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Her breath came in hot, quick gasps. His lips parted to argue, but as he looked from the fury in her eyes to the quick pant of her full breasts, pushing up against the strapless bodice of her dress, desire overwhelmed him. He tried to kiss her.
For the first time, Hallie turned her head away so he could not.
Cristiano stared down at her with narrowed eyes, his own heart suddenly pounding with anger at her rejection.
“I never asked for your love,” he ground out. “I never wanted it.”
She lifted her chin, and her eyes glittered in the moonlight. “No. You just want to possess me. You want my body. Not my heart.”
Silence fell, with the only sound the angry pant of her breath. His gaze again fell to her sweetly seductive mouth. Her pink tongue licked the corners of her red lips.
“Love me if you want. I don’t care.” He looked down at her. “But you will obey me.”
“Obey you?” She gave a harsh laugh. “This isn’t the Middle Ages. I am not your property. And I never will be.”
“Aren’t you?” He breathed in the scent of her, like vanilla and summer flowers. Her skin beneath his grasp felt hot to the touch. Her dark eyes sucked him into fury and despair, all tangled up in wanton, desperate desire.
Gripping her wrists against the hedge, Cristiano lowered his head roughly to hers.
He did it to prove a point. To master her. But as he kissed her, as her struggles ended and he felt her surrender, when he felt her desire rise against him like a tide, he too was suddenly lost.
I love you, she’d said. I am not your property.
Kissing her, he was dizzy with need. He wanted to take her right here, right now, in the moonlight and shadows of the labyrinth.
Hallie wrenched away. “Don’t touch me,” she whispered harshly.
He stared down at her in shock. Without her in his arms, he felt suddenly bereft. Rejected. Vulnerable.
The one feeling he’d vowed he’d never feel again.
Rage exploded inside him. He let it build until it was all encompassing, blocking out any other emotion.
Looking down at his wife, he narrowed his eyes and spoke the words he knew would hurt her more than any others.
“You want me to tell you I love you, Hallie? Fine,” Cristiano said coldly. “I love you.”
* * *
Hallie stared up at him, her heart in her throat.
He loved her?
Trembling, she stumbled back a step into the shadows of the hedge maze. She whispered, “You do?”
“Want me to be more convincing?” Coming closer, he kissed her cheek, her lips, her throat. “I love you, cara mia,” he whispered. “I love you. Ti amo.”
And she heard the mockery behind his words.
Tearfully she said, “I didn’t know you had such cruelty in you!”
“Did you not?” he said, looking devastatingly handsome and cold as marble in his perfectly cut tuxedo. “Then you chose to be blind.”
Hallie felt
like crying. The way he’d looked at her at the gala had made her bold. It had made her brave. All her instincts had told her that if she took the risk, if she told him she loved him, she could rescue him from his dark past.
Her instincts had been wrong.
