by Abby Green
The dry remark was rife with self-deprecation, but teasing, too, reminding her how greedy and assertive she’d been when she’d come to bed.
She sat there boiling in self-consciousness while he leaned forward and stole a lingering kiss that relit barely banked flames between them.
Before they let passion take over, however, he drew back and opened the velvet box.
“Oh, my God.”
“Val is fine,” he corrected with such obscene arrogance, she would have laughed, but she was too spellbound by the three rings.
The engagement ring was a huge princess-cut diamond that picked up the narrow rays of golden sunlight. The platinum band was set with smaller diamonds interspersed with—
“Onyx?” she guessed.
“Black diamonds. Hard and dark as my heart.”
He had certainly done his best to convince her of that, but he had also revealed that particular organ had flecks of gold.
She plucked out the bigger band and let it swallow her finger. “You’ll wear this?”
“If you’ll marry me, yes. Will you, Kiara?”
She went into a kind of free fall.
Maybe he even knew what he was doing, this wicked, crafty man. He had been trying to convince her she didn’t have a choice, that she had to marry him for Aurelia’s sake. She had believed it, too. But she did have a choice. And she had a suspicion it was as important to him that she choose him as it was for her to make this decision of her own free will.
She considered that they had a child together and an intimate relationship that showed no signs of wearing off. He respected her art and he had kept her sketch. He had had the charcoal fixed and framed with all the care given to the work of an Old World master.
Most important, she realized with a sharp pang in her chest as if her heart ached with yearning, she was falling for him. He might yet disappoint her. In fact, she was sure he would break her heart, probably more than once.
But that foolish heart of hers longed to go to him anyway, regardless of what her head told it.
“I will,” she said huskily.
Triumph flashed in his gaze before his mouth came down on hers. She thought she heard the little box hit the floor beside the bed. The larger ring definitely fell off her finger into the sheets, but he was pressing her into the mattress and she was melting in welcome beneath him.
A faint ding pulled his head up.
She twisted a look to the night table where she left her phone each night.
“Aurelia is probably asking for you,” he said.
“How was she last night?” She left her hands twined around his neck, caressing the hint of stubble she found in the hollow at the base of his skull.
“If I say fine will you dismiss the bribery charges?” He looked to his own night table. “That reminds me, I have to find a zoo with elephants. We have a date today.”
To say Val softened in the ensuing days would be an overstatement, but the thorns in his personality weren’t quite as pointed and sharp, at least where Kiara was concerned. He did ruthlessly fire the chef who had tipped off his mother that Kiara was alone that day. The rest of the staff was still walking on eggshells a week later.
But someone named Consuela had appeared when they returned from the zoo. She helped Kiara rewrite her statement and descriptions. She also brought a photographer to their wedding, to witness the event and prepare their press release.
“We can organize a proper wedding for later in the year if you want one,” Val said as they were waiting at the courthouse.
“Goodness, no. The fact I’m having my picture taken today is giving me anxiety.” But maybe it was marrying this man.
Val wore a suit for the first time since they’d been together and dear God he ought to need a warning as a dangerous substance. Aside from his tie, which had shots of silver in it, he wore all black, tailored scrupulously to his frame. The jacket was tuxedo in style with satin lapels, but had a subtle pattern embossed into it, like a smoking jacket. It should have looked affected, but it was as carelessly stylish as he always was.
He’d shaved and oozed so much sex appeal, Kiara’s knees were weak.
She had put her faith in Klaus, who had assured her he wouldn’t be working for Val if he didn’t have a better eye than his boss for texture, color, line and form.
Her dress was the height of simplicity, knee-length with drop shoulders in silk colored with the barest hint of lemon yellow. The color made her skin seem luminous and the diaphanous overskirt was generous enough to gather on her arm. It fluttered and trailed with her movements, making her feel like a princess.
When Val saw her, he didn’t say anything for a long moment. She thought he might have swallowed. Then he picked up her hand and slowly twirled her, saying, “Here she is. I knew she was in there.” His smooth, freshly shaved cheek had brushed hers so he didn’t ruin her makeup with a kiss.
It would have been a perfect day except for one thing—Scarlett wasn’t here. She had gone directly to Spain with Javiero when she’d checked out of the hospital.
Kiara was trying not to take it personally that she was hearing so little from her friend. A new baby kept a mother busy. She knew that. And she didn’t want to rock boats with Val by flaunting that particular friendship under his nose. She completely understood Scarlett’s reluctance to do the same with Javiero, but she missed her.
She sent a photo of Aurelia in her flower girl dress and got back a photo of a sleeping Locke, wearing a onesie imprinted to look like a tuxedo.
Scarlett had texted.
We’re there in spirit, which made her smile wistfully.
In every other way, her wedding was perfect. Brief, but intimate. The vows weren’t sentimental, but when she spoke them, and heard Val’s steady tone repeat them, Kiara felt the promise in them. She had thought the weight of his ring on her finger would feel heavy, but it was more of a touch point. A reassuring symbol of their linked lives that would be with her even when he wasn’t.
When he bent his head to kiss her, a shower of sparkling light went through her, all the way to the soles of her feet. This was a real chance, a real beginning.
She hoped.
In lieu of a honeymoon, they flew to Paris a few days early. It was the opposite of romantic, despite being one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Kiara took meetings and was a bundle of nerves the whole time, only sleeping because she was exhausted by Val’s attentive lovemaking.
Now that their marriage had been announced, the paparazzi was in full force. Their determination to get a photo of Aurelia bordered on criminal, and if one more person asked her about Val and how they’d met, Kiara thought she would scream.
The media interviews were pure hell, but Consuela, the goddess, had prepared her well for the most idiotic questions.
“Will your daughter follow her father and grandmother into modeling?”
“When she’s old enough, she can decide for herself,” Kiara murmured by rote.
Val would have said, Over my dead body, and Kiara felt the same, but boring answers to stupid questions helped bring the focus back to the more important ones, or so Consuela had assured her.
“Where did you learn to paint?”
“It’s been a lifelong passion. I was studying art in Venice when I met Val three years ago.” Kiara had been stumbling through the streets, drawing on impulse, visiting whichever museum or gallery had a free or discounted entrance fee, but Consuela had assured her no one needed to know that.
“That sounds romantic.”
“It was,” Kiara confirmed. Keep it simple. Tell them how to feel about it.
After the day his mother had visited, Val had been in contact with Kiara’s agent. They’d restructured her show into a much more exclusive event. Most of her interviews had been conducted before a single painting had been shown to anyone.
Today, hours before the official opening, her work had finally been unveiled for critics. Photographers were confined to a single room. Her more intimate portraits of Aurelia and a pregnant Scarlett remained hidden from view.
It was still a struggle to concentrate, especially because her new husband was among the handful of people wandering with slow, hollow steps through the gallery before the throngs—please let there be throngs—arrived. Or not. Maybe it would be safer if no one came. If the critics and collectors decided they hated her work, she wanted as few people as possible to witness her humiliation.
Her stomach was nothing but snakes and butterflies as they sat in the backseat of his car, returning to the hotel to get ready for tonight.
“You’re folding in on yourself again, bella. I don’t like it,” he said quietly.
She shot him a look. “I’m nervous as hell.”
“Why?”
“Why?” She choked out a humorless laugh. “What if they don’t like it? All that work, all those years of kidding myself—”
He reached across and squeezed her hand, frowning when he felt how clammy and cold it was.
“You weren’t kidding yourself. Do you want to know what I was thinking as I saw everything for the first time?”
“No,” she lied in an anxious whisper, squeezing his hand so hard, her nails were probably cutting into his skin.
“I was thinking that you made the right decision. I don’t like it. I will always see it as a deal with the devil, but I’ve pulled some cold-blooded moves in my time for results that were far less meaningful. Your work is profound. Standing in front of each painting, I felt what you felt when you were painting it. Curiosity, frustration, joy. The one of Aurelia…?” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles, leaving her shaking inside. “Your love for her is depthless, isn’t it?”
“Do you think everyone is going to experience them like that?” she asked with mounting horror. “Because that makes me feel naked. I don’t think I can bear it.”
He made a noise of pity. “Come here, then. Let me show you that being naked has its advantages.”
And if the car had cooled in the underground parking lot before they climbed out, and she couldn’t meet the eyes of the driver smoking a discreet distance away, such was the consequence of being the wife of an incorrigible rake like Val Casale.
CHAPTER SEVEN
VAL WAS IN TROUBLE. He had known it when he had left Kiara to paint that night. He had known it when the compulsion to put her sketch back on the wall had forced him from the comfortable bed and the press of her warm body to his. He had known it when sliding his ring onto her finger had made something click inside his chest that locked them together and felt good.
He had known it when he had wandered the gallery earlier and was so awed and moved, he had ceased to care how she had made it happen; he’d simply been overwhelmed with pride and admiration that she’d done it.
And he knew it when a floral arrangement arrived at their penthouse suite.
He was nursing a drink, waiting for Kiara to finish dressing, when the courier arrived. He handed Val the certificate of authenticity and left the packing box for the vase as he departed.
The hourglass vase was handblown by a Venetian artist, Val learned from the certificate. The mosaic of gold that spiraled in a ribbon from lip to base had been painstakingly applied to the scorching glass through an ancient technique mastered by few in this modern age. The fragrant flowers, arranged to resemble fireworks, had been chosen to symbolize luck and success.
Val had not ordered these flowers. He had given his wife a ridiculously expensive diamond necklace with matching earrings to celebrate her achievement.
This had better be from her agent, he decided, as a green haze fogged his vision and curdled his gut. If it came from any other man, he would start by knocking over the vase, then hunt down the interloper and do the same to him.
Was he jealous? Jealousy was a symptom of insecurity. He knew that because he’d had a front row seat to that emotion his entire life.
Uncomfortable with that insight, he flipped the card and ran his finger beneath the flap to unseal it, completely disregarding the fact it was addressed to Kiara. It was written in flowing calligraphy, likely by the florist, but the message was personal.
K.
Is break a leg appropriate in this circumstance?
I am so sorry to miss your big night. I know you’ll knock ’em dead.
Enjoy every second and call me soon to tell me all about it.
I miss you!
Love
Scarlett, Javiero and Locke
The clip of a woman’s heel sounded on the parquet floor.
He glanced up and felt the whoosh of a train headed straight toward him.
She wore patent leather boots that went up to her thighs. Her bronze coatdress was tailored satin and ended a few inches above the boots. Her hair had been pulled flat to her scalp then the tight curls arranged on the top of her head to resemble an offset beret. Her earrings dangled brightly while her necklace was a subtle glint from her turned-up collar.
She started to roll her lips together uncertainly but seemed to remember at the last second that they were outlined in metallic gold. She swept ridiculously long eyelashes down, revealing the shimmering shades on her lids.
“Is it too much?”
“It is exactly enough of too much,” he assured her. “I’m not going to survive the drive to the gallery, let alone the rest of the night.” He held out his hand, wanting her to come to him. Wanting her close even though he couldn’t touch. “You’re a vision.”
She came across and ran light fingers down the lapel of his tuxedo. “I thought we were going to my art show, not spying on the Russians in a film noir.”
“Well, there are things you don’t know about me, aren’t there?”
Her smile of amusement was a burst of sunshine in his chest.
He was in so much trouble.
“Are those for me? Val,” she scolded, leaning to inhale the blossoms.
“They’re not from me.” He picked up the card and handed it to her. “Scarlett and company.”
“Oh.” Her smile turned poignant as she read.
“Have you been talking with her?” He hated the talons of threat that dug into him, forcing the question from him.
“Not much,” she murmured with a small, brooding frown. “A few texts, mostly about diaper rash and other baby questions. It’s an overwhelming time for her. I wish I could be there more.” She set aside the card and lifted a troubled gaze to him. “I wish I understood why you and Javiero are still so completely at odds.”
“He knows what he did,” Val said flatly, only hearing how his dismissive words had come down like an ax when Kiara flinched.
“I didn’t mean to pry,” she murmured, gaze bruised.
And that, too, pulled apart things inside him.
“Kiara.” He held her before him, the most bizarre impulse to tell her rising in him.
No. That part of his life had been kicked into the farthest corner of a vault, the thick door slammed and welded shut. He had spoken once about it and got nothing for his trouble. He had sworn he would never speak of it again.
And yet the fingers of that darkness were somehow leaking out of the cracks in his vault, willing to be aired out and seen even as the shame that accompanied that bleak memory arose as sharp and painful and throat-locking as it had been twenty years ago.
“Another time we’ll talk about him,” he lied with an apologetic caress against her jaw. “Tonight is yours. I refuse to spoil it with my messy family history.”
A pulse of silence as she absorbed that, then her lashes came up again. The worst of the shadows were replaced with a teasing light.
“A fine aspiration when your mother has threatened to make an appearance.”
In support, she had assured him, although Val knew it was also an attempt to catch a glimmer of Kiara’s spotlight. Even so, the tightness in his chest eased as the tense moment between them passed.
“I will make that up to you, I swear.”
The culmination of what felt like her life’s work passed in a blur.
Val’s celebrity and his mother’s influence had magnified attention onto the event, turning it into a full-out media circus. Kiara walked a red carpet into the gallery, camera bulbs flashing like fireworks around her. Inside, she was introduced to rock stars and countesses and gallery curators from around the world.
Her agent and the gallery owner were beside themselves, glowing under their own brilliance in “discovering” her. The success of the night was a fait accompli.
Lest she be too humble, however, and attribute her success to Niko’s patronage and Val and Evelina’s notoriety, and the gallery’s name, and her agent’s ruthless drive, an art critic known to be scathing caught her alone and gave her the best compliment of the night.
“I was convinced this was a stunt,” he said in a bored, nasal tone. “Your husband is hardly above using his influence, and neither is his mother. But you’re actually good. I’m buying the seascape tryptic. I don’t buy art unless I believe it will appreciate. I certainly don’t display it in my home unless I genuinely love it, and yours will take pride of place in my den, where I will see it every day.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, stunned and moved beyond words.
He was pulled away and she stood there a moment surrounded by the din of voices all talking about her, not to her. Feting her accomplishment without truly understanding what it meant to her.
In that second, all of this felt like a tremendously hollow victory. She had never felt more alone in her life and didn’t understand why. She had done this. It had been her dream and here she was, living it. She ought to be euphoric.
Across the room, she caught Val’s gaze on her. As they held the eye contact, he lifted his glass in a silent toast and she realized she wasn’t alone. Her heart soared as she absorbed that he was here with her. Proud and genuinely happy for her.
