A Hunger for the Forbidden - By Maisey Yates Page 0,61
sign that she had gotten what she wanted. No, Matteo looked like someone had died.
She didn’t say anything. She just waited.
“You deserve that,” he said finally. “And you won’t get it from me.”
“Can’t you just try?”
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Stop being so bloody noble. Stop being so repressed. Fight for us. Fight for this.”
“No. I won’t hold you to me. I won’t hold you to this. That is one thing I will do for you, one thing I’ll do right.”
“You really think removing yourself is the only way to fix something? Keeping yourself distant?” It broke her heart. More than his rejection, it was his view of himself that left her crippled with pain.
“It’s a kindness, Alessia. The best thing I’ve ever done. Trust me.”
He turned and walked out of the room, left her standing there in the massive sitting area by herself. She couldn’t cry. Couldn’t bring herself to make the sound of pain that was building inside her. Endless. Bereft.
She wanted to collapse. But she couldn’t. Because she had to stand strong for her child. Matteo might have walked away, but it didn’t change the fact that they were having a baby. Didn’t change the fact that she would be a mother in under six months.
It didn’t change the fact that, no matter what, she loved Matteo Corretti with everything she had in her.
But she would never go back and demand less. Would never undo what she’d said to him. Because she had a right to ask for more. Had a right to expect more. She was willing to give to Matteo. To love him no matter who he was. No matter what he had done.
But she needed his love in return. Because she wasn’t playing at love, it was real. And she refused to play at happiness, to feign joy.
She sank into one of the plush love seats, the pain from her chest spreading to the rest of her body.
She had a feeling there would be no happiness, fake or genuine, for a very long time.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MATTEO DIDN’T BOTHER with alcohol this time. He didn’t deserve to have any of the reality of the past few hours blunted for his own comfort. He deserved for it to cut him open.
He shifted into Fifth and pushed harder on the gas pedal. Driving always helped him sort through things. And it helped him get farther away from his problems while he did it. But Alessia didn’t feel any farther away.
She was with him. In him. Beneath his skin and, he feared, past his defenses.
Those defenses he had just given all to protect.
You aren’t afraid of losing control, you’re afraid that if you feel you’re going to have to face the guilt.
That was just what he was. Afraid. To his very core.
He was scared that if he reached a hand out and asked for redemption it would truly be beyond his reach. He was afraid that if he let the door open on his emotions there would be nothing but pain, and grief, and the unending lash of guilt for all he had done, both under his father’s influence, and the night of the fire.
He was afraid that he would expose himself, let himself feel it all, and he would still fall short for Alessia. That he wouldn’t know how to be a real husband, or a real father.
He was afraid to want it. Afraid to try it.
She wanted him to fight for them. Nothing good came from him fighting.
Except the time you saved her.
Yes, there was that. He had always held that moment up as a banner displaying what happened when he lost control. A reminder that, as dangerous as he was in general, it was when he felt passion that he truly became a monster.
He pulled his car over to the side of the road, heart pounding, and he closed his eyes, let himself picture that day fully.
The fear in Alessia’s eyes. The way those men had touched her. The rage that had poured through him.
And he knew one thing for certain in that moment. That no matter how blinded he was by anger, he would never hurt Alessia. He would never hurt his child. No, his emotions, not his mind, told him emphatically that he would die before he let any harm come to them.
That he would give everything to keep them safe.
He had been so certain, all this time, that his mind would protect him, but it had been his heart that had demanded he