Then it wasn’t just her hands on him. Shaking her long, dark curls away from her face, she nuzzled against the top of his thighs, pressing soft kisses against his hardness.
God. He was going to lose his mind. He was going to actually go insane with want—and if he didn’t, if she did something about it, he was going to scream and get himself killed by her bodyguard.
He had to admit, it didn’t sound like a bad way to go.
‘You okay up there?’ she murmured against his hardness, and he felt her words vibrate through him.
‘More than,’ he answered honestly.
‘Good.’ Then, with one last kiss against his thigh, she closed her mouth over the tip of him, and Matteo decided right there and then that this was definitely worth dying for.
Staggering back a couple of steps, he grabbed hold of the chair behind him for support, sinking into it as Isabella explored and tasted him to her heart’s content. And his, for that matter. Finally, as his body started to tighten, he pulled her away before everything was over too soon for his liking.
‘You don’t want me to finish? Was it not okay?’ She looked up at him, her mouth plump and slick and red but her eyes uncertain.
‘It was perfect,’ he assured her. ‘I just don’t want it to end so soon.’
She smiled at that, a catlike, satisfied smile. ‘What would you like instead, then?’
He pulled her up into his lap, stripping her sundress over her head before letting her divest him of his shirt. ‘I’d rather like to be inside you,’ he whispered against her collarbone, and felt her shiver at his words.
She was wet and ready for him when he touched her, and it was only when she stood up to strip off her lingerie that his mind could work well enough to remember the essentials. ‘Wait. Condoms.’
Isabella gave him a look as if to say, Do you really think they’re necessary at this point?
He shrugged. ‘No point taking unnecessary risks,’ he said, which made her laugh. ‘There are some in my wallet.’
She bent over to retrieve his wallet from his jeans on the floor, and Matteo was happily enjoying the view when he heard the first noises outside. Voices. Then a bang on the door.
‘Isabella!’ The voice outside didn’t sound patient. Or happy. ‘Let me in this instant!’
CHAPTER TWELVE
ISABELLA SPUN AROUND to face Matteo, still slumped in the chair watching her, his eyes wide. ‘It’s Leo!’
Because of course it was.
‘Your brother?’ Matteo kept his voice low, and she nodded in response.
‘You need to hide!’
He’d hoped his days of hiding from angry older brothers were over when he became an actual adult, but apparently not. Scooping up his clothes, wallet and—in a brief flash of inspiration—the pregnancy test, Matteo let himself be bundled into the bathroom by Isabella.
‘One moment!’ she called out cheerily. ‘I’m just changing.’
‘Isabella, I swear to God—’ Whatever Leo was swearing was cut off into a mumble, probably around the time the Crown Prince realised that anyone could be listening. Including the press—or at least people who’d sell the video or audio to the papers.
Isabella pulled her dress back over her head and surveyed the room.
‘Bella,’ Matteo whispered as she pushed the bathroom door closed. ‘Remember, you’re an adult. He might be a prince, but you’re a princess. You get to make your own decisions. No crown can take that away from you, okay?’
Biting down on her lip, she nodded, but Matteo could tell she didn’t fully believe him.
He sighed, and sat down on the toilet seat to wait, glad that the door hadn’t closed all the way. He was still sitting in almost complete darkness, but at least there was that sliver of light from the bedroom. And it meant he could hear what Isabella and her brother were saying.
‘Where were you today?’ Leo asked, the moment Isabella opened the door.
Matteo hadn’t spent much time with him at the ball the other night, and his attention had definitely been elsewhere, but he’d seen enough photos to be able to imagine the Crown Prince’s face right then. Red, flustered and angry.
‘You skipped out on your security, didn’t leave word where you were going, wouldn’t answer your phone—’
‘I’m sorry.’ The apology sounded automatic to Matteo’s ears. As if she was so used to saying it, it was nothing more than a reflex.
Plus he happened to know that she really wasn’t sorry for running out with him. Not if what they’d been doing before Leo banged on the door was any sign.
‘My security team...they’re not in any trouble, are they? Because I really didn’t give them any choice. I just... I wanted to get outside, get some air. See a little of Rome, that was all. You know how rarely I leave the palace these days.’ She was trying to mollify him, to earn his sympathy, but Matteo didn’t know Leo well enough to guess whether it would work.
He did notice, however, that his habit of asking for forgiveness, not permission, seemed to be rubbing off on his Princess.
‘And you know why that is,’ Leo shot back. Matteo heard him sigh, then the sound of bed springs creaking, as if he’d sat down on the edge of the bed in exhaustion. ‘Bella...people were worried. I was worried. You don’t know this city, or anybody here. Anything could have happened to you. What if some brigand had recognised you and snatched you off the street?’
‘Brigand?’ Isabella asked, sounding amused.
‘You know what I mean,’ Leo snapped back. ‘The point is, you weren’t safe. And while you’re here in Rome with me, it’s my responsibility to keep you safe.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s just...what if I didn’t want to be safe, all the time?’
There, hidden in that question, was the Isabella Matteo knew. The one he wanted, more than any other woman he’d ever met before. The one who made him laugh and chase her and think.
The one who wanted to live a life that was more than being afraid all the time, or doing what other people wanted her to, rather than what she wanted herself.
The woman he might marry, soon. Might spend his whole life with.
It was just a glimmer, though. A brief flash of the woman he’d known in Lake Geneva, who he’d seduced on a balcony the night before. One that was soon smothered by her brother’s next words.
‘Of course you want to be safe, Isabella. Don’t be stupid.’
‘Yes. Right. Of course, I do. I’m sorry, Leo. I don’t know what I was thinking.’
And with that, all of Matteo’s hopes about who she could be if she was just willing to take the chance disappeared.
Maybe inside, Isabella wanted to be free, wanted to live her own life at last. But her family would always stomp out the first flames of rebellion, and she would always let them. She’d build up those walls brick by brick, all by herself, to hold onto her place in the royal family.
She didn’t want to be pregnant with his child; her horrified reaction the night the condom had split had made that perfectly clear. She didn’t want to have to marry him—it was just the least unacceptable option to her family, and their royal expectations.
He’d marry her, if she was pregnant, because he owed her that. But he had no illusions any more that it would be what either of them wanted. Now, they enjoyed each other’s company, the sex was amazing and, yes, he knew he could fall for her. Hard.
But if they married...
He’d be tied into a life he didn’t want to live. And she’d be embarrassed by him forever, even if marrying him didn’t cost her the title of Princess. He wasn’t what anyone wanted for her—even Isabella herself.
Outside, the royal siblings were still talking.
‘Look, I know we can all seem a little overprotective at times, Bella,’ Leo said. ‘But you know why that is. You just don’t understand the world outside th
e palace and, honestly, I’m not sure you want to. We just want to keep you safe, okay?’
‘I know that,’ Isabella replied, softly. ‘I’m sorry.’
The bed springs creaked again. Leo was standing up. ‘Don’t cry, Bella. It’s okay. Just...stay where we can keep you safe. Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
There was quiet for a long moment, before Matteo heard the door to the suite open and close again. He waited.
Isabella’s eyes were red when she opened the door. ‘I’m sorry you had to hear that.’
Maybe it was just as well that he had. At least it told him exactly what the future held for him.
He held out the pregnancy test. ‘I think maybe you’d better take this now. Don’t you?’
Negative.
How could it be negative?
‘Could it be a false result?’ Matteo’s voice was tense as he sat beside her on the bed, but she was sure she heard relief in it, all the same.
Isabella shook her head. ‘I mean, it could, but...’
She could feel it now, those telltale signs she’d been ignoring all day. The slight cramp in her lower back. The tiredness. The stupid tears when she’d been talking to Leo.
Her period was on its way.
She wasn’t pregnant.
She might not have proof for another day or so, but she knew it, inside.
‘I’m pretty sure it’s right,’ was all she said.
Matteo let out a long, relieved breath. ‘Okay. Well, that’s good. Right?’
‘Absolutely.’ She hadn’t wanted to be pregnant—not now, not with a man she’d barely known a few weeks, with whom she had nothing in common outside the bedroom. A man her family would disapprove of on principle. A man who could cost her everything.
So why did she feel like crying?
Period hormones. That’s all.
No, that wasn’t all, and she wasn’t going to pretend that it was.
‘You okay?’ Matteo asked. Of course, he looked fine. He didn’t have stupid hormones. And he wasn’t going back to a life trapped behind palace walls, never daring to reach out for what he wanted from the world, in case it turned on him. In case it destroyed his family, or his reputation.
Really, she’d had a narrow escape. She should be celebrating.
‘I’m fine.’ It came out as almost a sob. ‘Happy tears,’ she lied.
‘Right.’ He didn’t look convinced. ‘So...what now?’
‘You’re free,’ she said, with a shrug. ‘No need to worry about me.’
‘And you’re just going to go back to the palace as if nothing ever happened?’ His tone was even, his expression blank. But Isabella could still feel the tension between them.
‘What else can I do?’ She was a Princess of Augusta. The privileges that gave her came with a cost—and a lot of expectation. ‘I’ve already pushed about as far as I can coming here, especially so soon after my Switzerland trip. And it’s a miracle nobody caught onto that, either.’
She shuddered at the thought of Leo bursting into her suite asking, ‘What’s this about you spending a week having sex with a racing-car driver in Lake Geneva?’
‘I thought...’ Matteo looked away, as if he wasn’t going to finish his sentence. And suddenly it was vitally important to Isabella that she know exactly what he thought.
Because he was the first person in her life who had got to know her as a woman, not a princess. Who hadn’t cared about titles or palaces or money. Who hadn’t held expectations for what she should do and who she should be. Who loved risk enough to be with her anyway, even when it looked as if they might have been caught out by it.
His opinion mattered, more than almost anyone else’s. She needed to hear it.
‘What did you think?’
He sighed. Then he looked up from where his hands were clasped between his legs as he sat on the edge of the bed and met her gaze head-on.
‘I thought that Lake Geneva had meant something. That coming here had meant something. To you, I mean. And not about me, particularly. I thought—I hoped—that it would be your first step out from under your family’s thumb. That you might finally forgive yourself for what happened with that reporter and move on with your life.’
‘I came here to tell you I might be having your baby.’ Isabella swallowed, his words ringing in her ears. ‘If that’s not flying in the face of all my family’s beliefs and expectations, I don’t know what is.’
‘And now that you’re not? What are you going to do now that you’re not pregnant, Isabella?’
She didn’t know. She hadn’t thought this far. Hadn’t thought beyond finding him again, telling him about the baby.
Letting him figure out what she should do next, the way she’d always relied on her family to.
But he had no stake in her future now. No investment in what happened to her next.
She could go back to the palace, to her old life, but she already knew how stifling that felt, now she’d experienced something more. Last time, after everything had happened with Nate, she’d been so grateful for the safety of the palace, the security of her family around her, an impenetrable barrier against the real world outside that only seemed to want to hurt her.
This time...this time it was different. She was comparing her experience with Nate and her time with Matteo as if they were the same, but they weren’t. Beyond the fact that they both included her having sex with a man the palace wouldn’t approve of...the details were worlds apart.
Matteo didn’t want to hurt her. Matteo could be trusted, even if his attitude to risk and opinions on suitable behaviour for a princess would scandalise the whole royal family. He was on her side; Nate had never been.
And she knew, now, that she’d never been truly in love with Nate. She wasn’t a hundred per cent sure she could say the same about Matteo.
So what was she going to do now? What could she do?
‘I need to go back to Augusta with Leo,’ she said, thinking aloud. ‘And obviously you don’t now need to come with me. We don’t need to go tell my parents I’m pregnant and they have to let us get married.’ She flashed him a smile at that, ignoring the pang in her heart at the idea. He didn’t smile back.
‘So you just go back to your old life, and I go back to mine?’
‘I guess.’ Except that felt so wrong, Isabella knew it wouldn’t work. Not for her, anyway. But maybe that was what Matteo wanted? His old life back—racing and risks and other women. ‘Is that what you want?’
His smile was sad. ‘I’m trying to find out what you want, Princess.’
When was the last time someone had asked her what she wanted and actually listened to the answer? Even the staff serving dinner at the palace brought her whatever dish the diet plan her mother’s nutritionist had set her said she should eat, rather than what she actually fancied.
But Matteo was asking, and she knew he meant it.
What did she want? She wanted everything. He’d taught her the value of taking a risk, when it was the right risk. And maybe there was a way she could do it that wouldn’t ruin everything else, too.
She took a breath, and a risk, and answered him honestly.
‘I want to see you again. I want to keep seeing you. I don’t want to say goodbye.’
Matteo’s heart lurched in his chest as she spoke the words he’d been hoping—though not expecting—to hear. But before he could answer, she went on.
‘I mean, we’d need to keep it a secret. God only knows what Leo would say if he found out. But we’ve managed this far, right? I think as long as I stay out of trouble at the palace, or when I’m with my family, nobody is going to mind if I take the odd weekend off. We can plan ahead, arrange to meet places where no one knows either of us. I might need to speak with Gianna about my security team...’
She had it all figured out, Matteo realised
. Exactly how to have her cake and eat it.
Or have him, and not disappoint her family.
And it should be perfect. It should be exactly what he wanted. The freedom to live his life how he wanted and still see Isabella, without getting tied into her world and the expectations that went with it.
So why did his chest ache so much?
Because I’m not enough for her.
Ever since he was a teenager, he’d tried to live enough for two, to make up for everything Giovanni had lost. He’d done more, seen more, risked more than most people on the planet.
But he still wasn’t enough for Isabella.
‘Matteo?’ She looked up at him, a tiny line forming between her eyebrows.
‘I can’t.’ Pushing up off the bed, he paced across to the window. ‘Isabella... I can’t just be some dirty secret for you, the guy you’re ashamed to bring home to your family.’
Her eyes widened at that, and she reached out towards him before sitting on her hands. ‘That wasn’t... I didn’t mean it that way.’
‘I know.’ He sighed. ‘But...when you told me you thought you were pregnant, I was scared, sure. But excited too. Because honestly? I’ve never felt anything like what I feel for you for any woman before now. I thought that maybe we could make this work. Until I heard you talking to your brother.’
‘Leo? You can’t... I just had to say whatever he needed to hear to get him out of here, before he found you hiding in my bathroom!’
‘Yeah, but you meant it, too. And if I’d doubted it at all...you just confirmed it now.’ God, he hated saying this. Hated thinking this. Realising it was true.
After so many years of pushing love away, of keeping it at arm’s length to avoid the inevitable losses that came with it...now he found himself here. Wanting, wishing for a princess’s love—and knowing that he couldn’t take the loss that came with it when she didn’t love him enough in return.
He’d been looking for an excuse to upend his whole life for her—to make her upend her life for him. But if she really wasn’t pregnant, that excuse was gone. And he wasn’t such a terrible human as to try again and bring a baby into a relationship they didn’t have the courage to seek anyway.
The Princess and the Rebel Billionaire Page 14
