“So what happened in Lake Como?” Mateo asked softly.
“He laughed when I told him I wanted to postpone the wedding,” Sienna whispered, her voice beginning to tremble. “He grabbed my wrist so hard and said I had no right to refuse. He said I belonged to him, and there wasn’t anywhere in Europe I could hide that would keep me away from him.”
Sienna held her breath, fighting back the tears that suddenly threatened to spill from the corners of her eyes. She hated looking weak, especially in front of a strange man. But the memory of what had happened the night before was still too fresh—and too terrifying.
“So I jumped out of the villa’s bathroom window,” Sienna continued, quickly wiping her eyes in the darkness. “I crossed the garden in high heels, flagged down the first taxi I saw, had the driver take me to Milan, and... ended up here. In a torn dress with a bruised wrist.”
A single tear finally escaped and rolled down Sienna’s cheek.
In the darkness, Mateo could feel the shift in emotion from the woman beside him. Without hesitation, he reached out. His long, warm fingers found Sienna’s cheek, gently brushing away the tear with his thumb.
Sienna froze. Mateo’s touch was so gentle, completely at odds with the dominant aura he had projected from the very beginning.
“He’s wrong,” Mateo said in a deep, firm voice. “You don’t belong to anyone. And he will never touch you again.”
“How can you be so sure?” Sienna whispered, staring toward the faint shadow of Mateo’s face. “You don’t even know who he is.”
“I don’t need to know him to know that a man who hits a woman is a coward,” Mateo replied coldly. “And I don’t like cowards.”
Sienna smiled faintly in the darkness. The fear that had been crushing her chest slowly lifted, replaced by a strange warmth spreading through her entire body. She shifted a little closer, hesitantly resting her head on Mateo’s solid shoulder.
Mateo briefly went rigid when he felt the contact, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, he moved closer, letting Sienna lean against him.
“Thank you, Mateo,” Sienna murmured softly. “Even though you’re annoying, it turns out you’re not all that bad.”
“Don’t get used to it,” Mateo shot back curtly, though the faintest trace of gentleness softened his voice. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll go back to being annoying.”
Sienna let out a quiet giggle. They remained in that position for several minutes. Two wounded souls running from one another, finding temporary shelter on the same bed in the pitch-black hotel in Milan.
Click!
Bzzzzzt!
Without warning, the hum of the emergency generator echoed from deep within the building. The main lights, the decorative ceiling lights, and the bedside lamp suddenly came on all at once, flooding the entire Executive Suite with blinding brightness.
“Argh!” Sienna winced, squeezing her eyes shut against the sudden glare.
She quickly lifted her head from Mateo’s shoulder and turned toward him. But the moment her vision adjusted to the light, breathing suddenly became difficult.
Because of their spontaneous movement, only a few centimeters now separated their faces.
Mateo was looking down at her. The man’s gray eyes gleamed beneath the lamplight, deep and intense. Mateo’s hand was still at the nape of Sienna’s neck, while Sienna’s own hand was unconsciously clutching the front of Mateo’s shirt tightly against his chest.
Their position was incredibly, intensely intimate. Sienna could feel Mateo’s warm breath against her lips, and the white towel wrapped around her body seemed to be coming loose.
Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke.
The world outside seemed to stop turning, leaving only the overwhelming tension between Mateo’s gray eyes and Sienna’s wide brown ones.
“Sienna...” Mateo whispered, her name sounding so different when spoken by him.
Before Sienna could answer or pull away, hurried footsteps in the hallway outside, followed by a loud knock on the suite’s front door, shattered the moment.
Knock! Knock! Knock!