by Tara Pammi
Most of the guests had already left—including Mario and her mum. Just seeing her mum while she had this momentous news to share but not being able to...it had taken everything Neha had to maintain her equilibrium. Not for a moment had her mum strayed far from Mario’s side even if Neha had wanted to talk to her. With so many guests’ eyes on her, in the end, Neha had simply been glad that Mario hadn’t created his signature drama again.
But of course, he’d been busy in other ways, as she’d realized the moment she’d arrived.
In the two days since she’d arrived at the Brunetti villa, she’d been mostly on her feet, holding the fort on the home front with extended family and close friends descending on the villa—discussing the meals with the housekeeper, having to arrange rooms for their stay at a neighboring villa, keeping well-meaning but curious relatives away from Greta, while Leo and Massimo dealt with the massive media ruckus following Silvio’s sudden death.
By the time the helicopter had dropped her off, the whole household had been in uproar in the wake of a rumor that Silvio had died leaving or selling his stock in BFI to an unknown third party in the weeks leading up to his death.
Neha had a feeling she knew the source of the nasty rumor that had been making the rounds among BFI’s board members. It was clear Mario was still not backing down. For who else would get such a piece of news to go around and around? Especially after the showdown between him and Neha herself.
Couldn’t the circling hyenas keep their hungry noses away from his sons at least on the day of their father’s funeral? How had Leo dealt with this for so long?
Greta, who’d always come off as the strong, implacable type with boundless energy, had been close to a nervous breakdown when Neha had checked on her upon arrival. Natalie had pulled Neha aside to tell her that the Brunetti matriarch had gotten other distressing news from her stepdaughter, Alessandra, who was still worryingly absent, on top of her son’s death. Finally, Neha had called her physician, who’d recommended a mild sedative for Greta.
Natalie herself was young, inexperienced in real-life situations, so Neha took the ropes of handling people at the home front with Massimo’s help. For all that Silvio Brunetti had brought BFI to its knees once, he’d still had a huge network. There were a lot of families and powerful figures that wanted to pay their respects to the family, including one cabinet minister.
At least Neha hadn’t received strange looks or comments about taking over the hostess duties. Not that she’d give a damn about anyone’s opinion except the one man who had maintained an aloof distance the whole time.
She only saw Leo in passing the first day and he’d done no more than acknowledge her presence with a nod. Most of the first night, she’d spent it in a restless slumber hoping he would join her, only to find out that Leo had only retired to his bedroom past dawn.
He had so many things on his mind, she knew that. And she’d never be the clingy, needing-reassurance-for-everything kind of a woman, but oh...she just wished he’d said something, anything, to her.
She’d have had a hint of where his mind was at. Instead, he’d given off the clear vibes that he wasn’t available or willing to have even a quick conversation. The last thing she could do was throw the news of their pregnancy at him...in the midst of it all. She hated it but there was even a part of her that was afraid of what his reaction would be to the news in the current situation.
So, she’d acted like nothing was wrong between them and done everything she could to let him know that she was there for him. Having been burned so many times by her mum’s fluctuating moods, Neha had stayed out of his way, like a docile puppy. When she was anything but.
That little niggle grew into resentment, with herself that she’d let him discourage her, with him for treating her as if nothing had changed between them, and morphed into a pounding headache.
Her pasted smile and polite words took too much out of her. She grabbed a glass of water and guzzled it down, remembering that she needed to take better care of herself. That tranquil quality she’d cherished so much on her first trip returned to the villa as the guests became scarce, but it couldn’t restore her own spiraling mood.
Most of the staff was well trained under the efficient housekeeper, Maria, and wouldn’t need further instruction. After thanking her, Neha checked on Greta—who still looked pale but rested—one last time and walked back to her suite.
Wondering all the while what was going on in Leo’s head.
She wanted to hold him, and she needed to be held. She wanted to tell him about their child already growing in her belly, day by day, moment by moment. She wanted to see that glow in his eyes when he talked about their future together. She wanted him to tell her what his father’s death meant to him, if anything. She wanted to talk about how close she’d come to pulling her mum away from Mario and spilling the news of her pregnancy. She wanted to talk about how scared and alone she felt when she saw that distant, aloof look he got in his eyes sometimes.
As if she were alone again... No, she couldn’t tell him that. She couldn’t throw her niggles and fears at him at a time like this. As long as he came to her, she’d somehow deal with it.
But would he?
From everything she knew about him, Leo was a man who retreated in times of grief, or pain. That glimpse she’d gotten so long ago was a one-off. Until he processed what Silvio’s death meant to him and how little it should, he would hold her at a distance.
Thoughts in a turmoil, she unzipped her black sheath dress and moved to the closet.
And came to a standstill.
Why was she letting him decide how this would play out? They wouldn’t have much of a relationship if she treated it like a paint by numbers canvas. Things had changed between them. It wasn’t all sex and conception and business between them...wasn’t that what he’d said? And when she’d needed him, he’d been there, so why couldn’t the reverse be true?
She understood he’d been too busy to call her once he’d returned from Bali, too busy fighting the rumors that he wouldn’t stay CEO of BFI much longer to give her two minutes of his time, but enough was enough. He wasn’t going to compartmentalize her role in their relationship before it had even taken off.
She wasn’t going to wait for his time and attention like one of Massimo’s affectionate hounds.
She didn’t want to sleep in an empty bed, not when he was only a few rooms away.
Not when she missed him like a physical ache. Not when she was dying to share the most important news of their new life together. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to let him go to his room alone. If he was okay with her taking over at the villa, with acting as his hostess, then he needed to be okay with her moving into his suite.
Because that’s exactly what she was going to do.
Never again in her life was Neha going to wait for someone to tell her what her place in life should be. Never again was she going to let someone else decide where she belonged and where she didn’t. Not even Leo.
Zipping the dress back up, heels hanging from her fingers, she walked out of her assigned suite.
She found Maria, told her she’d be in Leo’s suite and begged for a snack. Once in the massive suite, she stripped, showered, fished for something to wear inside Leo’s closet and crawled into bed. The sheets were luxuriously soft around her as she sat cross-legged in the center of his bed and ate the bowl of fruits Maria had sent up. Stomach full, she pulled up the shirt and studied the curve of her belly for a few moments.
Joy was a visceral thing inside her chest, a tremendous force of emotion for this child and the man who had given her everything she’d asked for and more.
Her heart felt overwhelmingly full, tears filling her eyes. This house, this family, the man at the center of it...she wanted this for her, this future, so badly that her heart raced at an alarming rate in her chest. She’d do anything to keep it, to hold on
to it. To build it.
She grabbed a pillow, buried her nose in it and was rewarded with the lingering scent of the man she never wanted to let go. Beneath the overpowering surge of emotions that took over every time she thought of the child in her belly, there was also a pulse of something else, softly calling her. Something that utterly terrified her.
She closed her eyes, tried to order her thoughts and frantically prayed to God that this was just her hormones already in play, that this seesaw of emotions was just the consequence of having to keep mum about her pregnancy for forty-eight hours. She wasn’t resentful because Leo hadn’t given her something she didn’t even know she’d wanted. She couldn’t be.
Her last thought before she drifted off to sleep was wishing he’d come to her for whatever it was he needed. Share a little more of himself with her.
Because she could walk into his bedroom and his life and take what she thought was rightfully her place, but his heart...his heart was always going to be out of her reach unless he gave it to her. Unless he let her in.
* * *
Leo walked into his bedroom after midnight had come and gone, his fingers wrapped around the slender neck of a two-thousand-euro bottle of whiskey. Half of it was already in his bloodstream but the liquor hadn’t done a thing to numb him so far.
He had maintained his usual implacability in front of Massimo and fobbed him off because the last thing he needed right now was to be studied under a microscope of brotherly concern. Not that he didn’t want it, but because he wasn’t sure what Massimo would discover if he delved too deep. There was a volatility to him that he didn’t want anyone exposed to tonight, not until he had it under control.
Everything felt upside down, and he hated that feeling.
A mere forty-eight hours ago, the news had reached him that Silvio wanted to speak to him urgently. But he’d put it down to Silvio having one of his tantrums and decided not to expend his energy and time on it.
Within a blink of an eye of that decision, Silvio had died of a cardiac arrest.
If not for the coroner’s report and his father’s physician’s diagnosis that Silvio had been having a lot of breathing trouble for the last week, Leo would have expected foul play. Because it was so convenient for his father to drop dead right after he’d decided he didn’t want to bequeath his stock in BFI to Leo and Massimo, after all.
Now there would be more investigation while the lawyers picked up the trail to figure out who Silvio had sold the BFI shares to.
For once in his life, Leo realized he couldn’t bring himself to even care about who had bought Silvio’s shares in the company or who was masterminding the whole thing, or what it would mean for his CEO position.
Cristo, he was bone-tired physically after two nights of practically no sleep and keeping his family’s name above the rumor mill. Of course his father hadn’t made it easy on Leo and Massimo even in this final step—the bastard. All he wanted was to numb himself until rationality and balance and his composure returned.
For his mind to stop going in circles looking for an answer to a question that was forever lost to him now.
Moving into his bedroom, he shrugged his shirt off, undid the button of his trousers. His eyes—gritty from lack of sleep and out of focus—took a few seconds to get used to the darkness. And then his gaze found her. His heart jolted like a drowning man given a benediction.
In the center of his massive bed, fast asleep.
Everything in him drilled down into a laser-like stream of focus on the beautiful, sexy woman, all troubling thoughts fleeing, all concerns dying, until nothing but she remained. Like walking into a dream where no questions existed, no doubts remained, no possible answers haunted him—only the present mattered. Only she and her sensuality, and her passion, mattered.
Moonlight drenched her body in sweet, pale light, and he fisted his hands, fighting the memory of how soft and responsive she’d been to his slightest caress.
She slept on her side, one arm tucked under her head, long, bare legs flung in opposite directions, her silky hair flying rhythmically with each exhale. Her lashes cast crescent shadows on high cheekbones. The shirt rode up high on her thighs, giving him a glimpse of a pink-lace-clad curve of one buttock, while the collar fell open to reveal her breasts pressed up together in a tempting invitation.
A flood of carnal hunger surged through him, washing away what even alcohol couldn’t. Leaving nothing but the primal need to claim her.
Putting the bottle away, he moved to the head of the bed. His breath punched through him as he realized that the shirt she wore was his. It threw him, in his current mood, her clear claim to him, here in his bedroom and outside over two days.
Not for a single second had Leo been unaware of how seamlessly Neha had fit into his life in the past two days. Of how easily she foresaw people’s needs and met them with an effortless grace. Of how calmly she’d handled Greta’s impending breakdown with no input from either himself or Massimo. Of how strongly she’d faced her mum while he knew it had to break her inside for not being able to reach out to her.
She’d been there all day at the back of his consciousness—a calming presence, a landing place, when he wanted to keep the world at bay, centering him, even when he avoided her, with the practicality of her calm nature. It hadn’t been easy to shut down the urge to follow her into that bedroom and let her see the growing void he could feel in himself and ask her to soothe it away with whatever magic she weaved.
Somehow, he’d fought it.
But now, seeing her sprawled like a queen at the center of his massive bed... As if she belonged there. Daring him to face her and the vulnerability he’d never been able to shed within himself. Forcing him to face things he’d rather stayed buried.
A soft moan left her lips and the husky sound went straight to his groin.
He knew he should walk away right then, knew that what he wanted to do to her, with her, was wrong after he’d purposely avoided her for two days. Dio, the bastard he was, he hadn’t even asked how she was feeling.
Somehow, he pulled himself away and almost reached the door when he heard her throaty, sleep-mussed voice.
“Leo?”
The rustle of the sheets made him think of the soft fabric gliding up and down her body doing what he wanted to do. Giving up the fight, he turned around.
Hair in a rumpled mess, knees tucked together and away, the shirt—his shirt—unbuttoned all the way to her navel and falling off the smooth, rounded shoulder he’d sunk his teeth into the other night, she called to every masculine instinct in him.
“Go back to sleep, cara,” he whispered.
She blinked, pushed her hair away from her face and looked around. “It’s one-thirty in the morning. Where are you going?”
He shoved his fingers through his hair, his entire body thrumming with sexual hunger and the tension that came with denying himself. “I’m not... I don’t think I can sleep tonight.”
He swallowed the need flaring through him as her gaze swept over his bare chest like a physical caress. So openly she devoured him. Such hunger in that sensual body for him.
Cristo, he felt it a thousand times more. Especially now, when he knew that the fire between them only flared hotter and higher every time they came together.
“Okay, that’s fine.” Her words were soft, soothing, as if she were gentling a wounded animal. Dio, he hated this so much, hated his inability to accept the haven she offered. But he just couldn’t bare himself to her now. “We can just talk.”
“I’ll only disturb you if I stay,” he said through gritted teeth, his impatience and need swirling through the air. “And the last thing I want to do is talk.”
She tossed the duvet aside, and threw her long, bare legs over the side.
Lifting the bottle to his mouth, he took a long sip. Her eyes followed the drop that fell on his chest with a ling
ering fascination that corkscrewed through his body.
“You’re drunk,” she said, her eyes widening, her fingers scrunched tight around the duvet. “But you never drink to that point. You hated Silvio’s alcoholic rampages. You’d never willingly give up control like this. Leo, please—”
“You know me so well, sì, cara?” he said in a mocking tone that rendered her pale. “I’m drunk because I wanted a moment’s peace from the million obligations that choke me at any given moment. Which is why I’m going to find a different room.”
“I’ll be damned if I let you call me an obligation.”
God, even spitting mad, the woman was simply magnificent. “I don’t really care what you get from that.”
“Wait, Leo—”
“Merde! Let it go, Neha! Get some sleep. You’ve been on your feet constantly for two days.”
“I didn’t think you noticed,” she said with a flash of vulnerability that pierced him.
“I notice everything about you, Neha.” The words rushed out of him, emotion ringing in them.
“So you kept me at a distance on purpose,” she said, the shadow of hurt in her eyes lingering far too long for his comfort.
Maybe it was better that she understood that he’d purposely avoided her. Knowing her and how strongly she prided herself on her emotional self-sufficiency, she would back off now.
“Yes. I had a lot on my mind, and I didn’t have time to coddle you.”
“Ah... I see now why you shouldn’t drink. The ruthless bastard, the arrogant jerk version of Leonardo Brunetti, comes out to play.”
Despite the dark mood clouding his better judgment, he smiled. “Now you know. I’m a mean drunk, just like him.”
“Are you mad that I snuck into your room? Your bed?”
No, you were born for that role. For my bed. For my life.
The words stuck in his throat, like acid he couldn’t swallow or spit out.
