Olivia Gates - One Night In…

‘No, I don’t. So why don’t you tell me?’

‘I’ve told you all you need to know.’

‘I want to know more,’ she persisted, her voice breaking a little. ‘Alessandro, I want to understand you.’

He laughed, a harsh sound, raking a hand through his hair before setting his glass down so hard it rattled. ‘Trust me, Meghan,’ he said savagely, ‘you do not want to understand me.’

Meghan trembled inwardly at his words, but she stood her ground. ‘Tell me why not, then.’

He glanced at her, eyes blazing, punishing. His smile was a cruel slash of colour on his face. She took an unsteady step backwards.

‘Why do you think I chose you?’ he asked, his voice a deadly purr. ‘And not some Italian girl, like you said? Someone from my own class, culture? Because face it, Meghan …’ he glanced at her with a searing contempt that made her feel tarted-up and dirty ‘… you’re not.’

‘I know I’m not,’ she whispered, hurt despite her intention not to be, despite her realisation that he was trying to hurt her and she was letting him. This was perhaps hurting him as much as it was her.

Why did he do this to her? To himself?

Why?

‘I chose you because you don’t know my family, you don’t know me, and it can stay that way. I don’t want you to know me. I don’t want you to understand me. I don’t love you, and you don’t love me, remember? So let’s enjoy each other’s company— and bodies—without any unnecessary complications. Is that understood?’ His mouth turned upwards in a mocking smile.

Meghan stumbled back a step, sickened. ‘What about the promises you made to me, Alessandro? What about the man you mean to be? Is this it? Because if so, I don’t want any part of you.’ The words rang out, echoing, condemning.

The smile died on his face, leaving it blank and empty. He stared at her for a moment, and Meghan opened her mouth to deny what she said, to apologise. She wanted him. She wanted all of him. She wanted to understand, to explain, to …

Help. Help him.

‘It’s too late for regrets,’ he said tonelessly. ‘For either of us. You will marry me, Meghan. You don’t have any choice. And neither do I.’

‘We both have choices,’ Meghan protested, though her voice sounded feeble. ‘This may have been a deal, Alessandro, but we can break it.’ Not that she wanted to even now, God help her.

‘We cannot!’

His hand slashed through the air, and, goaded, Meghan found herself replying, ‘I can.’

He came to her in two strides, his face lit with a primal ferocity as he grabbed her shoulders. ‘You will not break it, Meghan. Swear to me!’

‘Don’t do this,’ she whispered. Tears streaked down her face.

He released her. Then his hands slid down her arms, down her sides, and he fell to his knees, his head buried against her middle.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, his voice jagged and broken. He drew in a shuddering breath and his arms wrapped around her waist, clinging to her as if she were his anchor. ‘I never meant … What kind of man am I?’ It came out as an anguished cry, a plea for mercy. ‘What kind of man am I?’

Meghan trembled with suppressed emotion, pain. The tears still streaked down her face as she buried her fingers in his hair. He lifted his head to gaze up at her. The bleak despair etched in harsh, unforgiving lines on Alessandro’s face was nearly her undoing.

‘The man you mean to be,’ she whispered, and kissed him with all the tenderness she longed to give him. He knelt there, motionless, accepting her offering, before he pulled her down to him, turning the kiss into something deeper, something that hurt like a wound, deep inside.

His arms were around her, hard and desperate, the kiss plundering, plunging. Meghan kissed him back, desire fanning quickly, leaping into dangerous flames. She threw her head back to give him access to her throat, desire now pouring through her in a molten wave, burning her up. Their breathing was harsh, ragged.

He pulled her dress down, mindless of the delicate material. The sound of its tearing rent the air, and his voice came out in a sob as he buried his head between her breasts, touching her, suckling her, turning her to liquid fire even as the tears dried on her cheeks.

She pulled open his shirt, the buttons popping and scattering across the floor, let her hands touch and twist and tease, before wrapping her arms around the smooth, broad expanse of his back, pulling him closer.

She didn’t know what was happening—why this moment of passion had sprung from pain and despair, sorrow and misery.

She only knew that she wanted to satisfy him—that she was his, she would be his.

It was what he needed.

And she needed it too; her body ached, demanding to be quenched. She pulled him to her, her dress bunched around her waist, her thighs bare and splayed open.

Alessandro was poised above her, one hand on the waistband of his trousers, undoing his fly with urgent trembling fingers, when he suddenly stilled. Stopped.

The moment was endless. She looked up from the haze of her own need and desire and saw a terrible anguish on his face. He dropped his hand from his trousers, rolled off her onto his back on the floor, one arm covering his face.

‘Alessandro …’

‘Heaven help me,’ he choked out. ‘Look at us. Look at me.’ He sounded disgusted, sickened.

‘I’m sorry …’ Meghan began hesitantly. She lay there, her dress in hopeless disarray, her body still open to him. Still wanting.

He didn’t look at her as he shook his head. ‘You are sorry? Gattina, no. No.’ It came out harshly. He dropped his arm from his face, sat up and raked a hand through his hair, his face still averted. ‘Just go, Meghan,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Leave me. I’m no good to you now.’

Meghan sat up too, pulled her dress back on with trembling fingers. She wanted to touch him, wanted to put her arms around his hunched shoulders, stroke his bowed head. ‘Yes, you are.’

He shook his head again, his hands fisted in his hair. ‘Please. Please leave me. For both our sakes.’ His voice rose to a near roar. ‘Go!’

Choking back the misery and confusion that threatened to rise up into an endless sob, Meghan went.

THE wedding was a blur.

Meghan understood the words, but the Italian washed over her in a soothing, melodious tide of language.

She wore the dress—Gabriella’s timelessly elegant ivory gown—altered to fit her own more generous curves.

She saw the guests, a handful of discreet friends and business associates who watched the strange, sudden ceremony with carefully blank faces.

She had the bridesmaids—Alessandro’s younger sister, Chiara, sleek and quiet, having flown in that morning from London. She was flying out immediately after the reception, and from the way she stood next to Meghan, her body tense and straining as the priest rambled on, Meghan guessed she couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Alessandro’s best man, Stefano Lucrezi, was watchful and alert, his attention solely on the priest. Meghan had the sense that he was aware in some way of Chiara, though he never looked at her.

And Alessandro? He stood there, calm, urbane, implacable. In a few minutes—seconds, perhaps—he would be her husband.

He hadn’t spoken one word to her since she’d entered the church, walked down the ancient stone aisle alone amidst a sea of frighteningly neutral faces.

This was her life now.

Now, now it was too late to back out.

And still she didn’t want to.

Silly, naïve her.