“I want to trust you on this,” she whispered. “I want to believe our marriage really does mark the fulfilment of your vendetta.”
“Trust has to be earned. It is possible that in time I will earn yours and you will earn mine.”
“Trust a man who wouldn’t think twice about killing me if he thought it necessary?”
Silver eyes holding hers, he nodded. “No more than you wouldn’t think twice about killing me.”
“I’d shoot you in a heartbeat if I thought it necessary.”
His lips twitched, and his face inched closer to hers. “Then let us hope it never becomes necessary for either of us.” He placed a tender kiss on her mouth. “We should get some sleep.”
Hating herself for the softening she’d felt towards him and the burst of hatred she’d felt for her father, she hated herself even more for the control it took not to return the kiss. Almost asmuch as she hated him, she reminded herself. Her father’s sins were not hers. She shouldn’t be the one to pay the price for them.
Lifting her chin, she looked Elio dead in the eye. “Not planning more torture for me?”
His features spasmed, but his voice remained even. “You might have concussed yourself. It is best you rest.” The glimmer in his eyes returned. “I’ll save the next round of torture for tomorrow.”
Chapter Seven
To Siena’s surprise,she slept well and woke feeling refreshed. Her head hurt a little but was nothing that a couple of painkillers wouldn’t cure.
Carefully pulling the bedsheets off, she was about to climb out of bed when the arm attached to the man she’d hoped was still sleeping snaked around her waist
“How are you feeling?” he murmured sleepily, spooning his warm body to hers and rubbing his mouth in the top of her head.
Hating how good it felt to have his naked body touching hers and the sensations unfurling inside her, fear unfurled to feel his arousal springing to life in the cleft of her backside. Today was tomorrow. Today meant the next round of torture he’d promised before they’d fallen asleep.
“My head hurts,” she mumbled.
“Let me see.” Draping a thigh over hers, he effortlessly rolled her onto her back and slid between her legs.
Abdomen against abdomen, he propped himself on his elbows and gently moved the hair off her forehead to study the bump on it. “The lump’s gone down, but it’s turned green.” He met her stare with a sleepy, rueful smile. “People will think I’ve been beating you.”
Intensely aware that his chest was compressing her breasts and that one tiny adjustment in his position would have his erection jabbing against her sex, she swallowed. “I’ll let them think that.”
His smile widened a touch, amusement flashing in his sleepy eyes. “I bet you will.”
Her heart racing, Siena stared into those sleepy, silver eyes, not because she wanted to but because she couldn’t not. They were equal parts terrifying and mesmerising. Put together with all the other components that made Elio’s strong, handsome face, it was like gazing into the eyes of the captivating but merciless God of death from mythology.
“I need to use the bathroom,” she whispered, still unable to wrench her stare from his.
His gaze was as fixed on hers as hers was on his. “One kiss first.”
Relief that the planned torture seemed to have been delayed soared through her in the same beat that anticipation stirred, both emotions already fizzing through her blood before his mouth locked onto hers. Closing her eyes, she sank into the kiss and her senses filled with the sensations she was fast coming to associate with Elio. If not for his erection so, so close to her sex, she could relax fully into the kiss, but itwasclose, and though she knew he wasn’t going to do anything more than kiss her, the shock of pain she’d experienced when he’d thrust inside her was still too fresh for her to switch her mind off and just enjoy the kiss for what it was.
For all that, when he pulled his mouth away and lifted his head to gaze back into her eyes, she couldn’t help the longing for him to kiss her again.
He half obeyed her unspoken yearning. One more fleeting, chaste sweep of his lips to hers and then he rolled off her.
Feeling strangely bereft without his heat and weight on her, it took Siena a moment to pull herself together and climb off the bed.
* * *
If there was one thing Siena hated, it was the Esposito Group’s board meetings. When her father had been alive, he’d rightly chaired them. Rightly, because everything they had had been built by him. The meetings had always been a smokescreen, an exercise in preserving the legitimacy of the Esposito Group from the few zealous officials who itched to bring the family down.
Since their father’s death, Mattia’s anointing into his shoes meant he chaired the meetings just as he now chaired everything in both their legitimate and shadowed worlds. Mattia’s word was now law, and though Siena had cast her vote for this, she couldn’t help her resentment that he’d stepped into their father’s shoes by dint of being born first and with a penis. Rico had refused to vote, and Tommaso had withdrawn himself from contention for the role, leaving the decision to Siena, Mattia and their mother.
Their mother was always going to give her vote to her favoured firstborn, and it didn’t matter that Siena was better suited to the role than any of her brothers. Without either Rico’s or Tommaso’s support, her hope of being crowned Donatella had died. Better, she’d decided, to throw her weight behind Mattia. It didn’t mean she had to like it, but it was imperative they stayed united as a family because family always came first.
