Page 37 of Forbidden Until Midnight

There was no touching moment like before, their foreheads pressed together, allowing the moment to sink in. No, instead, Santo glared at her, full of accusation, arousal, determination and resentment. In that moment she realised how truly he had proved his point. How James could never measure up to the wants and needs that Santo unleashed in her. Wants and needs deep within her, innate to her, part of her as much as her DNA.

She was devastated, he was victorious. But neither was happy.

He smoothed his shirt down over his torso, checked his belt and tugged on his cufflinks, all the while she was utterly incapable of speech.

He nodded to her once and then, with a, ‘See you next year, Princess,’ he left the room, the words less like a promise and so much more like a threat.

CHAPTER NINE

New Year’s Eve last year, Venice

ELEANORPOSITIONEDTHEmask over her face, thankful that this year’s hosts, the Capparellis, had decided on a masquerade ball. After the bad press over her second broken engagement, all she’d wanted to do was hide. She’d hoped that Edward would let her stay back at home in England, but it appeared he still planned to use her as bait to lure investors’ attention with the hope of marrying her off to one of their sons.

Now twenty-six years old, Eleanor stood looking out over the Venetian canal, lit with strings of white lights, seeing couples being propelled along the night covered waterway in gondolas, sharing romance and love, all the things she began to fear that she might be now too damaged to experience.

This time last year she’d honestly not thought that she’d ever have to return to one of these events. She’d thought she’d be married, her first year away from Edward, away from here and away fromhim.But she had been so very wrong.

James had been almost alarmingly calm when she had broken their engagement. Inside, she’d been torn to pieces, chewed up with guilt, knowing what she’d shared with Santo, seeing the perfect, easy future she’d envisioned slipping through her fingers.

But, once again, Santo had been right. And she hated him for it. Hated that he got to stand there and pass judgement over her actions, when they were so limited in the first place. But she’d used that anger, honed it and let it fuel her.

The one advantage of being at home, under Edward’s control, meant she’d had no bills. And she was putting the money she’d earned from her job with Mads, especially after her recent promotion, to good use. After paying off the loan she’d taken out to pay the last year of her university fees, and to cover the few expenses she did have, she’d opened a savings account. And last year she’d started to turn her hand to investments. Some low yield, long-term, but some the opposite. And those were the ones that had paid off. Big time.

Freddie, now sixteen years old, picking up on the increasingly difficult emotional undercurrents wrecking their small family, had started to avoid coming home. She’d spent as much time with him as she could, telling him as much as she dared, which wasn’t enough but was still something. Her brother could see that her hands were tied, but he was also frustrated and upset about being kept in the dark about something he knew but didn’t actually understand.

Which meant that Eleanor had a lot of free time in the evenings to spend online on the stock market. She was good enough at picking through a company’s financials to see a little more behind the scenes than most, and the knowledge that she had picked up from the world Edward had drawn her into had given her a strong basis for her investments. She had begun to build a rather impressive portfolio and relished the security that gave her. Because everywhere else it felt as if she was losing.

In the first years that had followed the shocking discovery of her parentage, survival instinct had made her focus on what was in front of her. But she had acclimatised to the way her life was now, and it wasn’t enough just to accept things the way they were. The need for more was urgent in her blood.

Edward’s attention had begun to wander, and she’d been able to speak to her mother more and more. Did her father even know about her? If he did, why hadn’t he tried to reach her? In even some small way at least. The thought that he hadn’t was painful, so much so that she’d tried to put it out of her mind.

Just like she had tried to put other things out of her mind, but Santo was always there, waiting for her every night as she closed her eyes.

‘See you next year, Princess.’

Even now, a shiver rippled across her skin. He had known. Just like he always had. What was it about him that he saw so much? That he knew so much about her, if not more than she knew herself? She felt as if she’d lived with him inside her skin all year. Every thought was tainted by him, by what he would think, by what he would say.

Each imagined response whispered in her ear as he—in her mind—loomed from behind. Teasing, taunting, promising. But it wasn’t just words. Her fantasies had run rampant. Each time the sensual anticipation of what they could share became more vivid, more lurid—justmore. And no matter what release she tried to find for herself, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t him.

She shook her head at herself in disgust. She had turned into an obsessive.

‘Something bothering you this evening, Eleanor?’

It was so close to her daydreams that she half expected it to have been a figment of her imagination. But the heat of his body, the scent pressed against her senses, the way that she responded to the impact of his voice...those made it real.Hewas real. The thrill that went through her, as if he had pulled on the invisible chain that bound them together.

‘How did you recognise me?’ she asked, her hand reaching up to adjust the mask again.

‘I’d know you anywhere, Princess.’

It had shocked him, as much as it would anyone, to discover that the first kiss that he had shared with Eleanor had not been an anomaly. Because the second kiss only confirmed what Santo had thought for some time—that, no matter how much he fought, denied and refused to believe it, Eleanor was the one and only woman for him. As such, he’d been left with no other choice.

After he had left her last year—only because had he not, he would have taken her right there, in a room with no lock on the door, when anyone could have walked in on them, and honestly, he probably wouldn’t have even cared—he had confronted the fact that he would do whatever it took to make her his.

No doubts, no more second-guessing, no prevarication.

She had broken her engagement because he’d been right. Because she could never hide in suburbia, she could never hide behind a man. She deserved more than being safe, because she was strong enough to survive it. She deserved more than being secure, because the risk was worth the reward. And the rewards for her would be more than she could ever imagine.

And since then he had spent every waking minute of every day making sure that everything was in place, so that when he made his movenothingwould stand in his way. He had successfully managed to disentangle his business from Edward Carson. Yes, it had meant reinvesting with some of the other families—committing to business relationships that he didn’t want—just so that Carson would have no ability to impact the Sabatini Group, and thus, by extension, both himself and Eleanor, ever again.

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