“I guess I’ll be f**king you until I’m out of your system, then.”

I narrowed my eyes and tried to push against his hold, to no avail. “You have to leave.”

“Sex first.”

My belly rippled at the thought, my appetite for him clearly insatiable. Sensing it, he looked smug.

“Fine!” I gave in because… well, frankly, because I wanted him and I wasn’t thinking clearly. “But you can’t stay.”

“I won’t,” he promised darkly, eyes on my lips. “But I’m going to make you come again before I leave.”

And so he did.

Brilliantly, I might add.

He filled me up with his heat and lust and tenderness.

However, as soon as we were finished, he was good as his word and he left the flat.

Just like that, I was back to feeling empty.

CHAPTER 24

“Marco,” I said on a gasp, as he moved inside me.

I was on my side, as was he. His warm hand was wrapped around me, kneading my breast, as he thrust up into me from behind.

I came hard, crying out in satisfaction as I shook through my cl**ax. A few seconds later Marco followed me, his hold on me tightening as he tensed and then groaned against the back of my neck as he found his own satisfaction.

I lay there, trying to catch my breath and get hold of my senses.

The soft touch of Marco’s lips on my shoulder drew me back into the room. He slid out of me and I felt the loss of his heat. Turning around, I watched as he climbed out of bed and started to get dressed.

For two weeks we’d been doing this. Marco would turn up at my door, I’d let him in, and then we’d have sex until our bodies were weary and my heart was in even more turmoil than before. I couldn’t seem to stop myself from giving in to the sexual heat between us. But every time he left, I felt emptier. What we were doing, just sex, made a farce of what we’d had before.

Tonight, however, was worse.

Marco hadn’t even bothered to clean me up, as had become his ritual. It was something that I’d always found sweet.

Watching him fasten the last button on his shirt, I recognized that he was agitated, perhaps even angry. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but I didn’t want to encourage him into thinking that there was more here than there was. It was just sex. No matter how much that hurt.

I should end it. I should end it now. But I didn’t know if I was ready to cut him out of my life completely. I thought I could…

My eyes drifted away from him to stare blankly at my ceiling. It was about time I sorted my head out, it really was.

“You’re not even going to say anything?”

I snapped my gaze back to his to see him standing with his hands on his hips, his legs braced, as he exuded major pissed-off-macho-man vibes. Ignoring the threat, I replied, “What do you want me to say?”

Disbelief flashed in his eyes, and he leaned in to answer in guttural tones, “I want you to put a stop to this shit and admit you were wrong and that you love me. This arrangement is total bull and you know it.”

Somehow I kept my face perfectly relaxed. “It was all I was willing to give. And now I think it’s time to end it.”

Despite the disgusted look he gave in answer, he grunted, “Like I’m giving up that easy.”

Fine. I sighed, lacking the energy to fight him on this. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

Marco exhaled heavily, as if clinging to the last threads of his patience. He shook his head. “I can’t. I’m doing a favor for Leah tomorrow. I’ll see you Monday after my weekend with Dylan.”

I nodded casually, which pissed him off even more. The way I know it pissed him off even more is that he stormed out of the flat without saying good-bye.

I reached for my phone on the nightstand and texted Cole:

I’m a mess.

“Okay, so your solution to taking my mind off Marco is to take me to D’Alessandro’s?” I frowned up at the exterior of the restaurant.

Cole chuckled. “What? I like the food.”

“We could go anywhere,” I grumbled. “Miscreant.”

Laughing, Cole grabbed my hand and led me inside, out of the cold and into the pleasant warmth of Marco’s uncle’s restaurant. “You know we’re going to spend most of the meal talking about him and why you’re acting like a hormonally imbalanced madwoman around him, so I don’t see why we can’t eat his family’s food as we do so.”

My hand still clutched in his, I warned, “Well, we’re going to spend the whole of the meal talking this through as payback, just FYI.”

He squeezed my hand. “I think I can handle a wee bit of girl talk.” We stopped at the hostess’s table and Cole gave her his name. She was leading us into the back room of the restaurant and I was about to respond belatedly to Cole’s comment with something cheeky when Cole jarred to a stop and I bumped into his back with the sudden loss of momentum.

“What —” My voice cut off when my eyes followed his gaze.

Marco.

And he wasn’t alone.

My stomach flipped unpleasantly as I took in the sight of him smiling at some unknown blond woman.

Cole started to move us toward them, holding tight to my hand.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, feeling very close to having an emotional outburst and not wanting that bastard Marco to witness it.

“Trust me,” Cole urged.

As we approached the table, I managed to unglue my horrified gaze from Marco and his obvious date to see that they shared the table with Leah and an attractive dark-haired guy I assumed was her fiancé, Graham.

My gaze snapped back to Marco.

A double date.

I was going to be sick. Or I was going to kill him. We were only a few feet from the table when we drew Marco’s gaze. His expression softened at the sight of me until his eyes dropped to my hand in Cole’s and that expression instantly hardened.

Seriously?

He was on a double date and I was with a friend and he was pissed?

“Marco.” Cole greeted him pleasantly. “Just wanted to come over and apologize for… well, you know…” My best friend looked at the pretty blonde at Marco’s side. “I hope I’m not interrupting your date.”

Marco’s eyes clashed with mine and I knew he was definitely irritated with Cole. “It’s not —”

“We shouldn’t have interrupted.” I was studiously avoiding Leah’s burning gaze as I tugged on Cole’s hand. “We’ll let you enjoy your dinner. Cole.”

Cole gave Marco a tight grin before sliding his hand around my waist and leading us to the waiting hostess. As soon as she delivered us to our table, Cole sighed and said, “You’re shaking like a leaf.”

“I’m trying not to kill somebody,” I said through clenched teeth. “Let’s just go home.”

“Fuck that.” Cole let the anger shine from his eyes. “He can’t do this to you.”

“He’s not. I am. I’m doing this to me,” I muttered angrily. “I’m sending him mixed signals, he’s sending me mixed signals. It’s a whole bunch of fucked-up mixed signals. And I really just want to go home before I end up doing hard time.”

Cole leaned into me, pressing his forehead against mine so I had nowhere to look but in his eyes or at my feet. I chose his eyes. “I’m sorry for taking you over there. But he knows that no matter how mixed up you are, underneath it all you love him. And he’s here on a bloody date? I wanted to shake him up, not you.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re trembling.”

“I’m trembling with anger. Cole —”

He cut me off by cupping my face in his hands and pressing a soft, sweet kiss to my lips. When he finally pulled back, I stared at him wide-eyed and more than slightly alarmed. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Reminding him he hasn’t won you yet and unless he fights harder he’ll lose you to someone else. He doesn’t need to know that someone will never be me, sweetheart.” He grinned unrepentantly.

I loved my best friend. Totally. I leaned up and pressed another soft kiss to his cheek. “You’re the best, but part of the reason I’m so messed up is because I don’t want him to fight harder. I want us to be over. I just don’t know how to let go.”

Cole leaned into me again, lips almost touching mine as he said quietly, “You need to stop lying to yourself, Hannah Nichols. You love him. You know you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t be in such a state.”

Before I could respond in the negative, a shadow fell over us and we pulled slightly apart to look to our right and into Marco’s furious face. Anger danced in his exceptional eyes and it was all directed at Cole. “You’ve got two seconds to move away from her before I f**k you up a million times worse than I did at the site.”

I jerked back from Cole instantly, hating the idea of them fighting again. Anyway, if anyone was going to be throwing a punch tonight, it was going to be me. At my movement, Marco’s gaze flicked to me, along with his anger. “Nothing going on between you, huh?”

Indignation riled me even more. “What about you?” I leaned into him. “This is you fighting for us? A double date with some blonde and the mother of your child?”

His jaw clenched and he forced the words out between his teeth. “It’s a favor for Leah. It means f**k all.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me last night about it?”

“Because according to you we’re just dicking around, so I didn’t think it would matter all that much to you.”

Oh, my God, how on earth had I gotten myself into this convoluted emotional craphole? I pressed back against Cole, silently telling him it was time for us to leave. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter.”

But Marco wasn’t about to let me leave. Suddenly he was so close to me I had to tilt my head back to look up into his face. “What do you want from me? You tell me I’m just something you need to get out of your system and then you act like a jealous wife. Are you proving me wrong about you, Hannah? Does it turn out you’re just another woman playing stupid, f**king mind games that I’m never going to understand? Because if that’s who you are, maybe I don’t want this after all.”

A punch to the gut. His words were a definite punch to the gut. Winded, I crowded back into Cole, who was now gripping my arms, as if holding himself back from jumping into this with Marco. “Finally,” I said, breathing harshly, “we’re on the same page.” I turned around and strutted past Cole, hearing his footsteps following quickly behind me.

I hadn’t taken five steps when I heard faster, heavier footsteps approaching. My arm was seized in an unrelenting grasp. I gasped, and looked up at Marco’s resolute face. He didn’t say anything – he just turned and started marching toward the hallway of the restaurant. My cheeks were burning because by now we had an audience. “What are you doing?” I snapped, tugging at my arm and meeting absolute resistance. As I was dragged farther, I glanced back over my shoulder to see that Cole hadn’t moved to stop him. “Cole?” I called back into the room.

He shrugged.

Shrugged!

He’d just made it onto my kill list!

In the dimly lit hallway we passed the door to the kitchen, turned a corner, and marched to the very end of it. Marco knocked on the door there and pulled me inside.

We were in a small office. Bookshelves crammed nearly every inch of the wall space and in the center of the room sat a large desk with a computer and piles of papers all over it.

Behind the desk was an attractive older Italian man I’d seen a couple of times around the restaurant. Gio D’Alessandro.

I tensed.

This was a man who had verbally abused Marco. This was a man who had hit him. I felt invisible little claws spring out at the end of my fingers and I narrowed my eyes on Gio.

He looked at Marco and me in surprise. “Everything okay?” He stood up. He was tall and still fit for his age. If he’d been anyone else I would have admired his air of casual grace.

“Gio, this is Hannah. Can we borrow the office for a few minutes?”

Gio’s gaze snapped to me and the recognition in his eyes told me that he had heard of me. That surprised me. Marco had spoken to his uncle about me? “It’s nice to meet you, Hannah.” He gave me another smile and then passed us to let himself out of the office.

I didn’t say it was nice to meet him back.

Once the door closed behind his uncle, Marco let go of my arm and I took a few steps away from him. Not wanting to look at him, I looked anywhere but, and my gaze fell on a frame on Gio’s desk. In the frame was a picture of Gio holding Dylan and staring at the boy with undisguised love.

“Dylan,” I said in realization, unable not to look at Marco now. “He’s what brought about the change in your uncle.”

He watched me carefully. “He finally saw I wasn’t my father or my mom. In fact, he thinks I’m a good dad. He loves Dylan.”

I was thrilled for him that things had turned out the way they had. That he was able to forgive his uncle and move on and have a real family for the first time in his life. However, I didn’t say that to him. I didn’t want him to know how much his happiness affected mine. Instead I threw him sass. “Do you have a purpose behind publicly humiliating me?”

“That way you were with him, with Gio just now…” Marco took a step toward me, clearly ignoring my question. “That’s how I know you still care.”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of a smart answer, so I remained silent.