Unwrapping The Innocent's Secret (Secret Heirs 0f Billionaires)

by Caitlin Crews

  But Cecilia lived.

  She had nursed him back to life, literally. She had given birth to a brand-new life, Dante.

  She was life. Love. All the things that Pascal did not dare permit himself to imagine he could ever, ever have—

  “This is me begging,” she said, her voice musical. Impossible.

  And then she made it worse by sinking down onto her knees, right there before him. With all the ease and grace of a dancer or a queen, as if she wasn’t the one capitulating.

  Or as if, he thought in some kind of a daze, as if surrender cost her nothing.

  When he was certain it would destroy him.

  “Pascal,” she said, her remarkable eyes locked to his. “I want you to make me your wife, in every possible way. I’m begging you to do it. Right now.”

  And Pascal had been born a lost cause. Accordingly, he’d lost himself for years, as an avocation. He reveled in that dirt, that stain, and had only imagined himself found when he’d nearly died on a distant mountain. Until this woman smiled at him, then nursed him whole.

  He was lost in that gaze of hers, violet and sure.

  And maybe the truth was that he was already lost. That he had been for six years now, and counting.

  So he pulled her to her feet, then swept her into his arms, taking her mouth in a kind of fury.

  And lost himself for good.

  CHAPTER TEN

  CECILIA UNDERSTOOD EVERYTHING in a sweet, sudden rush. A glorious flash of flame and longing, while his mouth moved on hers and remade the world again.

  It was all about fear.

  She wrapped her arms around him and let him bear her down to the ground, sighing in happiness as he fit that exquisite body of his to the length of hers, proving yet again how well he fit.

  How beautifully they had always fit, just like this.

  Fear was why she hadn’t looked harder for him, when she could have. Fear was what had kept her in the mountains guarding her child, instead of taking the harder, scarier route and facing him six years ago. Five years ago.

  Or any day since.

  And fear was what had made him do what he’d done. She got that now. Because revenge was what Pascal knew. It was easier. Anger was far more palatable than those hot, confusing mornings when they woke up wound up in each other. If he made her angry, she understood, he could fight her. He could make demands, issue threats.

  He could reduce what was happening between them—what had always been happening between them—to a simple little battle.

  But Pascal was not a bully. She knew that like she knew her own heart. It wasn’t her weakness he was after, it was her strength. Weakness would have wrecked him. It was her strength that allowed him to treat her like an adversary.

  Because adversaries could not be hurt. Adversaries fought.

  And if they were fighting, they couldn’t be afraid.

  Cecilia understood all of it as he kissed her, his mouth hot and wicked and perfect. She understood it as she kissed him back with all the fire and need he’d taught her.

  Pascal pulled back and stripped himself out of his jacket, his shirt. Cecilia took the opportunity to pull off the dress she wore, leaving her in nothing but a bra, her panties and her boots.

  His eyes darkened, and that sensual mouth of his firmed. And he looked at her as if he wanted nothing more than to get his mouth on every last centimeter of her. As if he might die if he didn’t do precisely that. Now.

  “You kill me,” he growled, the sensual menace in his voice making her shudder with want. “Every time, you kill me.”

  His hands were on her, like bright hot flame and searing madness, testing the shape of her breasts and then gripping her hips to haul her toward him again.

  And his mouth on hers was a revelation.

  So good, so right, that Cecilia understood why she’d been refusing herself the very thing she’d given so freely six years ago. She was afraid.

  Of what it would do to her. And what it would do to her life. Because the truth was, having sex with Pascal had already changed her entire world once. What would he do this time?

  But she already knew. Sex wasn’t the danger here. Sex wasn’t going to ruin her and wreck her, stalking her across the years until she found him again. Love was.

  And the simple truth was, she had never stopped loving Pascal.

  She wasn’t sure she ever would.

  So Cecilia kissed him back, pouring the years they’d been apart into it. The fear and the loneliness, and more than that, all her dreams. All her joy. The flavor of the life she’d lived away from him, and all the secret hopes she hid inside her that this new life they’d started together would bloom despite their best efforts to pretend it was a misery.

  She kissed him and she kissed him. And when he got to his feet again, then pulled her up, she followed him blindly. Greedily. He carried her over to the long, low sofa, and lay her down upon it. She watched, breathing too hard, as he kicked off his trousers and the boxer briefs he wore beneath them, then bared himself to her gaze at last.

  For a moment she lay there, sprawled out in abandon. She simply looked at him.

  Because she could never get enough of looking at this man.

  His scars, his muscles. All together, the devastating masculine beauty that was Pascal Furlani, the only man she’d ever touched. The only man she’d ever loved.

  As far as Cecilia was concerned, the only man there was. Full stop.

  His black eyes glittered. His shoulders were wide enough to cling to, forever. Between his legs, the hardest part of him stood tall, proud.

  And she loved him.

  There was nothing else to understand, but that.

  She lifted her hands toward him, and she smiled. “How much begging do I have to do?”

  “Take off your bra,” he ordered her, his voice a gritty rasp.

  Cecilia levered herself up and reached around to obey him, pulling off one cup, then the other. Then she bared her breasts to him, his gaze alone making her nipples pull tight. She let out a shaky sort of breath as sensation washed over her.

  “And your panties,” he said. His hard mouth curled in one corner, making her shake even more. “But you can leave the boots on.”

  She didn’t know why that struck her as so unbearably delicious, but it did. She hurried to comply, pulling her panties over her hips, then fighting to get them over the leather of her boots.

  And when she was done, she was on her feet again, standing before him. On display in a way that should have made her think twice.

  But she was thoroughly his. That was what she thought about.

  His black eyes burned. His mouth curved even more.

  And then he was reaching for her, pulling her close and then lifting her up.

  Cecilia held on to his wide, hard shoulders as she crossed her legs around his waist. Then she moaned as he shifted her farther, lifting her up and then holding her there—stretched taught above the hardest part of him at last.

  His face was close to hers, drawn into a fiercely sensual mask that made her whole body hurt. In the best possible way.

  “Beg me,” he whispered.

  His expression was raw. His black eyes were lit with a golden need. And Cecilia felt the same inside as if she’d been scraped clean. Hollowed out.

  And all that was left was this. Him.

  This thing that had always been between them, coiled tight and wild and impossible to ignore—though they’d both tried.

  Love.

  There was no other word for it.

  She dug her fingers into his shoulders and she gazed down into his face, taut and hard with the force of that same rampant need that was charging through her, leaving her molten hot and nearly bursting out of her own skin.

  “Please, Pascal,” she whispered, filled with the exquisite joy o
f a surrender that felt like a triumph. “Please.”

  And then he thrust into her, deep.

  He impaled her upon him, and for a moment they both froze, swamped with the same wild sensation.

  The heat. The sweet, slick perfection.

  Home, Cecilia thought. Love.

  Yes.

  And she didn’t know which parts of that she’d said out loud.

  But then it didn’t matter.

  Pascal was bringing her back down to the couch again, bracing himself above her as they both adjusted and he slid in even deeper.

  Her mouth was in the crook of his neck, and her teeth were at his shoulder.

  And he was surging inside her, pounding into her again and again and again as if they would die this way, or die if they didn’t, or die and be reborn and do this dance forever, just like this.

  Cecilia met him. She was a part of him. She kept her legs wrapped around his hips and met his every thrust.

  She remembered the glory of this six years ago. The brief flash of pain, then nothing but need and longing made flesh.

  And it was better now. Deeper, harder.

  It was too much and not enough. It was everything and yet they strained together for more.

  Pascal did something with his hips, making her throw back her head to ride it out. Then he bent his head to take one tight nipple into his mouth, and she was done. She shattered. Her whole body clenched hard around his, then shook.

  She shook and shook and shook.

  But still he kept going, pounding her through one shivering climax, then straight back into the fire to burn toward another.

  Cecilia held on to him for dear life, and she loved him. She cried, she called out his name and she let herself drown in the exquisite flames, the remarkable burn, as it mounted inside her all over again.

  But it wasn’t until she started to shudder again, her thighs clamping down hard on him, that he finally lost that deep, measured pace that he’d been using to drive her wild.

  And for a moment it was all speed and fury, beautiful and deep.

  Then Pascal was shattering, too, her name on his lips as he lost himself inside her at last.

  And Cecilia thought, with perfect clarity, this.

  She wanted this. All of this. The storm, beautiful and elemental, that was this man and the passion that had sparked between them from the first. From long before she’d understood what it was that called her to his side in that clinic. She wanted the thunder of the need she felt for him, the lightning that was their passion that felt like its own fury, like pain and sometimes like loss. And the rain that followed, but brought life to the world.

  It had brought her their son.

  She wanted that storm with everything she had, everything she was. It was worth the price she’d paid. It was worth anything.

  She reached up and took Pascal’s face between her hands. She felt his scars on one side, the evidence that he could overcome anything. She searched his gaze, black-gold and unfocused, though he slowly focused in on her.

  And for a moment it was as if he was new.

  As if the rain had washed them both clean, so they could start again.

  Cecilia wasn’t afraid anymore. Not to beg for what she wanted, and not to set free the things that roared inside her, desperate to get out. And certainly not of the man still lodged so deep inside her, it was hard to remember they were different people.

  “I love you,” she said, very distinctly. “I love you, Pascal.”

  The effect on him was instant and electric.

  And not good.

  His brows clapped together. His eyes flashed. He scowled at her, and then he moved back. He disengaged himself from her body and pulled himself away, a lot as if she’d scalded him.

  Cecilia stayed where she was; propping herself up on one elbow she watched him stalk away from her.

  It wasn’t as if there was any angle on that beautiful body of his that she didn’t admire.

  She watched him shove a hand through his hair. Then he stood with his hands on his hips, glaring toward his windows as if he could level Rome with the force of his temper. She wasn’t surprised when his hand drifted down to stroke the scars on his jaw.

  “I love you, Pascal,” she said again, so there could be no mistake.

  And when he turned back to level that same glare at her, she only smiled. She sat up, but she did absolutely nothing to cover herself. She simply smiled back at him.

  And he looked at her as if she’d taken a swing at him.

  “I’ve always loved you,” she said as if she was confiding a great secret. “Even when I hated you the most, there was a little part inside me that hoped that you would come back. Because that was what would make it right, no matter what had happened. I just loved you, and I wanted to be with you, even when I would have sworn up and down I didn’t. And when you did come back, what terrified me the most was that all that love hadn’t gone anywhere. It was just waiting—”

  “It is impossible,” he told her then, sounding as if he was chewing glass as he spoke. “You must know this.”

  “Which part?” She watched him stalk over to grab his trousers and wondered if he was having as much trouble concentrating as she was. What with all the nudity in the room. “Because I assure you, it’s actually quite easy to love. You just do it.”

  Pascal didn’t say anything. He dressed quickly and quietly, and when she didn’t rush to do the same, he lifted one of those dark brows at her direction.

  Cecilia sighed, then took her time refastening her bra. She stepped into her panties, pulled them into place, and then she took a very long time indeed to wander over across the office floor and pick up her dress. When she finally shimmied it over her head and back into place, he was gritting his teeth so hard that she was fairly surprised his jaw didn’t shatter.

  She smiled. Pascal did not.

  “I told you that you would beg, and you did,” he said darkly. “But I see no reason whatsoever to drag out the rest of this charade. I will have my secretary contact you and you can hammer out the details with him.”

  “What details?”

  “We’ve already covered this,” he said, but though his voice was as commanding as ever, his eyes told a different story. It was as if he was so wounded he’d...gone numb. And had no idea that he was staggering about while missing a limb. “Take Dante. Go back to your mountains. You’re safer there.”

  “I love those mountains,” Cecilia said. “I always will. But they’re not the only thing I love.”

  “I heard you.” His voice could have cut stone in half, and she was somewhat surprised she wasn’t in pieces herself. “I don’t need to hear it again.”

  But she had decided to stop being afraid. No matter what.

  “I want everything, Pascal,” she told him. “I want a real marriage. I want a real family. I want a real life. With you.”

  “And you deserve those things.” He sounded stiff, but she could see the torment in his eyes. “But I cannot give them to you.”

  She made herself laugh. “You’re one of the richest, most powerful men in Italy. You can give me whatever you want to give me.”

  “Cecilia—”

  “Think of it. Real life, Pascal. No threats, no lies. No secrets. Just us.”

  And she could see the storm break in him then. She lifted her hand toward him—but he stepped back as if he was afraid that she would tear him in two.

  As if she already had.

  “I can’t be real,” he threw at her, and her heart broke at the sound of his voice. So ragged. So raw. “I wouldn’t know how to begin. I was born broken and I’ve only gotten worse.”

  And she wanted to put her hands on him more than she wanted her next breath. She wanted to gather him to her, and soothe him somehow. She wanted to shout at him, shake him.

&
nbsp; But she knew he wouldn’t let her do any of that.

  Instead, she tried to smile. “All you have to do is choose love, Pascal,” she told him quietly, but with every bit of truth she knew right there in her voice. “Choose me. Just once.”

  Six years ago he’d run. And she understood why he had, why he’d believed he had no other choice. But understanding the past didn’t change it; it could only—if they were lucky—change the future.

  “Just once,” she whispered.

  But Pascal was shaking his head. And she wanted to scream at him, beg him all over again, but he looked tortured. Ripped apart.

  “I can’t,” he gritted out. And then he stood a little straighter, lifting his head to meet her stricken gaze head-on. “If that means you have to leave me, I understand. I told you. I think you should.”

  She had been asleep the last time he’d left her. And maybe that had been a kindness after all.

  But Cecilia wasn’t asleep now.

  She thought about the past six years, and how hard she’d fought not just to give Dante a good life, but to also make sure that her own didn’t feel like an albatross around her neck. She’d chosen her life, and she’d made it good, with whatever pieces she’d had left after she’d had to leave the abbey.

  And as much as she loved this man standing before her, as much as she’d always loved him and always would, she didn’t see any reason why she should do any differently now.

  She could, she knew. She could back off. She could say something placating, or try to smooth things over. She could continue this half-life she’d been living since she’d come to Rome with him. Wandering about aimlessly half the time, and then living for those moments when she woke up in his arms, and could pretend she was horrified to find herself there.

  There were a thousand games that she could play, but she didn’t want any of that.

  She wanted him, not games.

  She wanted their family.

  She wanted everything that she’d told him she wanted, but she was greedy. She wanted him to want it, too. She’d grown up with a family of nuns, so she knew her way around a martyr. And she didn’t want any of that, either.