CHAPTER SEVEN
CLAUDIA HAD NEVER been as disorientated as when she woke the first morning in Ciro’s apartment. The room was dusky but light peered through the crack in the curtains...
She sat bolt upright, flames burning her veins as her last memory of the previous evening suddenly flashed through her. Exhaustion had swallowed her and Ciro had carried her to bed.
She noticed his side of the bed looked untouched. She clutched her flaming cheeks, bitterness filling her mouth as she realised he’d taken advantage of her exhaustion to sleep elsewhere. No chance of a comatose woman arguing with him about appearances.
Her mood lightened when she drew back the first set of curtains. The storm that had coloured her arrival in America a dismal grey had gone, in its place cloudless blue skies and dazzling sunshine. With wonder building inside her, she stepped out onto a terrace she hadn’t noticed before. That wonder had nothing on the joy that lifted her at the view. Since when did New York have greenery? She’d thought it a sprawling concrete jungle but right in front of her lay a vast canopy of trees that must have stretched for miles... Was that a lake she saw in the midst of it? Yes, the greenery was edged by skyscrapers but to see nature blooming in the place she’d thought had eradicated everything that wasn’t modern soothed her.
She walked the length of the terrace lined with brick flower beds filled with hardy manicured plants feeling that she was walking in a whole new world. It traversed most of the perimeter of the top floor and, even in the parts overlooked by other skyscrapers, remained entirely private. So taken was she with all the magnificence of everything that it took a beat for her to notice on her way back to the bedroom that Ciro had come out too.
Their eyes clashed. Her heart crashed. It took another beat before either of them spoke.
He looked up at the sky. The lines around his eyes crinkled. ‘The weather more to your liking?’
‘Very much. I’m sorry for oversleeping—I don’t think I’ve ever stayed in bed so late.’
She caught a faint glimpse of his dimples. ‘You needed it. Ready for something to eat?’
‘Have I missed breakfast?’
‘If you want breakfast, have breakfast.’
‘Lunch will be fine. Is it okay for me to have a shower first?’
His brow furrowed, his eyes speculative. ‘You’re an adult, Princess. You don’t have to ask.’
‘I know...’ She shrugged sheepishly. ‘It’s going to take a while for me to stop feeling like a guest here.’
‘Sure.’
He didn’t say anything about her not being a guest, she noted. ‘Can you do me a favour?’
‘That depends what it is.’
‘Can you stop calling me Princess? It sounds like you’re mocking me.’
He bowed his head. ‘Sure. Take a shower and then we’ll get some lunch.’
He didn’t deny that it sounded like a mockery, she noted, glaring at his retreating back.
She followed him back into the bedroom. It didn’t surprise her that he’d made himself scarce from it.
* * *
Ciro was on a call to his Madrid store manager when Claudia entered the living room.
Gone was the vulnerable waif dressed in pyjamas he’d had a short conversation with on his terrace. In her place stood a woman dressed in a loose cream V-necked top that skimmed her cleavage, smart figure-hugging trousers that rested above her ankles and a bold blue slim-fitting jacket with oversized sleeves. Her dark chestnut hair hung loose and gleamed in the natural light that poured in from the windows. Large hooped gold earrings hung from her pretty ears. Around her shoulders she carried an oversize handbag. She looked dazzling.
He sucked in a breath and immediately found his lungs assailed by her perfume and his loins tightening.
Damn but his attraction to her was accelerating.
He’d slept on the sofa in his library, thinking it a good compromise to sharing his bed. There would be no disarranged guest bed for his staff to notice and he could sleep without being disturbed too. It hadn’t worked. His head had been too full of Claudia, imagining her asleep in his bed, remembering the softness of her skin, the swell of her breasts, the firmness of her thighs, all the things he should have banished from his mind, for sleep to come. It had been bad enough during those five weeks she’d dropped off the map but now she was here in the flesh, disturbing him on more levels than he could count. She hadn’t been in his home for a day yet and already everything felt different.
Was it the allure of forbidden fruit causing it, his vow never to touch her again perversely making his desire grow? He’d assumed that making love to her once would be enough to sate that desire but the opposite had happened. The way he felt, he didn’t dare even touch her.
‘Ready to go?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘Where are we eating?’
‘I thought we could go to my restaurant for lunch.’
‘You have a restaurant?’
‘In the store.’
He led the way to the elevator, passing Marcy, who was on a call and lifted a hand to acknowledge them.
The elevator stopped two floors down and the doors opened. Ciro stepped out and waited for Claudia to follow.
She didn’t move. Her eyes were wide as she took in the vast expanse before her. If he hadn’t stuck his foot in, the doors would have closed with her still in it.
‘This is your department store?’ she asked, finally leaving the elevator.
‘This is my flagship store,’ he confirmed. ‘The biggest of the Trapani department stores and the hub of my business.’
‘It’s huge.’ Claudia had never been in a place like it. They didn’t make department stores like this in Sicily. It wasn’t just the size that stole her breath but the richness of the décor...the beauty of it all. ‘That explains the perfume.’
‘What perfume?’
‘When we entered the building yesterday I smelt perfume. I wondered where it came from.’ They were on what was obviously the homeware floor but the scent of perfume was still strong. ‘I didn’t know you lived above one of your stores.’
‘I have apartments above all of them. It makes life easier for me.’
She remembered him saying he owned twenty-one department stores across Europe, North America and the Middle East and that he planned to open many more. ‘But this is your main home, isn’t it?’
He nodded.
They walked through the finely dressed shoppers bustling around them. Claudia’s eye caught a display of quirky and beautiful vases. She leaned closer to look at a jade-green one shaped like a swan and concentrated on its price tag. The numbers were a blur so she counted them... Five figures before the decimal point! She stepped back sharply before she could accidentally knock it over.
Her eye was next caught by a display of top-of-the-range electronic food mixers with more attachments than she’d known existed.
‘I thought you were hungry,’ Ciro said, his voice bemused.
‘I am but these are amazing. Look at this—it chops, whisks, blends, kneads and...’ Her voice tailed off as embarrassment at getting as excited over a food mixer as a child got over a bag of sweets suddenly curdled in her.
‘Tell me the colour you want and I’ll have one sent up to the apartment for you.’
She shook her head and started walking again, following her sense of smell in the direction of warm food now wafting in the air around them. ‘You don’t have to humour me.’
‘I’m not humouring you.’
‘I can’t afford it.’ Her heart wrenched to remember all the baking equipment she’d left behind in Sicily, left when she’d thought she would return to them and use them every summer as a cherished wife.
A warm hand caught hold of her wrist and stopped her walking.
She twisted round and almost slammed into him.
> Shocked at the blast of heat his proximity sent through her, she stepped back, only to barge into a passing shopper. Embarrassed anew, she apologised profusely. When she turned back to Ciro, she caught him wiping the hand he’d caught hold of her with on his trousers and her embarrassment tripled.
‘I’m not humouring you,’ he repeated, acting as if there were nothing wrong with erasing the feel of her from his skin. ‘You can have whatever you like from the store. It all belongs to me. Take whatever you like from any floor whenever you like. I’ll let the staff know.’
Further embarrassed to be made to feel like a charity case from an unwilling benefactor, she nodded, knowing she would never take anything from these shelves. She would let Ciro feed her and give her a roof to live under, but she would never take anything else from him, not when the mere touch of her skin repelled him.
She kept pace with him as they walked past a queue of beautifully dressed people snaking out of the restaurant door and into a room so plush and elegant that she gasped. The store’s restaurant had to be a destination in itself.
They were led to a window table by a fawning waiter. Leather-bound menus were placed in front of them.
‘Shall we eat off the lunch menu or do you want something more substantial?’ Ciro asked.
‘The lunch menu’s fine.’ When she looked up, he’d opened his menu and was peering through it. She pretended to study hers too.
‘What do you fancy?’
‘I don’t know.’ How could she tell him she couldn’t read their own language, never mind a foreign one? He thought her stupid enough as it was without her confirming it for him. She’d been lucky with the few restaurants he’d taken her to during their courtship as the waiting staff had always recited the specials of the day and she’d always pounced on one of them as her choice. ‘What do you recommend?’
He raised a shoulder but didn’t look at her. ‘It’s all good.’
She closed her menu and pushed it to one side. ‘Why don’t you order for me?’
He lifted his head, a furrow in his brow. ‘Has the fact it’s the twenty-first century passed you by? Or are you too used to doing Daddy’s bidding to think for yourself?’
Angry, humiliated heat seared her skin. ‘That’s offensive.’
He didn’t look in the slightest bit chastened. ‘You admitted last night that you’ve never said no to your father before. That implies you always do his bidding. You ask permission to have a shower and now you’re asking me to choose the food you eat? That’s the behaviour of a child. You’re an adult. It’s time you started acting like one.’
‘I’d say putting our baby above my own feelings and being here with you means I’m already doing that,’ she snapped back, ‘So keep your character assassination to yourself.’
If she’d had any thought of confessing her inability to read or write, he’d just killed it. To tell him the truth would be tantamount to giving him a loaded gun to use against her.
Luckily, the waiter returned to their table to take their order. Ciro indicated for her to order first.
Managing a small smile for the waiter, she said, ‘I’m in the mood for something light but filling. What do you recommend?’
Ciro smothered his annoyance. Claudia, he was learning, had a strong-headed stubborn streak in her, traits she must have inherited from her father, and as he thought this his mood soured further.
He kept telling himself that she’d had nothing to do with her father’s plot against his, but while that was true she should have opened her eyes. Wilful ignorance was no excuse.
He drank some lemon-infused water and looked at her. She was staring out of the window, ignoring him.
A change of subject was needed. ‘What do you intend to do to occupy your time before the baby’s born?’
She turned her head slowly to face him. Long, dark lashes swept downwards before she answered. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Are there things you’ve always wanted to try or do but have never been able to before?’
‘Not anything in particular.’
‘New York is a big, diverse city. I doubt there is anything you can dream of doing that you can’t do here. You can finish your education. Take classes. Learn new skills. Anything you want.’
‘I don’t drive. Getting around will be hard for me.’
‘There you go—you can have driving lessons.’
Her fingers tightened around her glass. ‘I’ve had lessons. Driving is not for me.’
Ciro found his own fingers tightening too. For all her stubbornness, Claudia was a sheep. A follower. Someone who hung back, having no dreams, no plans or hopes for the future. He didn’t understand how anyone could be that way. As his mother had said many times, Ciro had been born with fire in his belly. He’d been restless to leave Sicily and get out into the big wide world. He’d wanted to experience everything the world had to offer and make a name for himself. He’d succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Claudia’s apathy was alien to him.
‘Most New Yorkers use public transport,’ he informed her.
Her eyes widened. He detected alarm. He supposed public transport was beneath this pampered princess. ‘Don’t worry, I wouldn’t expect you to mix with the general public. I’ll have a driver put on standby for you.’
If he hadn’t been watching so closely he’d have missed the almost imperceptible shudder she gave at the suggestion.
His irritation grew. ‘Happy to spend the next seven, eight months just hanging around the apartment, are you?’
A flash of anger reflected back at him from the doe-like eyes. ‘I’ve only just got here and already you’re looking at ways of getting me out from under your feet?’
‘It’s not my feet you’ll be under, Princess. I don’t spend much time in the apartment—I’ve taken today off to help you settle in but tomorrow I’m off to Los Angeles for a couple of days.’
‘I’ve asked you not to call me that. And do I assume that your trip means you’re intending to deal with me the way you’d intended to before? Install me in your apartment and then run away so you don’t have to deal with me to my face?’
‘I’ll be back by the weekend. We can spend all the time together you want then.’
‘If you’re just going to keep picking on me and criticising me then I’d rather not bother.’
‘I’m not picking on you.’
‘Aren’t you? It seems that you’re determined to find fault with me. You assumed I wouldn’t want to use public transport because I have a dislike of the general public. How dare you assume that? I don’t think I’m better than anyone else—I know I’m not.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘I’ve asked you not to lie to me. That’s exactly what you meant. How can you get to know the real me if you keep making assumptions to suit your own prejudices? Do you have any idea how sheltered my upbringing was? I’ve never used public transport in my life! The thought of using it here in a city as dangerous as this—the thought of going anywhere in this city alone—is terrifying for me.’ She looked back out of the window. Her jaw was tight, her throat moved, and she was blinking a lot...
With a muttered curse, Ciro realised she was on the verge of tears. Before he could even think of addressing it, the waiter brought their lunch to their table.
When they were alone again, she picked up her fork and stabbed a chunk of avocado.
Thankful she’d held the tears at bay—he was useless at dealing with crying women, even if their tears were of the crocodile variety—he attempted to moderate his tone. ‘Where did you get the impression New York’s such a dangerous place?’
She didn’t look at him. ‘From my father.’
‘He told you that?’
A short nod and then the avocado disappeared into her mouth.
‘I don’t know where he got that impression from b
ut it isn’t true. It hasn’t been true in decades. Sure, there are areas it’s best to avoid but all cities have those areas.’
‘He told me about it when I left school. I wanted to visit America and see all the landmarks from the movies I loved but he explained how dangerous America and the rest of the world really is.’
Blood pulsed in his temples to imagine her as a child watching the same movies as he’d watched and formulating similar dreams. The difference was Claudia had been all too easily dissuaded from following hers. Nothing on earth could have dissuaded Ciro from following his dreams.
‘And you believed him?’ he asked.
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘You didn’t think to do your own research?’
She gave a sharp shake of her head. Her face, he noted, had turned the same colour as the cherry tomato she’d just popped into her mouth.
‘Do you just take whatever anyone tells you as gospel?’ he pushed, his disdain towards her growing. ‘Five minutes researching crime statistics would have given you the truth.’
After a long beat she put her fork on her plate, her elbow on the table and rested her forehead in her hand. ‘Ciro... Please, stop this.’ After another long beat she raised her eyes to meet his. Sadness and defeat shone at him. ‘I couldn’t do my own research because I can’t read.’
Ciro stared at her, wondering what on earth she was talking about. ‘Can’t read what? Off an electronic screen?’
‘Letters. Words. I can’t read anything.’
‘What the...?’ He cut himself off. He shook his head. He blinked. He shook his head again. ‘What kind of joke is that? Of course you can read. I’ve seen you.’
‘No, you haven’t.’
‘I have. In my library last night.’
‘I was holding the book, not reading it. I would give anything to be able to read it.’
‘But I’ve seen you read through menus...’ And then his skin chilled as he thought back thirty minutes to when she’d asked him to order for her and then stubbornly got the waiter to recommend a dish when he’d refused.
A Baby to Bind His Innocent Page 8
