A Scandal in the Headlines (9 page)

He had his mobile phone clamped to his ear, a fierce scowl on his beautiful face, and Elena simply stood there, helplessly, and stared. Everything had changed. Again. She didn’t have any idea how this would go, or what might happen next.

And he still made her heart beat faster when he walked into a room. He still made her knees feel weak. All this time, and she hadn’t grown used to him at all. All of these weeks, and if anything, she was even more susceptible to him than she had been at the start.

She didn’t dare think about what that meant, either. She was terribly afraid she already knew.

“I don’t care,” he growled into the phone. He raked an impatient hand through his hair. “I’m running out of ways to tell you that, Mother, and I ran out of patience ten minutes ago. None of this has anything to do with me.”

He hung up, then tossed the phone on the bed. His dark green eyes narrowed when they found hers. He stilled, that restlessness she could see written all over him fading.

“Has something happened?” Elena asked, and she could hear the nerves in her voice. The panic. His gaze sharpened, telling her he did, too.

“Just one more scandal linked to the Corretti name, though this time, happily, not mine,” he said. “Or not entirely mine, though it gives rise to all sorts of speculation
I should probably care about.” His focus was on Elena, his dark green eyes speculative as they swept over her face. “Alessia Battaglia is pregnant.”

Elena swallowed. “Oh,” she said.

She wished she wasn’t wearing only his shirt. It was like déjà vu. The last time she’d worn a man’s shirt—But she couldn’t let herself think that way. It would only make this harder.

“Well,” she said lamely. She had to clear her throat. “I … am not.”

For a long moment, there was only the sound of her heartbeat, loud in her ears. And the way he looked at her across the expanse of his bed, that fierce and arrogant face of his unreadable.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

Her throat was dry. “I am.”

She didn’t know what she expected. But it wasn’t the way his face changed, the way his eyes darkened—a brief, searing flash. It wasn’t the way that pierced her, straight to the bone.

Regret
.

That was what she saw on his face, in his dark gaze. For a dizzying moment, she couldn’t breathe.

Because she felt it, too, like a newer, deeper ache. As if they’d lost something today. As if they should grieve this instead of celebrate it, and that didn’t make any kind of sense at all.

“All right,” he said then. “That’s good news, isn’t it?”

She nodded, because she didn’t trust her voice.

“We must be lucky,” he said quietly. But his smile was like a ghost, and it hurt her.

It all hurt.

And she knew why, she thought then, in dawning understanding and a surge of fear. This hadn’t been about the games they played, or any of the things she’d been telling herself so fiercely for so long. The lust and the hurt and the wild, uncontrollable passion had been no more than window dressing, and she’d been desperately ignoring what lay beyond all of that since the moment she’d laid eyes on this man in Rome.

Because it shouldn’t have happened like that. It shouldn’t have happened at all. Love at first sight was nonsense; it belonged in poems, songs. Sentimental films. Real people made choices, they didn’t take one look at a stranger on a dance floor and feel the world shift around them, a key turning in a lock.

Elena had been telling herself that for months, and here she was anyway, not carrying his child and as absurdly upset about it as if they’d been trying to get pregnant instead of simply unpardonably reckless.

She was in love with him, God help her.
She was in love with him
.

It rang in her, long and low and deep. And it wasn’t new. It had been there from that very first glance. It
had happened that fast, that irrevocably, and she simply hadn’t wanted to accept that it could be true. But it was.

And now she simply had to figure out how to survive the end of her time with him, the end of these months that had changed her life forever, without giving him that last, worst weapon to use against her.

“Yes,” she agreed, aware he was watching her with those clever eyes of his and she knew he saw too much, the way he always did. “Very lucky.”

T
HE FORTIETH DAY
dawned with no less than three emails from his assistant detailing the precise time the helicopter would arrive to transport him back to Sicily, and Alessandro still wasn’t ready.

He’d run out of excuses. He had to return home or risk damaging Corretti Media in a way he might not be able to fix, and despite his attempts to cut off the part of him that cared about that, he knew he couldn’t let it happen. He was the CEO, and he was needed. And he had to deal with his family before they all imploded, something his mother’s daily, increasingly hysterical voice-mail messages suggested was imminent.

He had to go back to his life. His attempt to leave it behind had only ever been a temporary measure, a reaction to that cursed wedding. It wasn’t him. Duty, responsibility—they beat in him still, and grew louder by the day.

But he couldn’t leave Elena. Not now that he’d discovered she was the woman he’d believed she was from the start. Not now that everything had changed.

He didn’t know what she wanted, however, and the uncertainty was like a fist in his gut. It had been hard enough to convince her to remain on the island once she’d discovered she wasn’t pregnant.

“There’s no reason to stay here any longer.” She’d attempted that calm, cool smile he hated and he’d taken pleasure in the fact she couldn’t quite pull it off, sitting there so primly in the sitting area of his bedchamber, dressed only in one of his shirts and all of the smooth, bare flesh of her legs on display. “Our arrangement was based entirely around waiting to find out—”

“That arrangement was based on the premise that you were still engaged to Niccolo Falco,” he’d said, cutting her off. “Working for him, in fact. A spy.” He’d smiled. “You are none of those things,
cara
.”

“Most importantly, I’m not pregnant,” she’d argued, with a stubborn tilt to her chin. “What you thought about me until yesterday is irrelevant, really.”

“Do you think he’s still searching for you?” he’d asked calmly when he’d wanted nothing more than to put his mouth on her—to remind her how they were anything but irrelevant. And despite that black
punch of murderous rage that slammed into him at the thought of Niccolo.

“I know he is,” she’d said with a shrug. “He sends me an email every week or so, to make sure I never forget it.” She’d smiled then, but it was far too bitter. “It was a good thing I stopped waitressing and took the yacht job. He was in Cefalù only a few days behind me.”

He’d had to force his violent fury down, shove it under wraps, before he’d been able to say another word—and even then, the dark pulse of his temper was in every clipped syllable.

“Do you really believe I will simply let you go like this?” he’d asked. “Wash my hands of you and go about my business while that bastard runs you into the ground? What makes you think that’s a possibility?”

Something he hadn’t been able to identify chased over her face then, but had echoed in him all the same.

“It’s not your decision,” she’d said after a moment. “It’s mine.”

They’d stared at each other for a long while.

“You must know I can keep you here,” he’d said quietly. “No one comes or goes from this place without my permission.”

“You won’t do something like that,” she’d replied with conviction, her eyes meeting his. Holding. “You’re better than that.”

And, damn her, he’d wanted to be.

He’d reached over to take her hands in his, threading his fingers through hers, then pulling their joined hands up to his mouth. She’d sighed, her eyes filling with all of that heat and passion that had delivered them here in the first place. And he’d willed her to relent. To bend. To yield.

To want to hold on to him the way he needed to hold on to her.

“You’re the one who wanted forty days,” he’d said, searching her face, trying to see what he needed to see written there. “There’s almost a whole week left.”

She’d shaken her head. “Playtime is over, Alessandro.”

“Forty days,” he’d repeated, because he hadn’t known what else to say, how else to convince her. She couldn’t leave. This wasn’t over—it had only just begun.

“Alessandro …”

“Elena. Please.” He hadn’t recognized his own voice, much less what coursed through him as he’d said it. “Stay.”

He’d begged. There was no other word for it.

But she’d looked up at him then and he hadn’t cared at all that he’d bent in a way he’d previously believed impossible. He’d only cared that it worked.

“I’ll give you forty days,” she’d said when he’d
begun to lose hope, her eyes changing from blue to gray. “But that’s it. This can’t go on any longer than that.”

He’d only moved closer to her, and then he’d taken her mouth with his, answering her as best he could.

It had all gone by too quickly, he thought now, glaring out his window at the sea as if it had betrayed him. As if nature and time had conspired against him. He sensed her come into the master suite before he heard her, that familiar spark of lightning down his spine and straight into his sex—and that fist in his gut seemed to burrow deeper.

“Are you ready?” he asked without turning around. He had to fight to keep his voice level, to keep his temper under control, and it was much harder than it should have been. How could he lose her when he’d just found her? “The helicopter will be here any moment.”

“Of course,” Elena said, back to that smooth voice he loathed. “I packed everything that’s mine.”

“And my staff packed everything else,” he said evenly. “What use do you imagine I have for the clothes you wore while you were here?”

She didn’t answer. He shoved his hands into his pockets so she wouldn’t see that he’d balled them into fists. He knew she was still standing there—he could feel her—but the silence stretched out between them,
sharp and treacherous. He didn’t know what to do, or say.

He only knew he couldn’t stand this.

Alessandro heard the unmistakable sound of his helicopter then, roaring toward the meadow for its landing. Coming down fast to hasten this unacceptable ending.

Too late
, he thought.
It’s always too late
.

He turned then, abruptly, and caught the look on her face. Resolute. Miserable. Brave and determined. He concentrated on
miserable
.

“Stay with me,” he bit out. An order this time, with no silk or seduction or even begging to sweeten it.

“Stay?” she echoed, as if she didn’t understand the word. “Here?” She shook her head, sketched that airy smile. “You can’t keep hiding away here, Alessandro. It’s time to go home.”

She was dressed for the outside world. No flowing dress, no tiny shorts, no skimpy bikini. She wore those white denim trousers that made him uncomfortably hard, another pair of wicked heels and a peach-colored top that flirted with her curves beneath a cream-colored scarf looped lazily around her neck. Her hair was slicked back into a sleek ponytail, and she had sunglasses perched on her head, ready to slide over her eyes. She looked casually fashionable, impenetrably lovely, and he knew it was armor.

He hated it.

“Come to Palermo with me,” he threw out without thinking, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t care how complicated that could become. He didn’t care if it started a damned war with the Falco family. He’d fight it with his own bare hands if he had to. He didn’t care about anything but her.

And if an alarm sounded deep inside of him then, he ignored it.

“You know that’s impossible,” she said fiercely. As if he’d finally struck a nerve. “You know I have to go.”

Alessandro remembered that night, so long ago now, when he’d told her he would chase her through the house if she wanted him to do it. That he would let her abdicate any responsibility for what happened between them, let it all be on him, if that was what it took. Was that what she needed?

But he couldn’t do it.

“I won’t hold you against your will. I won’t even beg.” His voice was low, but all of their history was in it. That dance. This island. All the truths they’d finally laid bare. “Come with me anyway.”

“This isn’t fair,” she whispered, and he shouldn’t have taken it as a kind of harsh victory that she sounded as agonized as he felt. As torn apart. “We agreed.”

“Just this once,” he said fiercely, “just this one time,
admit what’s happening here. What’s always been happening here. For God’s sake, Elena—come with me because you can’t bear to leave me.”

Whole worlds moved through her gaze then, and left the overbright sheen of tears in their wake. And it wasn’t enough, that he knew she wanted him, too, that he knew exactly how stark her need was. That he could feel it inside of him, lighting up his own. That he knew he could exploit it, with a single touch.

He needed her to admit it. To say it. He needed all of this to matter to her. And the fact that he was uncomfortable with the intensity of that need—that it edged into territory he refused to explore—didn’t make it any less necessary.

A moment dragged by, too sharp and too hard. Then another.

“I’m not a good person,” she said finally. Her hands opened and closed fitfully, restlessly, at her sides. “And neither are you. A good person would never have allowed what happened between us in Rome to happen at all. I was
engaged
. And you knew I was with Niccolo when you approached me.” Her gaze slammed into his. “All we do is make mistakes, Alessandro. Maybe that’s all this is. Maybe that’s what we should admit.”

He started toward her, watching her face as he drew closer. He had never been so uncertain of anything or
anyone in his life, and yet so oddly sure of her at the same time. So sure of
this
. He didn’t understand it. But like everything with Elena, from that very first glance, it simply was. Undefinable. Undeniable. But always and ever
his
.

“I know that you don’t trust me,” he said when he reached her, looking down into her troubled blue gaze. “I know what the name Corretti means to you. I know you think all manner of terrible things about me, and I know you’re waiting for the next blow.” He reached over to trace the vulnerable curve of her mouth with his thumb, making her tremble. “Come to Palermo. Have faith.”

He read the storms in her eyes, across her pretty face. And he forced himself to do nothing at all but wait it out. Wait her out.

“I don’t believe in faith anymore.” A great cloud washed over her, across her face and through those beautiful eyes, and left them shadowed. She pulled in a deep, long breath, then let it out. “But I’ll do it,” she said finally, as if the words were wrenched from her. “I’ll come with you.”

Satisfaction and intense relief ripped through him, making him feel bigger. Wilder. Edgy with a ferocious kind of triumph.

But he wasn’t finished.

“Tell me why.”

Her eyes darkened, and she started to shake her head, started to retreat from him. He slid his hand along her jaw, and held her like that, forcing her to look at him. Keeping her right there in plain sight. Her lips parted slightly, and her breath came hard, as if she was running away the way she no doubt wished she was.

“Tell me,” he said quietly. “I need to hear you say it.”

She gazed back at him. He could feel her pulse against his hand, could see it wild and panicked in her throat. “Because …” she began, and had to stop, as if her throat closed in on her. Her eyes were filled with heat and damp. She swayed on her feet as if there was a great wind howling around them, and it threatened to knock her flat.

But she didn’t fall.

He brushed the knuckles of his other hand over her soft cheek, her distractingly elegant cheekbone.

“Say it,” he whispered.

“Because I can’t leave you,” she said finally, in a broken, electrifying rush. He felt it from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, as if he’d been struck by lightning, by her, all over again. As if she’d shone that bright light into all of that darkness within him, chasing it away at last. “Not yet.”

The helicopter ride was bumpy and noisy, despite the bulky headphones she’d been given to wear, but Elena
was happy enough to stay silent while Alessandro and the assistant who’d flown out to meet him discussed Corretti Media business concerns. She soaked in the beckoning Mediterranean blue far below, and pretended the only thing in her head was the sea. The golden sun. The lovely view.

But it didn’t work. The enormity of what she’d done was like iron in her chest, making it harder and harder to breathe. It had been one thing to hand over her body, another still to offer up her story to his mercy, such as it was. But she was very much afraid that, today, Alessandro had demanded she give him her soul.

And she’d done it.

She couldn’t believe she’d actually done it.

Too soon, the helicopter was making its way through the Palermo skyline, and then setting down on the roof of the landmark Corretti Media tower. Elena climbed out slowly, staying behind Alessandro and the assistant who hadn’t stopped talking in all this time, trying to pretend she was not in the least bit overwhelmed. That she gave away her soul like it was little more than a trinket every day of the week. That she was in control of this.

“Signorina Calderon and I are going to eat something,” Alessandro said then, breaking into his assistant’s stream of chatter in a steely tone she’d never
heard before. It brought Elena back to the present with a jolt.

“But, sir,” his assistant said in a rush. “Since you’ve been gone, your family …” His voice trailed off as Alessandro glared at him, but he visibly rallied. “The Battaglia situation is only getting more heated, and time is nearly up for the new docklands proposal—”

“I will come into the office later, Giovanni,” Alessandro said with wintry finality.

Elena’s stomach twisted. He was cold, harsh, commanding—but with none of that dark fire she knew so well beneath it. This must be Alessandro, the much-feared and much-respected CEO. Alessandro, the eldest Corretti heir. No wonder people spoke of him in such awed, cowed tones. He was terrifying.

“My apologies,” his assistant said smoothly, inclining his head. “Of course, that is perfect. We will expect you after lunch.”