A Scandal in the Headlines Read Online Free PDF Page B

expert on honor, I suppose?” His face went thunderous, but his voice stayed cool. Quiet. Somehow, it made him that much more formidable. And it ripped into her like a knife.
    “Do you think this will work?” she demanded, furious, and she convinced herself it was all directed at him. All
because
of him. “Do you really think you’ll argue me into agreeing with you that
my fiancé
, the man I
love
, is some kind of—”
    “You don’t strike me as naive,” he interrupted her, that fierce, dark edge in his voice, his gaze, even in his hands as he held her. “You must know better. You must.”
    He shook his head then, and she watched as bitter disappointment washed over him, turning his dark green eyes black. Making that fascinating mouth hard, nearly cruel. Making him look at her as if there had never been that fire between them, as if she couldn’t still feel the flames, licking over her skin.
    And she would never forgive herself, but she
ached
. She ached.
    “Unless you like the money, the cars, the houses and the jewelry.” His gaze was a jagged blade as it rakedover her, and she bled. “The fancy dresses. Why ask where any of it comes from? Why face so many unpleasant truths?”
    “Stop it!” she hissed at him.
    “Ignorance is the best defense, I’m sure,” he continued in that withering tone. “You can’t be a stain on Italy’s honor if you’re careful not to know any of the sordid details, can you?”
    None of this should be possible. A look, a dance, a few words with a total stranger—how could it
hurt?
How could she feel as if her whole world was ripping apart?
    “You don’t know what kind of woman I am,” she told him, desperate to reclaim herself. To fix this. “And you never will. I have standards. I can’t wait for Niccolo to do me the great honor of marrying me—to make me a Falco, too. I would never lower myself to Corretti scum like you.
Never
.”
    He looked shattered for a moment, but only a moment. Then contempt moved over his fine, arrogant face, and made her stomach twist in an agony she shouldn’t feel. He led her to the edge of the floor, gazed at her for one last, searing moment and then walked off into the crowd.
    Elena told herself that wasn’t grief she felt then, because it couldn’t be. Not for a stranger. Not for a dance.
    Not for a man she’d been so sure she’d never see again.
    “I don’t really remember,” Elena said now in desperation, standing out on his terrace with only the sea to hear her lies. “It was a long time ago.”
    Alessandro only watched her, that wolf’s smile sharp-edged, digging deep into her and leaving marks. He was much too close, and she hadn’t forgotten a thing. Not a single thing.
    “Then why are you blushing?” he asked, a knowing look on that battered, somehow even more attractive face—and her heart kicked hard against her ribs.
    “I’m not spying on you,” she gritted out, trying to break through the tension that gripped her. Trying to pretend he couldn’t see into her so easily. “And if you really think I am, you should have let me leave with the boat.”
    But something had changed. His dark eyes burned. She felt the flames licking at her, seducing her and scaring her in equal measure.
    “Alessandro.” Saying his name was a mistake. She saw him react to it as if it was a caress, saw his intense focus on her sharpen, and it stole her breath away. “My being on your boat was a coincidence.”
    “Liar.” Implacable. Fierce.
    Elena’s stomach knotted. She felt a deep kind of itch work through her, from her neck to her breasts to hercore, and she felt a terrible panic bite at her then, as if she was in danger of losing herself completely.
    You’re supposed to be beating him at his own game!
some last remnant of her self-control cried out inside her head.
    “You can call me any names you like,” she threw at him, desperate to find her balance again—to claw her way back to solid ground. “It won’t change a