Page 35 of Forbidden Until Midnight

‘You can’t say no,’ Eleanor accused, as if logic and etiquette had any place here.

‘I just did,’ he all but growled, hating that she had driven him to this, that he had become the very thing he’d never wanted to be. Completely driven by impulse and need. He clenched his teeth together, but one look at Eleanor and he could see that she was fighting this as much as he was.

‘What is your problem?’ she demanded.

‘You, Princess. It’s always you,’ he said, closing the gap between them as she came up against the back wall of the room.

Cristo, she was exquisite. He wanted her. It was that simple and that undeniable. And how much of a bastard did it make him that he didn’t even care that she wore another man’s ring?

He peered down at her, aware that he was using his body to crowd her, relishing the way that their need for each other filled what little air there was between them.

‘Why are you angry with me?’ she asked, staring up at him, wide-eyed and begging for something she probably didn’t have the courage to name.

‘I’m not angry, I’mfurious,’ he clarified.

Only that wasn’t quite true, not any more. Because the fury that had ridden him so hard only minutes ago had been replaced and he had to call it what it was. Desire. Need. Wrapped in a fist so tight that no one could prise it apart.

No one but her.

She continued to stare up at him, as if aware that his arousal had stolen the heat from his anger. Did she feel it too? The swollen throb that poured through his body with every beat of his heart whenever she was near, the fist that gripped his lungs and made it impossible to breathe.

‘Why?’

‘Because you demand honesty from me, yet everything about you is a lie,’ he said, the truth slipping out into the air between them, surprising them both. Just the acknowledgement, just the memory of the promise she’d forced him to make, the lie she’d forced him to tell, tapped back into that heat and once again the magnets flipped and he was repelled from her, taking a few steps back, sucking air into his lungs that wasn’t tainted with the scent of her body.

Merda, he needed to get control over himself. He should never have come in here. But when he turned he found her right back there in front of him, having crossed the room with silent steps. This was madness.

‘You think this guy will be able to give you what you want?’ he couldn’t stop himself from demanding.

‘Yes,’ she said defiantly, her eyes flashing with warning.

‘He’ll be able to keep you, your mum and Freddie safe?’ he scoffed, incredulous—incredulous and more than just a little outraged. From the background check he’d authorised, the man was inconsequential at best. He didn’t have the power or the reach to protect her.

‘Yes. Yes, he can.’

‘So, you’ll marry and then what?’

Eleanor shrugged as if confused by the question, the elegant line of her shoulders drawn with tension beneath the dusky pink silk dress she wore.

‘Are you planning to hide out in suburbia for the rest of your life?’ he demanded, pushing her again, stepping closer, daring her almost to run from him.Cristo, why was it that just the thought turned his blood to molten lava in his veins?

‘If that’s what it takes,’ she replied, refusing to back down, refusing to bow to his blatant display of power.

‘You won’t last a week,’ he sneered.

‘I’ve lasted six already,’ she bit back.

Santo clenched his jaw, his whole body on fire with the tension it took to hold himself back.

‘Tell me he’s what you want,’ he growled.

‘He’s what I need.’

And while everything in his entire being roared at the thought that another man could be that for her, could fulfil that role for her, instead he latched onto the most important thing.

‘Eleanor. You are a strong, capable woman who can get what she needs for herself. Tell me he’s what youwant.’

For a moment he saw it. The impact the first part of his sentence made on her. As if it were a surprise to her that someone would see her that way.

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