Page 21 of Forbidden Until Midnight

He’d never forget the look on her face.

The shock, the guilt, the shame...thefear. His mother had been frightened. Ofhim. Of what he might have seen, or heard. And in his entire life he never wanted to see someone look at him with that same fear.

Pietro had arrived and quietly dismissed all the staff. He’d taken his mother into another room and spoken to her for nearly half an hour before he came out. He’d told Santo that he’d called the police and would speak to them himself, that Santo didn’t have to worry about anything.

Santo had watched as Pietro managed the entire situation while he’d been unable to take his gaze away from the dead stare of his father’s eyes. In the weeks and months that had followed, Pietro was the only person who could get his mother to leave her bed. It hadn’t mattered how much he’d begged or pleaded, only Pietro could help.

At sixteen, it hadn’t even crossed Santo’s mind to be jealous of Pietro. He’d just been unspeakably thankful that there was someone in his mother’s life who made her return to even the smallest semblance of the mother he’d once had.

Pietro had tried to explain to him that it had been an accident. That they’d been arguing and that his mother had acted in self-defence. But the older man didn’t seem to understand that it didn’t matter to Santo. Truly. Self-defence or otherwise. If it hadn’t happened like that, it could have been his mother lying at the bottom of the stairs. It was that simple.

But of all the people in his parents’ lives, of all the peoplehere, it was only an outsider like Pietro who had ever cared about them beyond his father. Pietro, a man who had been born on the wrong side of the tracks and, no matter how much money he’d amassed, would never have gained entry into a society like this. Pedigree. That was what mattered to the people here.

And it turned his stomach.

Someone barged into his shoulder as they passed, Santo’s head snapping to follow the blond head back towards the dance area, where various people were gathered. The head turned enough for him to recognise Antony Fairchild’s sneer, the foolish boy believing himself to have scored a point on whatever childish game he played in his head.

‘He still hasn’t forgiven you for snubbing him last year, I see,’ commented the richly accented Marie-Laure.

‘But have you?’ Santo asked in response, without taking his eyes off the boy until he disappeared into the middle of the throng. Santo knew that she was still displeased with him for turning down her advances. And the woman certainly knew how to hold a grudge.

Marie-Laure waited until she had his attention before answering. And he respected that. Whatever could be said about her indiscretions, or her political power plays, Santo always knew where he stood with her. There was artifice about everyone else, but at least with her he knew where he stood.

‘That depends.’

‘On?’ he said, turning his full attention on her. He was standing close enough to see the way her body responded to him instinctively, the widening of her pupils, the almost imperceptible hitch in her breathing.

‘How you’re planning to make it up to me,’ she teased.

He smirked.

This was easy.Thiswas what he wanted from life. He’d paid his dues with complexities and lies. He didn’t need Eleanor or anyone like her.Thiswas all he needed.

He bent his lips to her ears. ‘Long,’ he whispered. ‘And slow.’ He dipped his head lower. ‘And hard,’ he promised.

As Eleanor paused on the dance floor the room continued to spin. Frowning, she put her hand to her head, but that didn’t help. But what did a little spinning matter when her entire life was spinning out of her control?

She shrugged and smiled at Ekaterina, who had at least stopped asking her if she was okay. She saw Dilly pass by at the edge of the crowd and growled in her mind. Or at least she thought it had been in her mind, but the way people had turned to look at her made her question whether it might have slipped out.

She lurched towards a passing waiter, who looked worried as she went to grab for another shot glass of sambuca.

Shelovedsambuca. She had decided that it was her very favourite drink. It was sweet and thick and after downing it she didn’t care as much. Santo could keep his stinking whisky. She would now only drink sambuca for ever.

But as she put the empty glass back on the waiter’s tray she caught Santo standing with Marie-Laure from the corner of her eye. Her stomach clenched involuntarily as she saw Marie-Laure gazing at Santo in a way that left absolutely no doubt as to what she wanted from him.

And that wouldn’t have been so bad, had Santo not been leaning into her ear with wicked intent as he looked down at her. It was so markedly different to how he’d looked at her at the end of last year.

This was older, darker,sexier.

Burned by the shocking twist of jealousy that pierced her breast at the sight of the naked want in the older woman’s gaze, Eleanor averted her eyes. It clearly didn’t matter to Marie-Laure that he was twenty years her junior, and it clearly didn’t matter to Santo who saw them.

She forced down her jealousy just as someone grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back against him.

‘Dance with me,’ a familiar voice urged in her ear, pulling her against his crotch as irritation and recognition flashed through her body all at once.

‘Get off, Tony,’ she said, pushing at his hands. But he didn’t let go.

‘Come on, Lore, you used to love dancing with me,’ Tony insisted, his hands leaving her waist to press against her body in places she didn’t want him anywhere near.

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