Defying Her Billionaire Protector

‘They claimed her death had been an accident. Said she’d made a grab for one of their guns and it went off in a struggle.’

‘Nico... I’m so sorry...’

Finally he looked at her. Tears streaked her face and he muttered a curse, gathered her into his arms.

‘Please tell me you don’t blame yourself,’ she whispered, pressing her face to his chest.

In the silence that followed she lifted her head and stared at him.

‘Nico! You can’t possibly—’

‘I can,’ he said grimly. ‘And so did Jack.’

‘But that’s crazy—how could he?’

‘He was a man half-demented with grief.’ It was something Nico had understood, for he, too, had almost lost his mind. ‘He needed to lash out. To blame someone other than himself.’

Marietta put her head back on his chest. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said fiercely.

Nico tightened his arms around her. She was, he thought with an odd feeling of gratitude, the only person ever to try to absolve him of guilt.

* * *

For the first time in days Nico retired to his study after dinner, and when it got late and he still hadn’t emerged Marietta went to bed alone.

She lay in his gigantic bed, thinking of everything he’d told her on the beach that day, and her heart ached for him.

How could he blame himself for his wife’s death? And how could his father-in-law blame him for a decision the older man had essentially made himself?

It didn’t make sense—but when did these kinds of things ever make sense? It was the nature of tragedies. Of how people tried to cope. And she understood something about that. Her friends had died in the accident and she hadn’t—how could she not have questioned that outcome? Not felt some degree of survivor’s guilt? But in the end she’d had to let it go or it would have destroyed her. She had decided to be strong. To make something of her life—of the second chance her young friends had been so cruelly denied.

And are you? a voice in her head challenged. Are you making the most of that chance?

She frowned at the ceiling. She had tried hard for the last three days not to think about her conversation with Nico at the restaurant. He’d pushed some buttons she’d thought were no longer sensitive. Rekindled a longing for things she had convinced herself were out of reach.

But she knew that yearning for things that might never be was dangerous. A guarantee of heartache and disappointment. She had already travelled that road—with the experimental surgeries, with Davide... She couldn’t set herself on a path of false hope again.

Which made the little daydreams she’d caught herself indulging in these past few days—silly fantasised scenarios of wheeling down a church aisle in a white gown, or holding a tiny sweet-smelling baby in her arms—all the more ridiculous.

The sound of footsteps coming down the hallway halted her thoughts. Quickly she closed her eyes, feigned sleep. If Nico had wanted to make love to her tonight he’d have joined her sooner; she had too much pride to let him think she’d been lying here waiting for him.

She heard the rustle of clothes being shed, felt the bed compress and then, to her surprise, the press of a hot palm against her breast. She looked up and saw the glitter of blue eyes in the semi-darkness before his mouth claimed hers in a hard, invasive kiss that drove a hot spike of need through her core.

He pushed her thighs apart, slid his hand between her legs and growled low in his throat when he found her wet and ready for him. He rolled away for a moment and then he was back, braced above her this time, his features stark, the glitter in his eyes ferocious as he entered her with a single powerful thrust.

She gasped his name, clinging to his shoulders as he drove deep, again and again. He had never taken her hard and fast like this before—as though he barely had control of himself—and she thrilled to the wild, primitive feeling of being claimed.

Possessed.

She dug her fingers into rippling muscle, feeling the tension and the heat building, spiralling, until a moan rushed up her throat and she crested that blinding peak at the same instant as Nico’s big body tensed above her. He slammed deep into her one last time and pleasure pulsated from her core, obliterating every conscious thought from her head except for one.

One thought that stopped her heart as his weight bore down on her and she wrapped her arms tightly around him.

She loved him.

* * *

Marietta put down her brush and studied the canvas. The painting was finally finished and she was pleased with it. Her choice of colours and the way she’d illustrated the fortress’s proud, crumbling ruins, with pale shafts of sunlight slanting through the old ramparts, had created the impression of something ethereal, almost otherworldly.