His expression was inscrutable. “Yes.”
It wasn’t what she’d expected, and Cleopatra couldn’t have said why. “Really?”
“This surprises you?”
“A little, yes.”
“Perche?”
“I just… I think we should think about this,” she said, stifling a yawn. Her body was alive with tiny fires, each of them growing bigger by the second, each of them demanding indulgence. But she wouldn’t give into them. Not now. Despite the fact she was utterly exhausted, she knew she needed to catch hold of her thoughts and express them properly.
“What is there to think about?” He prompted arrogantly. “I find you incredibly desirable, and I believe it’s mutual. We are great in bed together. And we are married. Isn’t the next step logical?”
She shook her head, a smile tickling the corner of her lips even as a part of her mind had to acknowledge he had a reasonable point.
“But what happens next,” she prompted. “What happens when you no longer desire me? What happens when this ends and we’re stuck married, raising a child together?”
His eyes bore into hers for several seconds, almost as though he hadn’t considered that.
“We’d be trapped together and then what?”
He shrugged though, his features carrying a mask of confidence. “We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“That doesn’t seem very wise.”
He expelled a short breath. “What are you afraid of, cara?”
She bit down on her lower lip, finding it hard to put that into words. How could she explain to a man like this that her whole life had been a search for belonging? That after her mother’s death, no one had ever really wanted her – not her foster parents, not her adoptive parents, and that now, finally, she’d found her way into a family and she didn’t want to do anything to jeopardise that.
“I take this seriously,” she murmured. “Raising Freddie matters to me. I don’t want the fact we’re having a… sexual relationship to hurt him.”
His eyes narrowed, too perceptive, too fully comprehending.
“Are you afraid I’m going to hurt you as well, cara?”
Without her confiding in him, he seemed to have found his way to the heart of her worries. “I’ve been hurt before, that’s nothing new to me. I’m not worried for myself; I’m afraid for Freddie.”
His eyes sparked with hers, and he reached across and laced their fingers together. “I am glad he has you.” It didn’t directly answer her worries. His eyes swirled with thoughts and then, his voice softened. “Someone who wants to love and protect him.”
“I do love him,” she said immediately, her eyes meeting his. “That’s why I have to make the right decision here.”
His finger swirled up higher, to the sensitive flesh beside her breasts. “Has the decision not already been made?”
She bit down on her lip. He was right. They’d slept together, and she couldn’t see them putting Pandora back in the box. How could she ignore him after knowing what his body was capable of doing to hers? But then what? What boundaries would they observe? Would she sleep here, with him, each night? Would they date? Eat dinner together? “How does this work?” She blurted out, her brow creased, her eyes drawn together.
He moved his hand towards her breast, cupping it possessively. Awareness spread through her body. She tamped down on it with effort. “You overthink things.”
“I have to protect him,” she said seriously. “I know what it’s like to grow up around people who fight. I spent enough time in that kind of home as a kid. I don’t want that for Freddie.”
“And you think this is going to lead to us fighting?”
“I think it complicates our situation.”
“Sex complicates marriage?”
“But this isn’t a real marriage.”
“True,” he agreed, his eyes sparking with hers. “And so we both simply remember that.” He moved closer, so his lips were only an inch from hers. “This does not need to complicate matters for us at all. The terms of our marriage remain as they were – it is a practical union and nothing more. Separate to that,” he shrugged, “we have sex when we feel like it.”
“You make it sound so black and white, like there’s no risk…”
“There is no risk. Remember it is just sex, and it remains uncomplicated, no?”
She nodded, a frown on her face. Was it that easy? Surely not. “But what if we fall in love?” As soon as she asked the question, she heard how stupidly childish it was and wished she could pull the words back.
But he lowered his head, brushing his lips over hers. “Love does not exist, cara. Not for me, anyway. I will never love you, or any other woman, and only a fool would choose to love me. Does that put your overactive mind at ease?”
Whatever answer she might have made was swallowed by his kiss, and she fell to her back, his body weight on top of hers, she was happy to leave the conversation, to leave her questions, to ignore a presentiment of disaster that was swelling inside of her.
He was right. They could keep this simple. It was just sex.
Chapter 8
“YOU ARE SO FAST!” Cleopatra laughed as she ran after Freddie, chasing him down the hallway. His giggle was the sweetest sound. He turned to look at her and she slowed a little, the fun of the game in her inability to catch him, and then he faced forward and kept going, his dark curls flopping wildly as she went.
At the end, he went into a room and she followed, but he was hiding. She stood in the middle, listening, and then heard his rushed breathing. She scooped down and lifted him from behind the drapes, tickling his tummy as she did so.
“Caught you, terramoto.”
His laugh peeled through the room. She carried him on her hip, back into the corridor and down the stairs, her cheeks pink, her hair a little wild from the way she’d been chasing him through the house for the past twenty minutes. “Now, I need lunch, and so do you. What shall it be today, little master?”
“Lunch! Lunch!” He clapped his hands together and she grinned. He loved his food. She eased him into the high chair across the bench and began to pull ingredients from the fridge. She kept it pretty simple during the day. The kitchen staff tended to make elaborate meals but in her experience, something like a sandwich and some sliced fruit was generally more palatable and far more likely to meet with a little one’s approval than a creamy truffle pasta.
She chose some turkey and sauce, a bit of cheese, and thick sourdough bread, and began to assemble a couple of sandwiches, her eyes flicking to where Freddie was happily watching her every move.
But her mind wasn’t completely present. No, her mind kept wandering, reminding her of how she’d spent the night, and every time she remembered lying in bed with Benedetto, heat spiked inside of her, the fact she’d lost her virginity to him filling her with awe, pleasure and a strange sense of surrealism. She hadn’t expected it.
She’d thought her desire was completely one-sided up until that night in the hallway, and then it had been easy to put their shared moment down to his having been drinking.
Now?
It was clear they shared a passion that was wild and hot. It was clear he wanted to keep enjoying it.
But could she really do what he said and separate a sexual relationship from anything more emotional?
Love does not exist.
Her heart turned over at that cynical summation, but hadn’t she long-since thought the same thing? She’d spent a life without love, a life without knowing a sense of belonging. The love of the children she’d cared for – her adoptive siblings, her charges – were the closest she’d come to knowing any kind of genuine emotional connection, but even then, she kept a large part of herself locked away, knowing better than anyone the impermanence of life and love.
So perhaps it wasn’t that love didn’t exist, so much as that it couldn’t be trusted?
Loving someone was no guarantee of happiness. And for the first time in a l
ong time, she thought of the letter, folded in the side of her suitcase upstairs.
From the desk of Vitalo Katrakis
Cleopatra,
Please believe me when I say that if I had known of you earlier, I would have found you, that I would have brought you here to live with me. I know it’s been a lifetime, and that yours has not been a happy one, but I hope you’ll forgive me. You’re my half-sister. You belong here.
Vitalo.
It had been the first time she’d been gifted a piece of her puzzle – the first time in her whole life she’d been told who she was. She’d googled his name and more pieces had fallen into place. His father’s legendary affairs, and her own mother’s incredible beauty. Though Cleopatra had only been six when her mother had died, she remembered some of the stories she’d told, of a time before Cleopatra, when she’d travelled the world having her photograph taken. She’d been a supermodel, it turned out, though pregnancy, and then being a single mother, had put an end to her career.
Cleopatra swallowed past a lump in her throat. She’d loved her mother. The first six years of her life had been her happiest. For a brief time, she’d known a normal life, a happy, loved childhood, and then the rug had been pulled from under her.
Her eyes swept shut, and she saw the letter in her mind, and remembered how she’d felt when she’d received it.
She wasn’t alone.
It was her first thought.
And then, anger. Because she had been alone, for so long, and at times when it was so hard for a person to be friendless and without family in this world. She’d been alone as a teenager, she’d been alone completely, and to know she had a half-brother out there – a man who ran his father – and her father’s! – empire, who could have been a part of her life…
So he hadn’t known about her. But had he looked? Had he ever enquired? Had anyone ever wondered if Katrakis had secret love children peppered around the globe? How many like her were there?
“I hungry!” Freddie’s little voice punctuated her thoughts. She blinked, shifting her gaze to his face.
“Yes, just a moment.” Damn it, she sounded close to tears. She swallowed harder, finishing the sandwiches with fingers that shook a little.
“Cleopatra? You sad?” His little voice cut through her thoughts and she shook her head.
“No, I’m fine,” she lied, spinning away to the fridge and pulling out some rocket.
“You sad,” Freddie insisted, a frown on his face.
She met his eyes and forced a smile to her face. “I was, a little. I was thinking of something …serious.”
His little face showed curiosity and then he put a chubby hand out, the small gesture of comfort so impossibly sweet she almost gave into the tears in her throat, letting them run down her cheeks.
“Don’t be sad,” he instructed.
She smiled. “It’s okay to be sad.” She thought of how much he’d lost, how many emotions must run inside of him, all the time. She tousled his hair. “But you make me very happy.” She dropped her head and pressed a kiss to his forehead, then went back to preparing their lunch. They ate on the terrace, overlooking Rome. Freddie was full of babbling conversation, switching from Italian to English effortlessly, and she did likewise, enjoying the mental exercise, and as always, his company.
But her mind still ran over her past, and the fact she’d simply run from Vitalo Katrakis, changing her postal address, hoping he’d never find her. She knew, on one level, that it wasn’t his fault.
But that didn’t change the resentment she felt. Her life hadn’t been a bed of roses, and there’d been someone who could have changed that, who could have helped her, and he hadn’t.
Love does not exist.
Benedetto was cynical, and he was probably right. Her mother had been broken by an affair with a married man. Cleopatra had been deserted by everyone who should have loved her.
Benedetto’s philosophy made a lot of sense – if you didn’t believe in love, surely you couldn’t be hurt by a lack of it.
“Cleopatra sad.”
Cleopatra looked at Freddie, a frown on her face. “No, I’m fine.”
Except he wasn’t talking to her. His little gaze was focussed beyond her shoulder, and when she turned around, Benedetto stood there, heart-stoppingly handsome in a navy blue suit with brown shoes and a crisp white shirt. At his wrists, she could see dark black cuff links.
Her heart began to slam against her ribs, her pulse shooting through her body. She bit down on her lip, the last memory she had of him was falling asleep in his bed. At some point during the early hours of the morning, he’d carried her back to her own bed, and she’d woken there with a strange and new sense of satisfaction inside of her.
“Hi.” The word emerged as a husky plea. Desire slashed through her.
“Ciao.” He prowled across the terrazzo, his eyes not moving from hers, so the intensity of his inspection made breathing almost impossible. It was another warm day, but that wasn’t why she was burning up.
“Hi.” She winced as she heard herself say it again.
And then, Freddie, “Ciao. Hi.”
Benedetto’s smile was the most sensual thing she’d ever seen, simply a flicker of his lips. “Lunch time?” He prompted.
Cleopatra nodded. “Yeah, I…” the words trailed off into nothingness as he came to squat beside her, his eyes locked to hers, his body so close. Pleasure burst inside of her, and something far more dangerous – anticipation. She wanted him again.
“You?” He was teasing her, smiling at her inability to frame a sentence.
She bit down on her lower lip, and his eyes flared as he shifted his attention to the gesture.
“How are you?” The question was gruff, and something like pleasure kicked in her gut, because she knew her power over him, and it was thrilling and exciting.
“Good.”
“I meant to come to you this morning but I had to go to the office, early.”
“I’m fine,” she promised, at the look of concern on his features. “It’s fine.”
And beneath the table, his hand curved around one of her slim calves, his fingers gently caressing her flesh there, so her breath was too full for her lungs.
“You’re not sad?”
Her smile was spontaneous. “No.”
“Bene.” His eyes shifted to regard Alfredo, who was busy mashing his sandwich pieces together. Cleopatra’s smile broadened.
“He naps after lunch?”
Her breath burst through her. She nodded.
He stood then, but his gaze continued to hold hers. “Join me in the pool once he sleeps.”
It was said with his usual command-like tone, but he lingered, watching her, waiting.
So she nodded, because there was no way she wasn’t going to do as he said – it just happened to be exactly what she wanted most in the world.
His desk was bursting with crap. He needed to be working. Instead, he was here, his arms braced on the pool coping at his back, the sun beating down on him, his mind running over the way he’d spent the previous night, his body throbbing with awareness, need, satisfaction and desire.
He’d been waiting twenty minutes, and he suspected if he had to wait any longer, he’d go full he-man, storming through the house and finding his bride, carrying her to his lair and making love to her all the damned afternoon.
He expelled a long, steady breath, his nostrils flaring as he replayed the previous evening, as he remembered her sweetness, her innocence, her passion, her curiosity, her body, every curve and dip, every lovely dimple, every smooth roundedness, every tremble, every sigh.
Five more minutes and he pulled out of the pool, a frown on his face. He dried off his body, slung the towel around his shoulders and moved to one of the loungers. His iPad was there; he opened it and began to scan his emails, figuring time would move much faster if he was occupied.
His eyes shifted to the clock every minute or so, and so Benedetto was cognisant that it took Cleopatra
another seven minutes to appear at the pool. He looked towards the door the rooftop terrace as she emerged, wearing a simple bikini, a towel in her arm.
And hunger overtook every other emotion in his body. Hunger overpowered him, completely. He stood, prowling to her, his stride long and urgent. Her eyes flared wide, surprise in her features as he pulled her to his body and kissed her hard, his hands rough as they ran over her, reacquainting themselves with her flesh, his arousal straining against the wet fabric of his bathers.
“Benedetto,” she groaned, the word a total surrender. He pushed her backwards with his body until she connected with the wall of the house, and there, he kissed her until she was breathless and his own body was weak with longing.
“Where were you?”
“He wouldn’t settle,” she groaned, tilting her head back to allow him greater access to her neck. He teased the flesh there, his tongue flashing against her pulse point as his hand pulled at her bikini strap, loosening it to reveal her perfect pale breasts to his hungry inspection.
“Sei bellissima,” he said, the words almost like a complaint. He reached down and curved his hands around her buttocks, lifting her and wrapping her legs around his back, so she was supported against the smooth wall and his hard frame. His mouth claimed one of her nipples hungrily and he slid one hand into the elastic edge of her bathers, his fingers curving over her arse, holding her to him, exploring, feeling her softness, his fingers moving deeper, towards the curve that joined her buttocks and resting there. She whimpered, and he smiled against her breast, her responsiveness and curiosity the biggest aphrodisiac he’d ever known.
“Please,” she whispered, as she had the night before, again and again. He moved his mouth to her other breast and she swore, the curse uncharacteristic and desperate, her body wracked with her pleasure. He rolled is hips, the hardness of his cock through their fabric promising her pleasure upon pleasure. His fingers ran along her seam, and she groaned, pushing her butt down, inviting him to explore her fully. Desire was a beast in his chest. It raged out of control; he had no interest in taming it.
The Evermore Series II: Books 4, 5 and 6 Page 41
