Then he frowned and slowly held out the phone to her. “It’s for you.”
She blinked, not quite processing it for a second. A phone call for her? But how? And why were they calling Nero?
Taking the phone, she lifted it to her ear. “Hello? This is Phoebe.”
“Miss Taylor? It’s Dr. Jenkins. I’m sorry I had to call your employer. You weren’t answering your phone. You need to get to the hospital as quick as you can.”
Shock reverberated through her. “Charles?”
“Yes.” Dr. Jenkins’s voice was calm yet gentle. “He’s not able to fight this infection the way we’d hoped, and I’m afraid it’s not looking good.”
Her throat was aching, tears in her eyes yet again, crying for another broken man. “Okay,” she forced out. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Nero’s gaze had narrowed, sharpened. “What’s happening, Phoebe?” he demanded as she disconnected the call and handed the phone back to him.
“It’s Charles.” She swallowed, turning to the door. “I have to go.”
Nero’s arm shot out, curling around her waist. “No. I told you. You’re mine and—”
“Charles is dying!” she said, her voice rising. She pulled against his grip, suddenly shaking. “I have to go, Nero. I have to.”
And there was a moment where she didn’t think he would let her.
Then something in his face shifted, his arm dropping from around her waist, setting her free. “You will come back, Phoebe.” He said it like a king issuing an order. “You will come back to me.”
She didn’t reply. She merely turned on her heel and went straight out the door.
* * *
She didn’t come back.
The whole day passed, and she didn’t come back.
Night fell and she didn’t come back then either, and he stayed up in his control room, searching the security feeds from the city, trying to find her.
But he couldn’t. So he sat there staring at his screens, his heart feeling like it wanted to claw its way out of his chest, like it wanted to tear apart the entire world just to find her.
He sent her text after text, then he called her, but there was no reply.
It was as if she’d dropped off the face of the world.
At three in the morning he eventually got up from his desk and forced himself out into the grand entranceway of his house, with the front door ahead of him. It was strangely harder than it had been even a couple of days ago. Like the early days, when the press had hammered on that very same front door and he’d retreated into his office to get away from the sound.
He turned away from it, pacing around the massive, marble flagged space, going around and around for a good fifteen minutes, trying to ignore the pressure of the open space above his head, telling himself he was being ridiculous, that nothi
ng had happened to her, that she was at the hospital with her fiancé.
Yet all he could see was her face, white and shocked, her beautiful brown eyes gone dark, her cheeks tear stained. “Charles is dying!” she’d yelled at him, pulling away from him, pain in every line of her.
And he, beast that he was, hadn’t wanted to let her go. Because he didn’t care what Charles was doing. Phoebe was what mattered, and she had to stay here with him.
Except he’d let her go, and he still didn’t know why he had, when every instinct he had was telling him to keep her.
No, he knew why. He’d gotten used to reading the emotions that played over her face, and he’d seen her pain. Someone she cared about was dying, and she needed to go be with them, and that stopping her would only cause her more anguish. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t hurt her any more than he had already, shoving the truth of his past at her, standing with his back to her while she cried. For him.
She didn’t need to cry, though. That past was over. It had been terrible, but now it was done.
“It’s not done . . . Not when you’re still trapped in that room.”
He found himself in front of the door, staring at it. If he really wanted to find her, he could walk out that door, couldn’t he? He could just turn the handle and step outside, get his driver to take him to the hospital. Easy.
She was wrong. He wasn’t trapped. He’d left that room behind years and years ago. He was on track to finding his stepfather and then he’d punish the guy and everything would be fine, and the past would truly be done.
In fact, yes, he’d go out right now. He’d find her. He wouldn’t drag her back here, no, he’d sit beside her. Hold her hand. Be there for her in the way she was always there for other people. Because if her fiancé was dying, then who would hold her hand? Who would put their arms around her to comfort her? She didn’t have anyone. She didn’t have anyone but him.
Certainty settled down inside him and he strode to the door, putting out his hand to turn the knob, to stride outside.
And something made him stop, freezing him solid. A sense of foreboding, of doom. It was so strong it stole his breath, made him feel as if his chest was in a vice and it was being wound slowly tighter and tighter.
The Billionaire Beast Page 18
