She reached for her pillow and pressed it to her churning stomach. “I don’t know, Val. That’s what I’m asking you, and you keep avoiding the answer. What’s the real reason? Dario knows. You know. I think you’re the only two people in the world who do.”
His thumb moved over the bare skin of her ankle. “There are some things that are ours, Emme. Yours. Mine. The Saldis’. Not the Ferraros’. You have a tendency to think of yourself as a Ferraro and you go straight to Stefano. I don’t blame you for that. In fact, Stefano saved us. I’m grateful for the alliance.”
“You were counting on an alliance. As much as Dario said you told him not to contact me, that was bullshit. You both wanted me there, knew I would come, and you counted on me calling Stefano.”
He didn’t deny it. How could he? Valentino always had a plan. She should have known, but even had she figured it out ahead of time, she still wouldn’t have allowed him to be killed.
He gave her a faint smile. “The most difficult time for me was early on. You protected your shadow, Princess. I had to be patient, and I was really afraid one of the others might notice the phenomenon. Dario helped me watch over you, but it was very nerve-wracking. I was afraid you’d go to Stefano and he’d put a stop to you coming to see me when I called you. I counted on your protecting me.”
“I did go to him.”
His eyebrow shot up. “Why didn’t he stop you from coming to me?”
“He didn’t listen to me that first time. After that, I did protect you.”
He looked so satisfied she wanted to throw something at him again. Instead, she clutched the pillow. “Valentino, I’m not going to be sidetracked. I want to know what you’re hiding.”
“Marry me. Right away. I’ll tell you everything. But only when you’re my wife.”
She scowled at him. “Are you crazy? Do you even listen to anything I say? Absolutely not.” She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. “Can’t you see why this won’t work? You can’t hear me when I talk to you. You don’t understand what I’m saying to you. I’m not another woman, Val. I’m a Ferraro. I’m every bit as lethal as you are in my own way. You think because I love you that I wouldn’t ever harm you. Given the right circumstances, you would be wrong. I’m not willing to risk it.”
She heard the absolute, utter despair in her voice. There was no resolving a situation when Val was so certain he was right. He was stubborn in the same way Stefano was. As head of the house, everyone else bent to his will. As head of an entire organization, a huge territory, Val would expect everyone to do exactly as he ordered—including her. That wasn’t Emmanuelle. She’d often defied her brother. That was what had gotten her in this mess in the first place.
Val shrugged carefully out of his jacket and reached for his tie, loosening it, his eyes never leaving hers. “I always listen to every word you say, Emmanuelle. You’re important to me. I’ve had these last two years to go over every word you said. Every word I said. I know every breath you took and when you took it.”
Emmanuelle didn’t know how to save herself when he was like this. His voice a velvet caress, smoothing over her skin, raising goose bumps. His words shooting arrows straight to her heart, to her soul. He knew what to say to get to her. His eyes never leaving hers so she was held captive, drowning in him. That’s what he did to her. That’s how he mesmerized her every single time. She turned weak.
“Do you really think I would ever cheat on you, Emme? That I could stand another woman touching my body? That I would want another woman’s mouth on my cock? That I could put my cock in her body after being inside of you? Is that what you really think of me, Princess?” His tie was dropped to the chair, and he sank down and removed his shoes, not once looking away from her.
Her stomach did a slow somersault. The very large room was suddenly too small. He filled it with his masculine scent. Just with him.
“You expect me to believe a man like you, a man with your sex drive, has gone two years without a woman?” She flung it at him like an accusation, trying to save herself in desperation. Already, she was aching for him. Felt empty, her blood pounding with excitement. Racing. Hot with need. With craving. With obsession. This was Valentino.
One by one the buttons of his shirt opened to reveal his chest. That chest of his. Rock solid. All muscle. Even the scars, old and new, fresh wounds, couldn’t deter from the perfection that was Valentino Saldi.
He smiled at her. A predator’s smile. He knew exactly what he was doing to her. Her heart was racing. He saw the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the thin, nearly nonexistent top she wore as she struggled to keep her breathing under control. Her fingers fisted in the sheets.
He glided and was suddenly looming over her, his palm wrapped around her throat, fingers on one side of her neck, thumb on the other. His strength was enormous. She’d forgotten how truly strong he was. He tipped her head back so she was staring into his dark green eyes. Eyes that held no mercy whatsoever.
“Do you expect me to believe that a beautiful woman with a voracious sex drive such as yours has gone without a man for two long years, Emmanuelle?” His voice was very soft, but it carried a warning. “I wonder if you ever considered how often I might be lying in my bed awake going a little insane thinking of another man touching you.”
His free hand stroked her right breast gently under the little silken top she wore. His thumb brushed her tight nipple back and forth. Each light brush sent darts of fire straight to her core, scores of fiery arrows that were like lightning strikes, every single one of them.
“Go ahead, Val, I can’t resist you. That’s why we’re here, at this point, but I won’t marry you and I won’t stay. I’ll let you seduce me and distract me because that’s what you always do to get your way and I’m so damn easy.” There were tears in her voice, but there wasn’t a single one in her eyes. She wasn’t going to shed one for him. Or for herself.
“Is that what you think I’m doing, Princess? Seducing you? Distracting you so I don’t have to give you answers?” He reached out and caught the hem of the silk top she wore, pulling it over her head and dropping it on the chair behind him.
There had been a note of dark humor in Val’s voice, but she couldn’t detect any on his face. His gaze was riveted to the bruises on the swell of both breasts and just below, in the valley in between.
“Isn’t it?” She could barely breathe. The look on his face distracted her too much. Rage was back. His eyes were alive with a swirling promise of absolute death, but a long, slow one to any man who would do such a thing to her.
“Give me a name, Emmanuelle. Who the fuck did this to you?”
“He’s dead. I killed him,” she reiterated. She had told him after the doctor had worked on his injuries. “It happened when Miceli’s men attacked the lake house. I was taking out the men in the vehicles coming up the drive.”
The pads of his fingers moved to the valley between her breasts to lightly trace the dark, angry black-and-blue splotch there. He was making it so hard to think. His other hand was still around her throat, but so gentle. His head remained bent and so close she could see the spill of his thick dark hair and his long lashes as he examined the colors running down the lighter olive of her natural skin tone.