Demanding His Billion-Dollar Heir / The Scandal Behind The Italian's Wedding

Pressing another kiss in the centre of his chest, she felt oddly exposed, wanting his arms to wrap around her, hide her from the passion that was almost overwhelming her. He was so broad that she realised only lower around his waist would her arms meet were she to encircle him. But one hand was still captured by his, and the rapid rise and fall of Matthieu’s chest was the only outward sign that he was not made of stone.

No. This man would never have been made of stone…pure silver, she thought, only just tempered, still seething with heat from the furnace, still malleable, but just as dangerous. A quiver of desire racked her body and only then did Matthieu finally release her hand. She looked up into eyes that were boring down into hers.

‘Stop.’

‘Why?’

‘You don’t know what you’re doing. What you’re asking for,’ he stated, almost angrily.

‘I may be naïve—’

‘Maybe? You are an innocent, Maria. A true innocent.’

‘Does that mean I don’t know what I want?’

‘It means you don’t understand the implications of what you want.’

‘Would anyone?’ she asked.

‘This is something that you should do with someone capable of staying with you.’

No one ever stays, her mind voiced, batting away each and every one of his arguments. She knew, deep down, that this was what she wanted with her entire being. She had never been more sure of anything, half fearful that if he walked away now she would have lost something that she had only dreamed of in the darkest of nights and the deepest of sleeps.

‘I haven’t asked for anything more than this night.’

Matthieu had been wrong. She was a seductress. A temptress. Offering him something he could barely stand to walk away from. She was so beautiful, so pure…the light to his darkness and he would drag her down with him if he gave her what she wanted.

I haven’t asked for anything more than this night.

He had never allowed himself to take anything so pure. His chosen bedfellows were ones who understood. Who knew the game. Pleasure to be given and received and nothing more. Because he had learned long ago that anything more was a foolish dream. And he refused to be the one to teach Maria that lesson.

But he couldn’t help the thought that if he turned away now, if he left her alone, it might break something deep within him.

He shut that thought down as quickly as it had formed in a mental move practised over many years. What he was considering was madness. But then she pressed another kiss to his chest and everything in him was plunged into thick swathes of desire and need, and he felt the growl start at the back of his throat, desperate to stifle it before it escaped into the room.

‘Please?’ she asked between the infernal kisses she was drawing on his body, his skin, the places usually specifically avoided by others.

‘Don’t you see, Maria? You shouldn’t have to beg for this.’

‘I am not begging, I am asking. This is my choice. My request. Stay with me, just for this night. Please.’

And finally Matthieu lost the battle. The battle against being decent, walking away and leaving Maria untouched. Because he could stand it no longer. He wanted to touch her, feel her smooth skin, so pale against his it seemed almost to glow. He wanted to tease pleasure from her so much that it was almost a physical ache within him. Finally he was about to live down to his reputation as a beast in the truest sense, because he felt the last vestige of restraint burn to dust beneath her lips.

This time he was unable to stifle the growl that rose in the back of his throat, as he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her to him and feasting on her lips as he’d wanted to from that very first moment.

This was no practised, gentle first kiss, this was desire, desperation even, as he plunged the depths of her mouth with his tongue, drawing little mewls of pleasure from her. Her hands, now free, swept into his hair, pulling him further down towards her. Not enough, he thought, it was nowhere near enough.

He lifted her up, so that her legs wrapped around his waist, and her lips met his, until finally he nudged her head aside and found the delicate, smooth arc of her neck and pressed open-mouthed kisses against her skin, lathing it with his tongue. Maria’s head fell back, exposing the pale column of her neck and the v of her perfect breasts, accentuated by the silver necklace dipping between them.

He marvelled at how light she was. He could have held her there for an eternity. But her body shifted restlessly in his arms, wanting more, demanding it. She might have not known the words, but her body knew the moves, instinct driving them closer together in their need.

He carried her through to the bedroom, not once breaking the contact between his lips and her skin. As he placed her on the edge of the bed, he cursed. Her pupils so large her eyes were almost completely black, she was drunk on desire.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Never more so,’ she said with a faint smile, faint only because the rest of her features were a mask of pure need and want.

‘I need you to understand that you can stop this at any time. Any time.’

‘You want me to give you a safe word?’

He barked a laugh at the mock coquettishness in her tone. ‘No, I don’t want a bloody safe word.’ The sudden and surprising humour delighting him and, from the look in her eyes, Maria too. As if somehow she’d known they needed a moment, a brief respite from the all-consuming passion that had driven them this far. ‘What do you know of safe words?’ he queried.

‘I may be innocent, but I’m not naïve.’

He dragged in a lungful of air, looking at her in the half light of the moon, cast through the large windows fronting the entire side of the room. Her white lace dress hanging low on her shoulders, exposing collarbones so enticing, he couldn’t resist.

He leaned forward, Maria shifting her legs apart to give him room, and placed kisses there, his lips meeting the hard bone covered in soft skin and sucking gently. He pulled back only to place his forehead against hers.

‘I want you to know that you can say “no”, at any point. I want you to be able to say it.’

‘I don’t want you to stop, Matthieu. I want you to kiss me. To touch me, to—’

He couldn’t take any more of her desires, he was battling enough of his own, so he stifled her words with a kiss. Her lips opened for him, offering him entry and damnation at the same time.

He gently pulled at the thin lace of the dress, exposing the smooth pale planes of her chest, the silver necklace she wore a guide line as he leaned her back against the soft bed and kissed his way towards her breasts. The rosy tips stark against the gleaming white skin. He took one in his mouth, his tongue sweeping over the stiff peak, drawing a moan of pleasure from her body and bringing her closer, pressing into his mouth instinctively.

In one hand he fisted the lacy material of her dress, drawing the material tight against her leg. She was glorious in her pleasure and he reached for her thigh, bringing it up on the bed, and feeling the length of her calf, the smoothness of her thigh, more. He wanted more.

Releasing his hold on the delicate lace he’d bunched around her waist, he pressed kisses against the plane of her skin where her hip dipped naturally, leading him to the flat stretch of her stomach, as he gently pressed her thigh to the side with one hand and drew her white panties down with the other to expose the dark curls between her legs.

He cradled her backside in one hand, gently pulling her body towards his, as he slipped the silky material down her thighs and away from her ankles. He ignored the slight tremor of his hands, the almost painful arousal pressing against the seam of his trousers, as he spread her before him and bent forward to taste, to delight in the secret heart of her. The taste of her sweet wet heat was almost too much for him to bear, but he would. He wanted to give her every pleasure she could experience.

Maria was shaking. Never before had she felt anything like this. Pleasure so acute and so extreme, she trembled, a thin sheen of sweat breaking out across the back of her neck. Her hips bucked against the exquisite torture his tongue was wringing from her body and she bit her hand to prevent the cry of sheer pleasure that wanted to escape from her lips. The other fisted the sheets of the bed, anchoring herself to something, anything, before her body threatened to drift away on a tide of pleasure so powerful she feared she might never return.

Rolling waves covered her body, as if desperately trying to reach the shore, but not quite, not yet. Again and again they bit at the edge of her body, threatening to drag her under. Then Matthieu threaded a finger deep within her, the pressure inside her coiling tight, her body unconsciously trying to hold him within her.

Her pleas became unintelligible demands, her breathing both desperate and stifled at the same time, her body on the brink of something she couldn’t quite define, waves ebbing and flowing faster and faster until…

The orgasm he had wrung from her body plunged her deep beneath the surface of the water, the pounding waves now all she could hear as her body shook and shuddered, soothed only when she felt Matthieu’s arms come around her, cocoon her in his embrace, keeping her safe and anchored to him while her soul soared towards the night sky.

As if on a string tied to him, her mind returned to the man surrounding her, caging her as if trying to keep out the night, the dark…the morning perhaps. Her arms reached around his trim waist, feeling along the powerful muscles bracketing his hips, and meeting the soft midnight-coloured material of his trousers. They were still clothed, she both marvelled and regretted. She wanted to feel him, all of him, against her skin, without barriers. Her hands sought out the fastening of his trousers and he shifted as if realising her intention.

Matthieu leaned back, almost regretting the loss of contact. For the first time ever he had found something like peace in her pleasure, in offering something of himself to another. But one look at the determined jut of her jaw, the challenge in her eyes daring him to ask her if she might want to stop, ironically only fuelled his need for her, as yet unquenched and unsatisfied.

Slowly he reached for the button of his trousers, gliding the zip down and loosening the stranglehold the material had on his crotch. His erection jutted free as he swept his trousers and underwear over his hips, down his legs, and kicked them away.

He watched and waited as she took in the sight of him, the unconscious way her tongue curved over her bottom lip and the teeth that plunged into the soft, wet pink flesh. He groaned again at the effect she had on him and his heart almost stopped as she reached for the hem of her white lace dress and pulled it up, over her thighs and hips, over her chest and head, casting it to some distant part of the room. She was glorious, her legs bent at the knee, sitting up, only her hands fisting the sheets of the bed giving expression to the barely leashed desire he felt meeting his own.

He reached into his wallet and retrieved the packet, tearing the foil with his teeth, not once taking his eyes from her. He watched her eyes grow wide with fascination as he rolled the condom over his length, her gaze glancing between his face and his erection, and if he’d had any doubts as to her certainty, the way she parted her legs, making room for him as he came down between them, burned them from his mind.

He leaned to support his weight on one elbow, the fingers of his free hand dipping and tripping over the skin from the centre of her collarbone, following the silver lines of her necklace down the irresistible v between her breasts, and over the gentle swell of her abdomen. Maria’s body gently shivered in the wake of his fingers and he couldn’t help but press his lips to the centre of her chest. Her hands swept to either side of his face, fingers splaying in his hair and nails gently scraping against his scalp. He leant into her touch, kissing her wrist, and finally turned back to her watchful gaze.

A slight nod was all he needed from her as he gently pressed into her, forcing himself to go slowly despite how everything roared within him for instant completion. The damp wet heat of her surrounding him was so incredible it rendered him mindless, but not heedless, as he felt her stiffen beneath him, bringing an instant halt to his movements.

The hitch in her breath, the slight frown to her brows, through which he held his breath. If she wanted him to stop he’d do it. It might kill him, but he’d do it. But she didn’t. She looked into his eyes, as if understanding the battle that waged within him, a small smile pulling at the curve of her lips. ‘Please?’

‘Please what, Maria? Because—’

‘Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.’

Her hand swept around his neck and pulled him to her, into her kiss, into her more deeply and into an insatiable madness he didn’t know he’d survive. Slowly he began to move, his hips gently driving into her depths, feeling her completely encase him, and he wondered somewhere if this was what he’d been missing his entire life. Her.

Maria’s breaths became faster, her moans, full of pleasure and need, filled the air between them. Her hips raised against his, holding him within her, deeper and longer… The rhythm she was setting, she was dictating, one that only fired his blood and his arousal to a point where he didn’t know whose heartbeat he could feel in his chest.

He reached beneath her and drew her closer to him, his chest pressed against hers, inhaling the sweet scent of her at the edge of her neck, the soft curls of her long hair tickling the skin on his chest. Soon thought became ephemeral, words intangible, and all he knew was her and the exquisite feeling of losing himself within her depths. Need and arousal became his oxygen and he inhaled it like a drowning man, intoxicated by her, lost to her.

As he felt her tighten around him, heard the way her breath hitched at its highest point, he knew they were both on the edge, on the brink, and one final thrust of his hips saw them cut their ties to the night and melt away.

Through the night hours, between sleep and waking, they reached for each other, finding pleasure, seeking more, and as the sun’s early morning rays tripped into the room Maria spread her arm out behind her feeling only the cool silky sheets beneath her palm. Matthieu had done what he’d promised. Given her one night and then…left.

CHAPTER THREE

MARIA SHIFTED ON the seat to relieve the pins and needles that were creeping around the base of her spine. Her knee tapped an incessant rhythm, partly because after three and a half hours of sitting there, she really needed to go to the bathroom.

The foyer of the office building in Switzerland was immaculate—all concrete and steel—but faintly cold in the encroaching evening’s darkness. The silver letters of Montcour Mining rose high above the reception desk she’d not been allowed to pass. Her knee bobbed away, which the blond haired male receptionist misunderstood and took as a sign of impatience.

She’d studied every inch of the two large canvasses bracketing the broad wooden-fronted desk. Rothko. In all probability real rather than reproduction. She deduced this not from the fine artistry, but more from the research she had done to discover Matthieu’s last name and location.

It had been three months since she’d seen him. Two since she’d started to feel the waves of nausea that had completely taken her by surprise. One month since one little blue line had changed her life for ever, and only a few days since she’d had the first scan that truly confirmed that her life—their lives—had changed for ever.

Maria had thought she’d have to spend hours trawling through reams of pages on the Internet and had already considered reaching out to Princess Sofia, who had patronised the charity where Maria had met Matthieu for a list of attendees that night. Having reunited with Theo, Sofia had forgiven Maria for her indiscreet argument with Theo. It had been swept under the carpet with happiness and love that shined from the couple on their wedding day.

In the past, thinking of such a thing would have brought her the sharp agony of unrequited love—but that was before Matthieu and before… Her hand unconsciously swept over her abdomen. She avoided another glare from the frustrated receptionist, by focusing on the beautiful modern chandelier suspended from a ceiling that rose at least ten stories high. The lights fiercely illuminating the space, yet tempered and golden hued to soften the impact on the eye. The building screamed money. But then when a person was as wealthy as Matthieu Montcour it could be afforded.

She supposed that many would have considered themselves lucky to be tied to such a wealthy man. She was not one of those people and instead was more concerned about how he might feel being tied to her.

She had left his suite in Iondorra that morning and returned to find a furious Sebastian ready to read her the Riot Act for disappearing the night before. But he’d taken one look at her and when she had asked to go home, he’d relented and taken her back to her flat-share in South London.

For a month she had lost herself in days full of work, her jewellery making and her part-time coffee-shop job. But her nights? They were lost to dreams of Matthieu and the pleasure he’d wrung from her body.

In Camberwell, the daily reality of her life trudged on and he became something almost mythical to her, fantastical and almost imagined. She’d not said a word about him to Anita, or Evin, her two flatmates, who she’d met in the first week of her Foundation Course.

After the staunchness of her Italian schooling, Camberwell had been both a breath of fresh air and truly liberating. She fell hard for the heady mix of cultures, the strange juxtaposition of houses worth millions and council estates worth almost nothing. She felt as if it suited her life, having known both sides, extreme wealth and sudden shocking poverty after her father’s near bankruptcy and subsequent exile from Spain.

She risked a glance at the imperious receptionist banging away on a keyboard as if it might make her disappear. But Maria wasn’t going anywhere.

One month ago, after the third week of being unable to hold in her nausea, Anita had handed her a pregnancy test, given her a small smile, a pat on the arm, a cup of tea—so very English—and left her to it. Maria barely remembered the following two days. She had been numb with shock and battered by so many unanswered and unanswerable questions, and only one thought had remained constant. Remained true.

I’m keeping the baby.

She promised herself that once she reached three months, once she’d had her first scan, only then would she tell Matthieu.

The clipped sound of stiletto heels machine-gun-fired across the marble foyer, drawing Maria into the present. An obscenely glamorous woman in an ankle-length wool coat with a fur trim swept an about-turn to face a trio of sheepish-looking men in suits.

‘That man is absolutely impossible. No wonder they call him a beast.’ The last word was hissed, as if to be conveyed in a whisper, but rang like a bell.

Maria had no doubt as of whom she was speaking. Not after her Internet search of Matthieu. She’d had two words. His name, and mining—his ‘professional interest’. She hadn’t held up much hope, but she’d been wrong. A second after she’d hit enter, the screen had filled with the image of his face—a stern headshot, his piercing golden eyes so intense she’d felt a blush rise to her cheeks as if he could see her searching for him.

‘No wonder he’s as rich as Croesus, when he’s that tight-fisted with his business interests.’

Maria had discovered that too. Reportedly he was the fourth richest man in Europe. And it had shocked her. Clearly he had been wealthy, must have been to gain entry to the gala, but reports stated that his net worth was near eight billion. Billion.

But it had come at such a terrible cost. She’d gasped as she’d read descriptions of the fire that had not only consumed the estate where Matthieu had lived as a child, but also his entire family. The one that had caused the scars she’d felt beneath the soft palm of her hand, hard and twisted, but somehow also defiant and magnificent. The sheer number of articles on the years of treatments was surpassed only by the fascination with the shocking amount of the life insurance heaped upon an eleven-year-old boy, making him unimaginably wealthy independent of his family’s business. Maria’s heart had broken at the grainy images from years ago of the small boy accompanied by his, then, legal guardian following behind five coffins: his parents, two uncles and one aunt. She couldn’t even conceive how devastating that must have been.

As the woman swirled back towards the exit, taking the suits and the drama with her, Maria was dragged into the present and stifled a wave of nausea as the woman’s sickly perfume reached her on the ruffled air.

The receptionist cleared his throat and stood, apparently having reached the end of his patience at housing the unwanted and uninvited guest in his domain.

‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to—’

‘Maria?’

Her head turned to the bank of elevators tucked off to the right of the reception desk to see Matthieu Montcour looking as shocked as she suddenly felt at seeing him in the flesh again after twelve weeks.

Matthieu watched her spring up from the sofa she’d been sitting on, a bundle of energy in the almost silent reception.

‘Where’s your bathroom?’ she asked breathlessly, her tone betraying her desperation.

‘It’s—’

‘I’m sorry, this isn’t how I wanted this to go, it’s just that I really…’ she did a little dip as if to punctuate her need ‘…really need the bathroom. Please don’t go anywhere, we need to talk, it’s just that I need the—’

‘Bathroom. Got it. Round the corner on the left,’ he said, gesturing with his arm.

She ran, literally ran around the corner, skidding a little on her boot heels as she rushed through the doors.

And he couldn’t help but laugh. A sound startling to his own ears, let alone his stiff receptionist.

He shook his head, trying to jolt himself free from the effect of her sudden and shocking appearance. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought of her in the last three months, thought of finding her, his fingers itching to type her name into the search engine on his computer. In truth, there hadn’t been a day—or night—that he hadn’t remembered her soft sighs, or the feel of her beneath him. The wrenching he’d felt that morning after, when he’d sneaked out of the room, leaving her asleep in the bed of his suite. Both hating himself and knowing that it was right.

But why was she here? What did she want?

Then a cold steel clamp choked his thoughts.

She knew. Who he was.

And just like so many women before him, Maria had come to cash in on his notoriety. Had thought to play on the vulnerabilities he’d accidentally exposed that night. The one night he’d offered her and no more.

Anger clenched his jaw. He had thought her different. He had thought her to be something…almost mythical in her purity. A purity that he had single-handedly taken that night. He should have known better. Had he not learned at seventeen what the female sex wanted from him?