A Hunger for the Forbidden Read Free

out softly, the bite of her nails in his flesh not due to pleasure now
.
    A virgin.
    His. Only his.
    Except she had not been his. It had been a lie. The next morning, Alessia was gone. And when he’d returned to Sicily, she’d been there.
    He’d been invited to a family party but he had not realized that all branches of the Corretti family would be present. Had not realized it was an engagement party. For Alessandro and Alessia. A party tocelebrate the end of a feud, the beginning of a partnership between the Battaglias and the Correttis, a change to revitalize the docklands in Palermo and strengthen their family corporation.
    “How long have you and Alessia been engaged?” he asked, his eyes trained on her even as he posed the question to Alessandro
.
    “For a while now. But we wanted to wait to make the big announcement until all the details were finalized.”
    “I see,” he said. “And when is the blessed event?”
    “One month. No point in waiting.”
    Some of the old rage burned through the desire that had settled inside of him. She had been engaged to Alessandro when he’d taken her into his bed. She’d intended, from the beginning, to marry another man the night she’d given herself to him.
    And he, he had been forced to watch her hang on his cousin’s arm for the past month while his blood boiled in agony as he watched his biggest rival hold on to the one thing he wanted more than his next breath. The one thing he had always wanted, but never allowed himself to have.
    He had craved violence watching the two of them together. Had longed to rip Alessandro’s hands off her and show him what happened when a man touched what belonged to him.
    Even now, the thought sent a rising tide of nausea through him.
    What was it Alessia did to him? This wave of possessiveness, this current of passion that threatened to drown him, it was not something that was a part of him. He was a man who lived in his mind, a man who embraced logic and fact, duty and honor.
    When he did not, when he gave in to emotion, the danger was far too great. He was a Corretti, cut from the same cloth as his father and grandfather, a fabric woven together with greed, violence and a passion for acquiring more money, more power, than any one man could ever need.
    Even with logic, with reason, he could and had justified actions that would horrify most men. He hated to think what might happen if he were unleashed without any hold on his control.
    So he shunned passion, in all areas of life.
    Except one.
    He pulled his car off the road and slammed on his breaks, killing the engine, his knuckles burning from the hard grip he had on the steering wheel, his breath coming in short, harsh bursts.
    This was not him. He didn’t know himself with Alessia, and he never had.
    And nothing good could come from it. He had spent his life trying to change the man he seemeddestined to be. Trying to keep control, to move his life in a different direction than the one his father would have pushed him into.
    Alessia compromised that. She tested it.
    He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to catch his breath.
    Then he turned the key over, the engine roaring to life again. And he turned the car around, heading away from the airport, away from the city.
    He punched a button on his dashboard and connected himself to his PA.
    “Lucia?”
    “Sì?”
    “Hold my calls until further notice.”
    It had been three hours. No doubt the only reason her father and his men hadn’t come tearing through the airport was that they would never have imagined she would do something so audacious as to run away completely.
    Alessia shifted in the plastic chair and wiped her cheek again, even though her tears had dried. She had no more tears left to cry. It was all she’d done since she’d arrived.
    And she’d done more since it had become clear Matteo wasn’t coming.
    And then she’d done more when she’d suddenly had to go into the bathroom and throw up in a public