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Both of which he’d proved himself to be, over and over again.
Julienne didn’t let herself touch him again. Because she knew that if she did, she would never manage to tear herself away.
Instead she pressed one palm hard against her treacherous heart.
One night,he had said.
And any emotional complications she had were her own.
She made herself get up, then pull on her clothes. She picked up her shoes in one hand, then found her way out through the maze of rooms toward that entryway where he’d feasted on her like a wild thing.
Julienne shuddered all over again, instantly hot and wet and ready. She lectured herself as she looked in the mirror, dismayed to find that she did not look nearly as rumpled and used as she thought she should. Her hair was wild, but it was easily tamed. She smoothed it back, then tied it into a knot.
And then she looked the way she always did.
As if nothing had changed. As if she was somehow the same person she’d been when she’d walked in here last night.
When the truth was, she had saved herself for the only man she had ever looked at twice. The only man she had ever loved. She’d saved herself for him, and he had taken her as ruthlessly as he did everything, none the wiser.
And as she let herself out of the hotel room, closing the door quietly behind her, Julienne found herself smiling.
It was hardly on par with rescuing a sixteen-year-old girl from prostituting herself, but it was a gift in return for a gift all the same.
He had protected her innocence all those years ago. And last night she had joyfully, happily, given it to him.
“You can move on now,” she told herself, ignoring the way her heart thudded so painfully in her chest. She leaned down to slip on one shoe, then the next. And she could still feel him everywhere, the rasp of his rough jaw on her inner thighs. His hard, gloriously male hands so big and bold against her skin. “It’s over now, Julienne. You’ll move on.”
You will have to,came the voice inside, too much like her sister’s.
And she made herself walk away—from Monaco, from her sordid past, from the Cassara Corporation, and from Cristiano himself—without looking back.
CHAPTER FOUR
Six months later
CRISTIANOSCOWLEDDOWNat his mobile as he crossed the Piazza del Duomo, then shoved it into his pocket. It was a blustery spring evening in Milan, and he had no intention of answering the call coming in. Or any call, because he did not wish to risk getting sucked back into the latest set of fires he would be duty bound to extinguish tonight.
And tonight he had other plans. Tonight he thought he might spend some time in his home for a change. The glorious penthouse that was as sleek and modern and stark as he liked, with no hint of sweetness. No chocolate. And best of all, not in his office. He thought he might try his hand at pretending he was a real man with a real life, instead of the walking, talking embodiment of the Cassara Corporation.
He would never admit such a thing aloud, and certainly not in a place like Milan where his grandfather had worked so very hard for so long and had admirers everywhere, but sometimes he wondered if he might not take a great deal of pleasure in watching it all burn.
Another vicious little thought that should have been unworthy of him. He filed that away with the rest of them, the evidence of who he really was no matter how he tried to pretend otherwise, and shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat.
As if he needed any more proof that he was his father’s son, through and through.
Still, he collected each and every damning morsel himself. And kept a very thorough dossier, right there where his heart ought to be.
And he was thinking about all the ways he’d failed himself and his grandfather’s memory again when he saw her.
One more thing he was sick of, he thought with an internal snarl, when the initial kick of it passed.
Cristiano loved women. He loved sex. And he indulged himself, one night at a time. He had never wanted more than one night with anyone. Ever.
And yet he had spent six months being haunted by that single night he’d spent with Julienne Boucher in Monaco.
He’d woken up that morning after to find Julienne gone, and had hated the fact that her absence hadn’t brought him the usual peace or satisfaction. Instead, he’d been forced to acknowledge the distinctly unsavory truth.
He, Cristiano Cassara, had wantedmore.
