The Medici Mistress: Nothing and no one would stop him from having her.

by Connelly, Clare

  “I seem as completely unable to help myself with you now as I was then.”

  Her green eyes flew wide. “Giac, you’re married. Are you trying to start an affair with me?”

  “Carrie and I are getting divorced.”

  She made a small, choking sound, as her whole perception of reality began to fuzz and fade around the edges. Two years ago, she would have died to hear those words. She would have thrown herself in his arms, and pretended that everything was okay. That he hadn’t slept with her a month before marrying another woman. But, over time, things had changed. Her love for him hadn’t lessened, but her resentment had grown. And her determination that she would never be vulnerable to him again was at the forefront of her mind. She pushed down on her reaction and nodded, her face a mask of bland disinterest. Of impersonal sympathy, as might suit a long lost friend mentioning that a parent had passed away. “I’m sorry; that’s too bad.”

  She looked down at her menu, scanning the French words with assumed interest. They were blurry before her eyes. “I hear the food here is excellent. What are you going to have?”

  He pushed her menu aside and took her hands in his. “Is that all you have to say?”

  She intentionally misunderstood. “I have only heard a few reports of the food,” she said with a shrug. “I think that the chef is famous for his lobster Thermidor. You know how everything old is new again?”

  Not everything, she silently added. Their relationship would not be renewed. It couldn’t be.

  “Madre di Dio, Annie. Does it not interest you at all that I am leaving my wife?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You’re leaving her, or she’s leaving you?” It made no difference. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter.”

  “It was a mutual decision.”

  “So, what? You think that atones for the past? Three years down the road, you want to pick up where you left off, because you tried marriage on and decided it didn’t suit you?”

  It was so much more complicated than that, but respect for Carrie kept him silent as to the details. He had foolishly believed the strength of his connection with Annie would be enough to overcome whatever objections she might have had. “The details are irrelevant.”

  Not to me, she thought. Her eyes were heavy with emotion. “I don’t want to talk about the past.”

  “So let’s talk about the present, then.” He leaned closer towards her, his eyes purposeful. He waved away an approaching waiter, his bearing unconsciously dictatorial.

  She stared at him, unseeing.

  “I want you back in my life, cara.”

  “NO.” She looked around self-consciously. A few diners were staring at her curiously, after the shouted word. She dipped her head forward, and her black hair fell like a curtain about her blushing face. “It’s not going to happen, Giac.”

  “I thought we agreed last night that our being together was inevitable.”

  “Not if we don’t see each other again,” she demurred, leaning backwards to put some vital space between them. “I’ll quit, if I have to.”

  His nostrils flared. “I would follow you. I would find you.”

  “Why?” She was weary. “I’ve had a long time to think about this, you know.” Her voice shook a little but she forced herself to carry on. “I can’t imagine I was the first woman you cheated with.” She could see that he was about to interrupt, and so she carried on. “You were too comfortable seducing me for it to be a first. You were so utterly without shame for what you were doing.”

  “Which led you to believe that I made a habit of taking virgins to my bed, while engaged to another woman?”

  She flushed. “Yes, if I’m honest.”

  She had been the only one. There had been no one else. A waiter appeared and Giac cast a glance at the menu. He ordered quickly, and for both of them. When the waiter left, Annie’s face was thunderous.

  “That’s just like you,” she sipped her water angrily. “You don’t know me anymore. You can’t just boss me around. You can’t just order lunch for me. You don’t know what I like. I’m a very different woman to the one you used to know.”

  “Somehow, I doubt that. At least, not in the ways that matter most.”

  “Sex? Is that all that matters to you?” She stared across at the man she had once loved fiercely and overwhelmingly. Her pulse was skittish at the base of her neck. She looked away and grabbed the attention of a passing waiter. “Can I get a glass of the 2008 La Tour Sauternes?”

  Her nerves needed something. She was stretched tighter than a wound spring.

  Giac watched as she smiled brilliantly at the poor, defenseless man. With every natural charm she possessed unknowingly focused on the waiter, what hope did he have? He fumbled his order book and it dropped to the ground. When he’d retrieved it, he was flushed to his shaved head.

  “Make it a bottle,” Giac said without looking at the young man again. His attention was focused squarely on Annie Carlton. “You’ve come a long way from the girl who didn’t know her chardonnay from Chablis.”

  Her smile was intentionally saccharine. She hadn’t known until that moment how much she wanted to wound Giac. The flip side to loving someone so intensely was, of course, the rampant hate and resentment that was invoked when things soured. “Thomas is quite the oenophile. He’s been teaching me.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  If Giac had been holding anything, he would have crushed it beneath the table. Instead, he flexed his fingers into fists. The idea of the artist teaching Annie anything was abhorrent to him, and he fully understood what a hypocrite that made him. He was, after all, still married. He had married Carrie after bedding Annie, and yet he hated the fact that she’d replaced him. It was ridiculous. Then again, Giac had never been good at sharing, and he still considered Annie to be his.

  Several retorts flashed through his mind. Smart remarks about how a struggling artist could afford two hundred pound bottles of wine. But they all reeked of jealousy, and Giac didn’t want to seem petty.

  “In any event, a bottle of wine is overkill. I don’t intend on stretching this out longer than is necessary.” Annie was being intentionally provocative. She didn’t want him thinking she was willingly submitting to his plan.

  “It does not matter if it is left.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s a wasteful attitude.”

  “Nothing spent on you is wasteful.”

  Her skin tingled at the compliment. But it was a practiced line in seduction, that was all. The sommelier appeared with the wine and made an ostentatious presentation of displaying the label as he uncorked the bottle. “That will be fine,” Giac spoke dismissively, taking the bottle and pouring the glasses himself.

  The sommelier didn’t take the hint. “Pardon me, sir, but you are who I think you are. Are you not?”

  Annie watched as impatience flittered over Giac’s face. “Quite possibly.”

  “Giacomo Medici?”

  Giac’s nod was curt. He wanted the man dispensed with.

  “I was just reading the article in The Times last night,” he said, a gushing smile on his slim, bespectacled face.

  Annie leaned forward, unconsciously fascinated. “What article?”

  Giac shook his head. Inexplicably, he didn’t want to talk about that now.

  “What article?” She asked again, looking towards the wine expert.

  “Mr. Medici is to be awarded a CBE by the Queen.”

  “A CBE?” Her eyes widened as she looked at the man opposite.

  “A Commander of the British Empire,” he explained unnecessarily.

  “I know what a CBE is,” she whispered. “I just didn’t have you pegged as the typical recipient.”

  “That will be all, thank you,” Giac spoke firmly now, leaving the sommelier in little doubt as to Giac’s desire to be alone with his date.

  “Yes, of course, sir. Congratulations, from all of us.”

  “Grazie,” he acknowledge with a terse smile.

  Giac turned
his attention back to Annie. “And why, may I ask, are you surprised that I am to receive the honor?”

  Her eyes flashed. “Apart from your obvious lack of morals?”

  His face was somber. “My morals were part of the problem with us.”

  She frowned. “Not for me.”

  “No. Not for you,” he agreed with a twist of his lips.

  “So what is it for?” She queried, moving the conversation back to safer ground.

  “Charity work.” As responses went, it was reasonably inconclusive.

  “Charity work, like…?” She prompted, sipping her wine. It ran as cool silk down her throat. She sighed as she felt it unfurl in her stomach, like a slow blooming rose.

  He was uncomfortable, and she couldn’t fathom a reason. But she wasn’t prepared to beg. “Suit yourself. Be secretive. We can sit here in total silence, if you’d prefer.”

  He expelled a slow breath. “I funnel a significant portion of my wealth to schooling for disadvantaged children.”

  “In England?” She tried not to focus on the way her heart was swelling with misplaced pride.

  “In Europe. England. America. Asia. Wherever I can.”

  She took another sip of her wine and then pushed the glass across the table. If she wasn’t be careful, her sense would be impaired by the excellent drink. She didn’t need to be any less in control of herself around this man.

  “Aren’t you just a model citizen?” She asked, archly.

  Giac didn’t want to talk about himself any longer. “It is the responsibility of the wealthy to give back to our society. Do you disagree?”

  Their meals were brought. To Annie’s chagrin, she saw that Giac had ordered exactly what she herself might have chosen. She made a point of scrunching up her nose, though, as if in distaste. It was juvenile, but he inspired those emotions in her.

  His question hung in the air. She speared an asparagus tip and shook her head. “Of course I don’t disagree,” she said firmly. “I just didn’t have you pegged as a secret philanthropist.”

  “Perhaps it’s time you realized that you don’t know as much about me as you believe.” He sipped his wine, regarding her steadily over the rim of his glass.

  Annie’s heart kerthumped painfully in her chest. “Why are you getting divorced, Giac?”

  “I am not willing to discuss that,” he said seriously, placing his wine on the table and running his finger around its base. His eyes lifted and locked with hers. “It is the right decision, though.”

  Acid filled Annie’s mouth. What she wanted and needed were completely at odds with what was sensible. “Another misconception bites the dust,” she murmured, aiming to sound light.

  “How so?”

  She shrugged. “I had you pegged as the ‘forever after’ kind of man. You’re just arrogant enough to make a decision and stick to it simply because you don’t like to be wrong.”

  His smile was devoid of even a trace of humor. “I would have stuck to it, if that’s what she’d wanted.”

  Annie had thought he couldn’t hurt her more than he already had. But the admission was like tearing a Band-Aid off still scarred flesh. “So this mutual decision was at her instigation?”

  “You could say that.”

  “And if she hadn’t left you, you’d stay with her?” She was being masochistic, but she had to know.

  “Annie, I meant my vows, when I married her. If she had wanted to, I would have stayed married to her for the rest of my natural life. It would have been the right thing to do.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “Yes.” He could see the pain on her face, and he had the certainty that he was digging an even deeper hole for himself.

  Annie felt hot and cold, and shaken all over. She pushed back from the table, hardly registering the scraping noise the seat legs made on the tiled floor. “Excuse me,” she said, not meeting his eyes. She fetched her handbag from the floor and moved quickly through the busy lunch destination.

  He caught up with her on the street. “You have a terrible habit of running out on me.”

  “You have a terrible habit of hurting me,” she countered. Tears stung her eyes. “It’s my fault. I knew I shouldn’t have let you in, even a little bit. The minute I do, you find a way to make me feel like crap all over again.”

  “That was not my intention,” he said with exasperation. He looked down the busy street. People were bustling past in every direction, and it was infinitely possible that they would be spotted by one of her colleagues if they stood where they were. In the interest of sparing her from gossip, he put a hand beneath her elbow and propelled her towards his car.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she announced truculently, crossing her arms across her chest.

  “People from Amicus are walking past. Get in the car.”

  That frightened her into action. She didn’t need to become the center of a scandal involving her and the man who owned the whole place. “Fine.” She slid into the lavish interior, her gut immediately tightening with desire when she smelled his familiar, woody scent.

  He took the driver’s seat and started the powerful engine.

  “Hey, wait a second,” she spun in the leather chair to face him. “I thought you just wanted to talk. Where are we going?”

  “I want to talk in comfort,” he muttered, pulling the powerful car into a non-existent gap in traffic. She heard cars behind them break. He was not concerned. “My place, or yours?”

  A shiver of illicit anticipation ran down her spine. Her flat was right around the corner. And she didn’t want to go back to his penthouse ever again. Her voice was defeated. “Mine.”

  The writing was on the wall. Like a dog with a bone, he was not going to release her from this torment until he was ready. They were silent on the short drive from Canary Wharf to London Bridge. It was only when he pulled his Range Rover up out the front of her block of flats that she remembered she had a voice, she had a brain, and she could use both to end this whenever she wanted. “You can come in, but only for a few minutes. I don’t see what good rehashing the past is going to do.”

  He didn’t respond, and Annie didn’t care. Having set the boundaries, she felt a little better about the situation she found herself in. She was on the third floor, and as she climbed the staircase, she was aware of him behind her, the whole way.

  She fumbled the key in her lock, and dropped it to the ground. The look she shot him was fulminating. All of this was his fault. Everything.

  “Allow me,” he said firmly, slipping the keys from her fingertips and inserting one into the front door of her apartment. He clicked it to the left and stood back to allow Annie to precede him. She did, stepping into her flat.

  For a second, she thought about slamming the door shut in his face, then realized the keys were still in the lock. Giac pulled them free as he walked in, and shut the door.

  Back in her apartment, Annie couldn’t help but feel a strange vulnerability. The way this man’s body dictated terms to hers was completely overwhelming. Even now, in the midst of her rage with him, desire ran like thick soup through her veins.

  She had to remember why she was angry with him. What he was capable of. He had slept with her whilst engaged to another woman. A woman he purported to love. “Did you tell your wife about us?”

  His eyes flashed in his handsome face. “I no longer wish to discuss Carrie. She is not relevant to us.”

  “To hell she isn’t,” Annie contradicted, reaching for the keys he held dangling from his fingertips.

  As she got close, he lifted the keys high above his head, so that she had to reach up for them. “That’s mature,” she snapped sarcastically, standing on tiptoes.

  Giac didn’t give two hoots. With her arms stretched above her head, she was vulnerable and beautiful. He wrapped his free arm around her waist and pulled her to him. “No one is relevant to us. Not her. Not him. No one, except you and me.”

  Her breath caught in her throat at the unexpec
ted closeness. She pushed at his shoulder, but even she realized how half-hearted an attempt it was to distance him.

  His dark eyes were heavy with feeling. He let go of the keys and they dropped to the floor with a clatter. She didn’t care.

  He kissed her, hard, on the mouth, and she kissed him back harder. She wanted to punish him. She needed to hurt him. She groaned as sensations battered her. His hands were pushing impatiently at her dress, sliding it from her body, uncaring when the seam split.

  In just her underwear, he lifted her, holding her against his body. Her legs wrapped around his strong middle of their own free will, as he effortlessly carried her across the room without breaking their kiss. He pressed her against the wall, his whole body grinding to hers.

  She was breathless with desire. Three long years she had waited to know this passion again, and, in the meantime, she’d felt nothing even close to it. He moved his mouth to her neck, sliding his lips along the smooth skin there, and lower still, to her exposed décolletage. She tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling, as every nerve ending leaped to life. He scooped his hands inside her briefs, gripping her buttocks and squeezing. She moaned, wrapping her legs more tightly around his torso.

  “Giac,” she whimpered, completely pulled apart by what he was doing to her. She ran her fingernails down his back, wanting his clothes to disappear, so that she could feel his warm, honey-hued skin beneath her.

  This excitement was totally unique for Annie. She’d never known sex could be like this. If the few passionless kisses she’d shared with Thomas were anything to go by, it wasn’t always the case

  Thomas.

  She froze, as guilt lanced her. Though their relationship was casual, it had been going on for long enough to presume they were exclusive.

  “Stop.” She shook her head, then put her hands on either side of his head. His eyes were groggy with desire. His mouth swollen from passion. “Stop.” She repeated quietly. She held his shoulders as she lowered herself from his body, and stayed propped against the wall for support.