FORBIDDEN UNTIL MIDNIGHT

     ‘Would you like to play a game?’ she asked, forcing a playfulness into her tone.

     For a moment, she wondered whether he’d take her up on her offer.

     ‘That depends on the game,’ he said, something glinting in his eyes that pulled at her body.

     ‘Truth or dare,’ she replied.

     He frowned, those dark brows closing down over the incredible aquamarine of his gaze.

     ‘Have you not played truth or dare before?’ she asked with a laugh.

     ‘I have heard of it, but never played it.’

     Reading between the lines, his childhood sounded dark, hard and painful, and she suddenly wondered just how much Santo had been able to play as a young boy. She was about to retract the offer when he asked, ‘Who goes first?’

     ‘I will,’ she said before he could change his mind. ‘Truth or dare?’

     He huffed out a cautious laugh. ‘Do I not get to know the question first?’

     She shook her head slowly, a smile curving her lips.

     He nodded once, and seemed to lean closer in, their bodies speaking their own language to each other.

     ‘Truth,’ he said then.

     ‘Okay, but it’s a hard one, so think carefully,’ she warned. ‘What is…your favourite food?’

     Santo barked out a laugh and it warmed her then. She’d seen him cynical, bitter, hard, disdainful, but this was something she only occasionally saw when it was just the two of them alone and that made her feel…thrilled. Excited. As if perhaps there could be something here between them. Something more than just a passing fancy.

     ‘It is a cliché but tiramisu. I could eat a whole bowlful every day,’ he admitted, leaning against the wall beside the large, beautiful round window. ‘Your turn,’ he announced.

     ‘Truth,’ she said, answering his unspoken question.

     His inhale and narrowed eyes were playful, but still she found herself unaccountably nervous, until his gaze raked her body from top to toe, making her feel something else entirely.

     ‘Where are you ticklish?’ he demanded.

     She blinked. ‘What makes you think I’m ticklish?’

     ‘You’re avoiding the answer,’ he teased.

     Eleanor huffed, trying hard not to let a smile escape onto her lips. ‘My feet,’ she replied mock resentfully.

     He nodded to himself as if he’d thought as much.

     ‘Truth or dare,’ she challenged.

     ‘Truth.’

     ‘Who was your first kiss?’ she asked, pressing her lips together the moment the words were out of her mouth, the fizzle and crackle no longer outside in the night sky but hurtling through her veins beneath her skin.

     A gleam of surprise flashed in his gaze just as another round of fireworks exploded over the Brandenburg Gate.

     ‘Sofia Barone,’ he replied with a slow smile as if remembering. ‘We were fourteen years old, and were supposed to be playing hide and seek with her brother. He didn’t find us,’ he replied, clearly proud of his achievement.

     She doubted he knew it, but his entire expression had changed. His face had relaxed, for once losing some of the intensity that marked him as different to almost everyone else here. And it was as if the shadows that haunted his gaze had lifted for a moment. Before he shook his head, his eyes clearing from the memory and focusing on her.

     She could see it. The temptation to ask her the same question, the debate, the war in him.

     ‘Truth or dare?’ he asked slowly.

     ‘Truth.’

     She wanted him to ask her about her first kiss. She wanted him to open the door, even just a little, to where she wanted to go. To what she wanted to do. The sensual pull she’d denied the year before had become insistent as she skated the edges of whatever this was between them. She wanted it to be something more. She needed it to be tangible.

     ‘Did you sleep with Fairchild?’

     Instantly her cheeks flushed. The raw gravel tone of his voice scratched over every sensitive part of her body. She should have been surprised by the question, but she wasn’t. It had been there, simmering between them. She’d wanted it, Santo just had the confidence to dig that deep. Her heart thundered in one powerful pump, rushing blood through her body and making her skin tingle so much that she felt the echoes of it reverberating around her heart while she held her breath. She bit her lip, knowing that this was a line she couldn’t come back from. That the door she had opened a little was about to be pushed further.

     ‘No,’ she said, holding his intent gaze. She wanted him to see the truth. To know it. ‘Truth or dare?’ she asked before she could chicken out.

     ‘Dare,’ he replied, sending sparks down into her core.

     She closed the step between them, her heart in her throat, her pulse beating at a furious rate.

     ‘I dare you to kiss—’

     ‘Eleanor?’

     Shocked, Eleanor spun round to come face to face with her father.

Edward Carson glared between her and Santo, and she took a step back just as Santo took a step forward, drawing her father’s attention. Whether consciously or unconsciously, he had put himself between her and her father.

     ‘Sabatini.’

     ‘Carson,’ Santo replied likewise.

     Eleanor could feel the hostility between the two men, which seemed excessive for the context of the situation. She had never asked whether her father had investments in the Sabatini Group, or whether Santo had investments in her father’s businesses, but it was clear, whatever the case was, there was contention between the two.

     ‘Come. We’re leaving,’ Edward announced, not even holding out his hand for her as he might once have done.

     ‘I—’

     ‘Do not try me, Eleanor,’ her father warned.

     Everything that had just been within her reach was slipping through her fingers like sand. She bowed her head, giving up the fight, and followed in her father’s footsteps. Just before the last step took her away from Santo she looked up to find something like regret in his gaze, before it was quickly blinked away.

It gave her hope. It made her think that perhaps next year things might be different.

     And Eleanor was right. Things would be different next year, but not in a way that she’d ever imagine.