Page 25 of Captive in His Castle (The Martinelli Wedding #1)
Chapter Twelve
D ante’s mind was blown. Shot. He was shot… but in the most pleasurable way imaginable.
His legs felt like jelly. The world had become distant. In that moment, it could be just him and Callie on this earth.
Hooking an arm around her back, he pulled her up slowly, careful not to break the fusion of their groins. She was putty in his hands, and when she was upright, flopped her face into the crook of his neck and sighed.
They stayed like that for the longest time, just holding each other as they came down from the ultimate high.
When he cupped her cheeks to gaze into eyes now the darkest of greys, his heart contracted then pulsed. He kissed her gently before gazing back into those mesmerising eyes. “Stay with me,” he whispered.
The mesmerising eyes widened before her eyebrows drew together in confusion.
“Stay with me,” he repeated, and as he spoke, the weight in his chest he’d been barely aware of forming lifted. “Don’t go home. Stay. ”
“I…” She blinked a number of times. “I can’t.”
“You can. You still have another week until you have to return to work. Stay here with me.” He dove his fingers into her silky hair.
“I’m not ready to let you go yet.” The five days they’d spent together had been the most intensely thrilling days of his life, a rollercoaster ride he wasn’t yet ready to get off of.
The way he was currently feeling, he didn’t know if he’d ever want to get off it.
What Dante had found with Callie was like nothing else on this earth, and he was nowhere near ready to even think of letting her go.
Before she could say anything else, he silenced her with a kiss and said, “Let’s talk about it while we eat.” What they’d shared hadn’t been one-sided. Callie couldn’t be anywhere near ready to leave him either.
Clearly discomfited, she let him help her down from the desk… her legs didn’t appear any stronger than his own currently felt. In silence, she removed a pair of black panties from her bag and put them on.
When they’d finished refastening and straightening their clothes, he held a hand out to her. Her chest rose as she looked at it without reaching for it. “There’s nothing to talk about, Dante,” she said sadly. “I can’t stay. You must know that. I need to go home. Georgia needs me.”
His stomach plummeted, and he came within a whisker of saying, I need you , with no idea where the thought had come from. Instead, he spoke evenly, watching her reaction closely. “Are you sure about that? I’ve checked in on her a couple of times –”
She blinked. “Have you?”
“She is alone and pregnant, and I am not a monster,” he said with a lightness he had to force.
Asking Callie to stay had been spontaneous, but spontaneous or not, flat rejection had been the last thing he’d expected.
“I told you, she knows you are here. She is well. There is nothing to stop you from staying here... unless you don’t want to stay. ”
She closed her eyes before he could read the answer to that. “The father of her baby’s marrying another woman tomorrow. Of course she needs me.”
“Georgia’s stronger than you give her credit for.”
“You don’t know her.”
“No, but I know you.” He took a deep breath to smother the strange palpitations in his chest before adding, “And reading between the lines of all you have told me, it seems to me that Georgia is trying to forge a life for herself that doesn’t always include you.”
Her shocked gaze shot back to him. “That’s crap. Georgia’s emotions have been all over the place in recent months because your friend broke her heart and left her pregnant, and I was the one left to pick up the pieces. That doesn’t mean what you’re implying.”
“Doesn’t it? She didn’t want your help, did she,” he pointed out. “Whether Niccolo was the catalyst or not, I don’t know, but she’s been pulling away from you, and instead of listening to her, you’ve clung even tighter and refused to let her go.”
She recoiled. “How dare you. You know nothing about us.”
“I know that Georgia’s going to be a mother, which means you can’t be the most important person in her life anymore,” he stated.
“You think I don’t know that? Of course I know it; it’s how things should be, and I will be there for her every step of the way just as I always have been.”
“Have you even asked if she wants that from you?”
Hurt flashed in the large eyes. Her mouth opened and then closed.
“ Carina , you have spent your life trying to protect Georgia from the impact of your parents’ emotional neglect,” he said in a softer tone.
“In effect, you stepped into the role of her mother, but you’re not her mother, you’re her sister, and you should never have been put in the position of believing your sister’s emotional wellbeing was your responsibility – it isn’t.
Georgia’s responsible for her own well-being.
More than that, she wants to take responsibility for it.
Every bird needs to leave its nest at some time. ”
Face now drained of colour, she whispered, “Says the man who still lives with his parents.”
“I left the nest for a long while, and now we live in a nest that’s big enough for us all to spread our wings and walk our own paths, but Georgia isn’t me and your family is not mine.
She is an adult with free will, just like you, and is perfectly capable of making her own choices and living with the consequences of them.
Whatever her future holds with Niccolo, she is ready to spread her wings; you must see that. ”
She was shaking her head.
“Yes, carina , she is ready to fly, and if you find the courage, you will see that you are ready to fly too. Maybe she will fly back to you or maybe she will be like Tullia and come and go but prefer living in her own nest. The important thing is that Georgia wants the freedom to decide how far she spreads her wings, and unless you want to become even more estranged, you need to start seeing her as the grown woman she is and respect her choices.”
“I do respect her choices.”
“Your reason for being in my country proves that’s not true.”
“A choice I made that led to you kidnapping me.” She gave a disbelieving shake of her head. “Do you forget that I’m only here because of that? Because I don’t remember being given a choice – the exact opposite, in fact.”
“No, I never forget that, but it’s a choice I would make again because the consequences could have been disastrous. ”
“So you’re allowed to make choices on someone else’s behalf but I’m not?
” Her voice strengthened as colour returned to her cheeks.
“You talk about me needing to respect Georgia’s choices and letting her live with the consequences of them but have wilfully prevented me from telling Niccolo the truth so he can make his own choice – you’ve taken that choice away from him. Hypocritical much?”
“What the hell is hypocritical about me not wanting the man who’s like a brother to me to put himself in serious danger?”
“Because you never let me try to save the woman who actually is my sister from herself! I don’t care what you think you know about us or what she’s told you about her state of mind, you don’t know her .
Georgia’s carrying Niccolo’s child, and it doesn’t matter that she’s shut me out – I can see…
I can feel … how much it’s costing her to let him marry someone else while his child grows inside her.
His child. Their baby. So yes, it’s completely hypocritical and stinks of your Dante knows best arrogance. ”
God give him strength. If she wasn’t the most stubborn creature on the planet. “Have you not listened to a word I’ve said about the Espositos?”
“Yes, I’ve listened, and I still think you’re wrong to hide the truth from him, and I would tell him the truth in a heartbeat. He’s a grown man fully capable of making his own choices.”
Despising that she was using his own words against him and twisting them, he shook his head vehemently.
“No, you don’t want to believe that I’m right.
You refuse to even consider it or consider what the consequences could be.
You refuse to trust me. You want to keep me locked in your head as the kidnapping bastard –”
“The kidnapping bastard that you are ,” she spat.
“The kidnapping bastard that I am who only kidnapped you to save my oldest friend and to save you too,” he spat back, holding onto his anger by the skin of his teeth. “The kidnapping bastard that I am who’s kept you locked in a cage and fed you nothing but bread and water.”
She threw her hands in the air, fury and disdain colliding to etch themselves into her features.
“What do you expect from me, Dante? Gratitude? As I pointed out days ago, a cell is still a cell, whatever its size. You’ve kept me in a gilded cage where I’ve been watched at every turn and not been allowed to make a single decision for myself.
Even the clothes I’ve worn have been chosen by someone else! ”
“You chose to become my lover,” he said through teeth he had to grit. The euphoria of their lovemaking –lovemaking she had instigated – had sunk into his guts and twisted into something dark and ugly. “You chose to become my lover of your own free will.”
“There was nothing free about it for me,” Callie disputed bitterly. She’d become Dante’s lover only because she’d lost the fight with her own desires, and for him to even suggest her staying longer…
God, the emotions that had gripped her when he’d asked her to stay. There had been a moment, barely a split second, when longing had wrapped around her heart so tightly she’d come with a beat of saying yes, and it terrified her that the longing was still there.