The Italian's Twin Consequences (One Night With Consequences)

by Caitlin Crews

  And it had gotten much worse from there.

  “She needed help,” Sarina told Matteo now. “And I gave her a stern talking-to instead, as if that could change what was done to her. And then in the morning, she was gone. And I get to spend the rest of my life living with the fact that when she needed me the most, I decided that what she really needed was to face up to reality.”

  Matteo didn’t look at her as if she was a monster, and that made it worse.

  “You couldn’t have known,” he said.

  “Do you want to know the sick truth?” Sarina moved closer to him, jabbing furiously at the wetness on her cheeks that blurred her eyes, as well. “I’ve spent years sitting with guilt. But I didn’t really understand her. I thought she was weak. I felt guilty because I kicked her when she was already down, but the truth—the real truth—is that I thought she couldn’t help it. She acted as if she had no power over the things that happened to her. And I was sure that I was different. That I would never, ever compromise myself to be with anyone. And then I met you.”

  If anything, Matteo seemed more beautiful now. More compelling, more impossibly magnetic, even though she knew exactly how dangerous he was to her.

  And worse, how deeply she would betray herself—and had—just to touch him.

  “And look at me now.” Sarina let out a hollow sort of laugh, ignoring that same expression on his face. As if he understood, when she knew he couldn’t. Of course he couldn’t. She had never been able to understand it herself. “I’ve compromised myself in every possible way and there’s no excuse for it. I slept with you when I was meant to be assessing you, and I can talk about gray areas and who my real client was until I’m blue in the face, but we both know I crossed the line. And I can’t even pretend that you’re the one who did it. I crossed that line all by myself. I leaped across it, brandishing my virginity like a prize.”

  “That is not quite how I recall it,” Matteo said, in a soft way with a hint of laughter that only made all that darkness inside her worse.

  Because she didn’t deserve laughter. Or softness. She knew she never would.

  “I slept with you. I let you blackmail me. I lied to your entire board of directors because you asked me to. And when I found out I was pregnant, my first thought wasn’t how I got myself into such a mess. My first thought was a sick kind of delight that someday, somewhere, I knew that the fact I was having your babies meant I would see you again.” Sarina thought she was going to laugh again, but this time there was no denying that what came out was a sob. “All Jeanette did was fall in love. I don’t have the slightest idea why I did any of the things I’ve done. What would make a person act like that? Like this. What could possibly compel—”

  “This, little one.” Matteo reached out, taking a firm grip of her arms and pulling her to him. “This.”

  She sank down to her knees, too, so she was facing him as he brought her into the circle of his strong arms. And she shuddered when she saw the expression in his dark gray eyes, up close so there could be no mistake.

  Tender.

  And worse still, sure.

  “I don’t want this,” she whispered. “I never wanted this.”

  Matteo’s beautiful mouth curved. “Too bad.”

  And then he set his mouth to hers.

  It was a kiss. A claiming. It was gentle and sweet, and it filled her with light. It was hope and it was joy, and she didn’t know what to do about any of those things except to lean into him. Kiss him back.

  Melt against him, the way she had from the start.

  “Marry me,” he said against her mouth. “Fight with me if you like, Doctor. Just promise me you will do it forever.”

  And he left her mouth, raining kisses all over her face. He lifted her up to her feet before him, but kept his hands at her hips. Holding her steady, she understood. Propping her up when her own legs felt rubbery beneath her.

  “Marry me,” he said again. And again.

  And then he pushed up her shirt, exposing her belly. Then set his mouth to her navel, laying kisses all around that soft swell that held their future.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” Sarina sobbed at him.

  “I think you do.”

  And he kissed her. He soothed her.

  It felt new. Huge and impossible, but if she leaned into it, it was nothing short of glorious.

  She didn’t know who started removing clothes, but all that soothing turned to flame. And that flame began to dance, higher and higher.

  And then it seemed she couldn’t help herself. She needed to be naked. She needed him to be naked, too.

  They had been together so briefly and apart too long. And Sarina couldn’t stand another moment without him,

  The first time she took him, there on the floor on the soft rug. She climbed over him, settled herself upon him, and took him deep inside of her.

  “This is what forever feels like,” he told her.

  That deep, slick slide. His hardness and her softness, and all that melting that made them one.

  Matteo’s hands were on her hips. His gaze was locked to hers.

  And they fell off the side of the world together.

  She was still spinning when he picked her up, carrying her from the floor to the bed, then curling himself around her.

  “The only forever I know is a revenge fantasy,” she confessed.

  He brushed her hair back from her face, smiling at her as if she was beautiful. As if she was good.

  And when he looked at her that way, she felt as if she could be.

  “We can play out any fantasies you like, little one,” he promised her. “You think this kind of chemistry comes along every day?”

  And it shouldn’t have been possible to feel that fire again, but she did. And she knew he did, too, because his grin was wolfish as he tipped her over onto her back, pulled her knees up high, then settled himself between them.

  “Marry me,” he said again.

  And then he began to tease her.

  He held her down, and set his mouth to every single part of her body. He made her writhe, then sob. He brought her close, time and again, but then retreated.

  “Marry me,” he demanded, when she was making keening sounds, her head thrashing back and forth on the pillows.

  “All right,” she finally cried, breaking. Because she couldn’t remember why she shouldn’t. Not when the world had disappeared, leaving nothing at all but him. “I’ll marry you.”

  And only then did he surge inside her at last.

  She exploded at once, crying out in some mad combination of joy and hope, and a thousand other things she hardly dared name.

  He pounded into her, murmuring love words in every language he knew, and she didn’t have to understand the words to thrill to them each time.

  He built up that fire in her all over again, and when she broke yet again, he came with her.

  His gaze was like silver, bright with the happiness Sarina could feel inside her, too.

  “Remember this,” Matteo told her, holding her as if she was precious, so high above the world, surrounded by stone and certainty, and his arms like both. “This is how it’s going to feel, Sarina. Always and forever, just like this.”

  And it did.

  * * *

  Ten years later, Sarina kissed each one of her nine-year-old twin boys goodbye, peeked in on the six-year-old who was teaching herself to read in her bed, and assured herself that the toddler was fast asleep. Then she left them all in the extremely capable hands of their battalion of certified nannies, and joined her husband on the roof of the ancient San Giacomo villa in Venice.

  “Consider this an abduction,” Matteo said, his gray eyes alight with a dark storm of passion that was only hers, mixed in with the gleaming silver that was theirs. They made it together, each and every day.

 
Every laugh. Every touch. Every secret smile.

  “I do love an abduction,” she said with a laugh. “Happy anniversary, my love.”

  He kissed her there, on the rooftop of the place where they had first met. With that same fire. That endless need.

  The glory that was all theirs. Still.

  Matteo helped her board the helicopter that waited for them. And as it rose into the Venetian night, then flew north, Sarina reflected on the past decade.

  It was so hard to remember who she had been, back then.

  That woman so afraid to love. So certain that it would all end, and badly. So convinced that because her friend had been unhappy, and they had both been so immature, she deserved nothing but pain.

  It had taken years to undo those knots, but she’d done it. She and Matteo had followed each thread and pulled them straight, one after the next. In both of them.

  They had stayed in the monastery for weeks, emerging only to attend to matters that truly couldn’t be missed. They had gotten to know each other without angry board members, agendas, or the outside world.

  But she hadn’t married him until she was eight months pregnant, so huge that all she could do was waddle, wondering if she would survive giving birth to the two baby boys inside of her.

  “Marry me,” he said, one bright day in London. “Or are you waiting so that our children can walk you down the aisle?”

  She had her father walk her down the aisle, there in the gardens of Combe Manor. She thought they’d reclaimed it that day, taking it back from the ghosts, and setting it up for their future.

  And that night, she lay with Matteo in that same bed in that master suite where she’d lost her heart so completely. Over and over again.

  Except this time, she’d known what it was that she felt when she was with him.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  He grinned at her, brushing her hair back from her face so he could gaze into her eyes.

  Her husband. Her life.

  “I am well aware, little one,” he told her.

  “I love you,” she said again, relishing the words on her tongue. “And I think I love you even more for marrying me without making me say it.”

  “You would never believe in love unless it came wrapped up tight with unbreakable vows,” he said, already moving to set the hardest part of himself against her, right there where she yielded into softness and molten heat. “And I do not mind making vows to you, Sarina.”

  Because every vow they made to each other, they kept.

  She gave birth to their twin sons and he was there to take each one in his arms, then smile at her as if she had remade the world.

  He was there when their daughter came, angrier by far. And he was the one who suggested that they call her Jeanette, after the friend—the sister—that Sarina would never stop missing.

  And he was by her side when their fourth baby came too quickly, giving them all a scare. He was her rock as they waited for news, and he dried her tears when all was well and their third son was finally placed in her arms.

  That was what Matteo did. He showed up. He supported her.

  Day after day, year after year, he taught her how to live.

  In return she taught him that he had always been a man, human straight through, no matter how he pretended otherwise. And one after the next, they untied all their knots and vanquished all their ghosts, together.

  Because the other side of grief was love.

  She continued her practice, shifting away from the corporate clients to focus more on women in need of healing, not revenge. For his part, Matteo learned how to delegate, so that he need not be a janitor to his family—unless that was what he wanted.

  And as the helicopter landed high up in the Dolomites, there in the courtyard of the fortress she would always consider the finest and sweetest retreat in all the world, Sarina reflected that it had been a long time indeed since she’d last thought of the things that had haunted them so much when they’d started.

  “Why are you smiling?” Matteo asked, taking her hand as they walked across the courtyard and lacing their fingers tight together. The way he always did.

  “I was just thinking,” she replied. “I can’t recall the last time we saw a ghost.”

  She was making a joke, but his expression turned serious. Those beloved gray eyes, stern and sure, lit up with all they’d done over these past ten years.

  And the promise of what came next.

  “Ghosts are of the past,” he told her, rich and low, while the mountains stood as witness. “But you and I, Sarina. We have nothing ahead of us but the future, bright and clear.”

  And hand in hand, more in love than they’d been at the start, they found it.

  Together.

  * * *

  If you enjoyed The Italian’s Twin Consequences by Caitlin Crews, look out for Dominik’s and Pia’s stories, coming soon!

  And why not explore these other One Night With Consequences stories?

  Carrying the Sheikh’s Baby

  by Heidi Rice

  The Venetian One-Night Baby

  by Melanie Milburne

  Heiress’s Pregnancy Scandal

  by Julia James

  Innocent’s Nine-Month Scandal

  by Dani Collins

  Available now!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Pregnant by the Commanding Greek by Natalie Anderson.

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  Pregnant by the Commanding Greek

  by Natalie Anderson

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN, he wants us to “get rid of it”?’ Antoinette Roberts scooped up the small, greying terrier and clutched him close. ‘Doesn’t he realise that “it” is a gorgeous, living creature?’ She glared at Joel, her junior colleague.

  ‘I don’t think he does, Ettie,’ Joel answered in an agitated whisper. ‘He just stormed in here first thing and demanded access to Harold’s apartment and started clearing stuff out.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’ Disgust surged through Ettie.

  Cavendish House, an exclusive apartment building in the heart of London’s Mayfair, offered full concierge service to its privacy-loving residents, and, as head concierge, Ettie was used to delivering it for her demanding guests; from everyday mundane queries to the most outrageous, extravagant requests.

  She didn’t just arrange parcel deliveries and make restaurant bookings, she sourced rar
e first editions of famous novels and cajoled Michelin chefs to cook in a resident’s apartment to help create the perfect proposal... And she was proud of the service she worked hard to provide. Until today there’d been no request she hadn’t been able to fulfil.

  But she drew the line at the euthanasia of a perfectly healthy, beloved pet on a total stranger’s whim.

  ‘I suppose George let him in?’ she growled.

  Joel nodded.

  That’d be right. George, the building manager, was obsequious to clients, pernickety with petty rules while sloppy with what was actually crucial, and a belligerent bully to the personnel. Ettie spent half her time fixing his blunders and soothing staff resentment when he’d blamed them.

  It was her fault it had got this far with the dog. She’d arrived late for the first time in years because she’d been up most of the night counselling her stressed-out sister, Ophelia, who was panicking that she’d flunked her latest physics test. Not that Ophelia had flunked a test in her life. Fiendishly academic, she was away at boarding school on a partial scholarship. Ettie was paying the rest of the fees and Ophelia was desperate to secure a university place. That meant another scholarship, which in turn meant outstanding results in every assessment in this last year of her schooling. As amazing as Ophelia was, Ettie worried the pressure was too intense. But she wouldn’t let Ophelia give up her dream. Ettie had sacrificed too much herself to allow that. So, after calming Ophelia, she’d lain awake fretting about how she could better financially support her. Since their mother’s death two years ago, it fell to Ettie to make it happen.

  But making things happen was what Ettie did. She’d learned and worked for it, making miles-long lists and instituting systems so her sometimes impulsive and distraction-prone self wouldn’t forget anything. But today she’d lapsed into her natural disorder. She’d overslept, in her mad scurry she’d missed breakfast, lost her last hair tie and resorted to using an old rubber band, and still missed her train.

  When she’d finally raced into Cavendish House this morning, it was to the shocking news that her favourite long-term resident, Harold Clarke, had been rushed to hospital in the small hours of the night. While his passing had been quick and peaceful, his family—the family Ettie hadn’t seen visit once in the five years she’d been working there—was already on the premises and clearing out his treasures. Apparently they didn’t regard Toby, Harold’s small terrier, as a treasure. They’d sent him down for Joel, her junior concierge, to “get rid of”.