Frankie felt the overwhelming sense of responsibility coming off him in waves. She couldn’t imagine how he felt, but she could try. “I think the country needs hope and vision,” she said quietly. “People need someone to believe in. I’ve seen you lead, Harrison. You’ve turned a company that was on the verge of disappearing into one of the most powerful in the world. You know how to do this.”
He was silent for a long time then. His eyes when he looked at her held that same darkness she’d seen that night she’d rescued him from himself. “Sometimes too great an ambition can destroy a man.”
He’s worried about becoming his father. Suddenly she understood what had been eating him that night, what had been eating him ever since he’d signed that contract with Leonid. I am the darkness, he’d said to her that night in Long Island, I would only drag you down there with me. He was afraid of being consumed by the same disease that had taken his father. And who wouldn’t be?
She put her wineglass down, got up and settled herself on his lap, knees on either side of his muscular thighs. “You are not your father,” she said, cupping his jaw in her hands. “He was sick. You are strong.”
His body tautened beneath her like a big cat ready to spring free, but she held his gaze firm in hers. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled, a warm rush of air brushing her cheeks. “He fell apart the night before he announced he was running for governor. I think after what Markovic did, the pressure was too much for him.”
Her heart ripped to shreds. “He was on the verge of losing everything. It’s understandable. You, you are walking into this having conquered. That’s a whole different thing. I’ve watched you do superhuman things. You do what the analysts say can’t be done.”
His mouth twisted. “Expectations are a bitch, Frankie.”
She smiled at that. “I know all about expectations. I’d be running Masserias right now if I’d done what everyone expected of me, and it wouldn’t have been the right road for me.” She fanned her fingers over his beautiful, tense face, so full of everyone’s expectations but his own. “Figure out if this is your dream. If it is, make it happen. If it isn’t, walk away.”
He captured her fingers in his own, the depth of emotion in his dark eyes making her heart turn over. “I’m done lecturing,” she murmured, tugging her fingers away to start undoing the top buttons of his shirt. “Should we discuss the weather now?”
A new emotion joined the ones spiraling through his conflicted gaze. Desire. “Only if the forecast involves all my clothes coming off,” he said roughly.
“Eventually.” She dropped her mouth to his hard, muscular torso as her fingers worked the last buttons free. He shrugged out of the shirt and sat back. Her fingers went for his belt, sliding it free from the buckle with industrious swiftness. Her lips and tongue made a foray down over the hard wall of his abdomen. The muscles beneath her lips contracted with every inch she traveled, until she reached the waistband of his pants. His breath was faster now, his anticipation firing her blood.
“Hell, Frankie...”
She undid his pants. Slid the zipper down and released him. He was all hers, this powerful man, and she wanted all of him. All of him.
His intake of breath drowned out the blood pounding against her eardrums. She had never done this for him, had never done it for any man. But he was too intoxicating to resist. She bent her head and took him into her mouth.
He cursed and arched beneath her. She refused to let him hurry her, taking her time exploring every musky, potent inch of him that knew how to give her such pleasure. He was big and beautiful and she was shocked at how much she loved touching him like this. Tasting him. It was such a potent turn-on it threw her right into the melee with him. When his hands bit into her biceps and he lifted her from him to rid himself of his pants and then her of her underwear, she didn’t protest. Her dress bunched in his hands, he brought her down on him in a joining so fierce, so complete, it stole the breath from her lungs.
“Was that enough of the angel for you?” she murmured when she finally recovered enough to meet his dark, bottomless gaze.
His eyes glittered back at her. “You are my angel,” he murmured in a gritty voice that made her heart swell. “I love how you rescue me.”
She closed her eyes as his hands on her hips guided her down over him again. “You make me crazy,” he told her on a half groan. “I can’t make this last.”
She dug her fingers into the hard muscle of his shoulders to tell him he didn’t need to. His fingers clutched her hips in an almost painful grip as he took over the rhythm, driving them both to a powerful climax. It rocked her, taking her apart from the inside.
Shivers snaked through her as he stroked his hand down her spine, his touch on her skin a sensory overload. Emotional overload.
He carried her to bed and made love to her again. Frankie thought that finally, in the aftermath, her head on his shoulder, she had cracked the beast. That she had found what it was inside of him that had needed to be found. Healed. For if she hadn’t, she had most certainly just sealed her own fate.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE NIGHT BEFORE Harrison confronted Anton Markovic in Washington, Frankie’s family invited them to dinner at Masserias. She was concerned, he knew, about how tunnel-visioned he’d become in the past few days and was attempting to distract him. It was a good attempt, her boisterous clan loud and entertaining, but tomorrow was weighing heavily on his mind.
He should have felt settled, confident, with everything in place. He’d brought Siberius under the Grant fold with what looked as if it was going to be minimal intervention from the regulators. He knew exactly when and where he would intercept Markovic. But still the rush wasn’t coming. The bloodthirsty urge to tear the Russian from limb to limb that had fueled so much of his adult life hadn’t materialized. Instead grim determination defined him. A desire to put a chapter of his life to rest. To avenge the honor of his family. His father.
Frankie’s clear, perfect laughter filled the table. Salvatore was teasing her about her taste in music. The happiness written across her face touched something deep inside him. He knew it was she who was changing him. She who was balancing out his extreme emotions. Every day he spent with her he felt more whole, more at peace. She was more than he ever could have anticipated having. Wanting. He couldn’t feel numb with Frankie in his life. She surrounded him in emotion. But having lived so long without it, it was as if he was in the middle of a maze with untold treasures at the end of it, but if he took a wrong turn, it could all end in disaster.
Terrifying.
He took a sip of his Chianti. Forced himself out of his introspection. The Masserias were a fascinating clan to watch as they interacted. He’d never seen such a close-knit unit. Even though all of them were different, from psychologist Federica, with her dry wit and calm demeanor, to Salvatore, Frankie’s favorite, with his aggressive, acerbic personality, the depth of caring between the siblings was obvious. They may not all be close—indeed Frankie had filled him in on the tensions between the different factions—but he had the feeling they would all do anything for one another if push came to shove. The bonds were that strong.
A pang seared his heart. He had never had this, a family unit to support him. Not even before his father had gotten sick. It had all been about building the empire for Clifford Grant. About ascending in society. Family had taken a backseat. But he did have Coburn, whom he’d once been close with, the only warmth that had existed within the cold, formal Grant family walls. But his brother’s attempt to party and daredevil his way out of his grief had pushed them far apart, a gap that had grown with every year.
He took another sip of his wine and set the glass down. It was eating away at him, had been ever since Frankie had offered that observation about them that night at the office. He hadn’t realized until then how much he had missed his brother.
His gaze collided with Vanni Masseria’s across the table. Frankie’s father was watching him with a probing look: measured, assessing. As if he was weighing his intentions. Harrison met his gaze evenly. It was easy to see where Frankie got her charm and wisdom. Vanni was a charismatic, self-made man who knew himself. Who knew the world from the perspective of a successful man who’d worked hard and prospered just like Harrison’s own father had. He also knew Harrison was older than his daughter and much more worldly. That if he put himself in a presidential race it would thrust Frankie into a cutthroat, very public world she’d never known.
Harrison shifted his gaze to Frankie, wondering how she would handle the pressure of being a politician’s wife. Would she carry that effortless charm and composure of hers to the role as easily as she’d slipped into his life and found her way inside him? Inside his heart? Or would it drown her? Would being a Grant make her lose herself?
He didn’t blame Vanni Masseria for being wary. He was, too.
* * *
Frankie followed Salvatore into the kitchen, dishes in hand. Her brother set his stack of plates down, turned and leaned against the counter. “I like him.”
A weight lifted off her chest. She set her pile of plates down beside his, realizing how nervous she’d been bringing Harrison here for this impromptu dinner. Things were still so new between them, and her family meant everything to her. If they hadn’t liked Harrison it would have put her in a turmoil.