A Legacy of Secrets

by Carol Marinelli

  She walked into the dark bedroom and took a moment for her eyes to accustom. Santo was deeply asleep—she could tell from the regular breathing and just the stillness in the room and the distinct lack of a smart comment from him.

  ‘Santo?’

  He rolled onto his stomach, pulled the pillow over his head.

  ‘Santo!’ She said it more firmly. ‘It’s two o’clock. The desk wants to know if you’re checking out.’

  ‘Did Alessandro call?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Ella said. ‘Santo, it’s time to get up.’

  ‘Another hour…’ came his sleepy voice, and then perhaps remembering it was Sunday after all and that he had taken up a lot of her time, he said the right thing. ‘You go home.’

  Then he said the wrong.

  ‘Or—’ he rolled now onto his side, a lazy smile on his sleepy mouth ‘—you can climb in.’

  And she could go now, Ella knew. He could sort out the hotel himself. He was sober enough now to drive and she had loads to do—she was joining him on location in a couple of days and there was plenty to sort out. She turned and stood for a moment watching as he returned to sleep and then she left the bedroom.

  Except it wasn’t to collect her bag and leave.

  Ella headed into the bathroom and stood there for a very long moment.

  She trusted no one—it was absolutely safer that way. She didn’t, thanks to a few months ago, even trust her own mother. And yet, in a bizarre way, she had an inkling of trust in Santo. He made no excuses and he never lied. Happily he put his hand up to claim his appalling reputation and somehow his honesty made her bold.

  Because yes, Ella had wondered what it might be like to be made love to by Santo. Of course she had. After all, she had seen the most beautiful women shed hopeless tears over the man. Now, with one kiss, a little better she understood, but more than that, his kiss, his skill that had led her so close to willingness, it had made her curious.

  Ella had never particularly enjoyed sex, possibly thanks to her poor choice of partners, for they had never ensured that she might, but she knew things would be different with Santo.

  She just knew and, more than that, she wanted to know.

  But she wouldn’t cry over him.

  Unlike the others Ella had no expectation to change him, knew that was never going to happen. She just wanted her sex lesson from the master, Ella told herself, wanted to go back to where his kiss had led.

  It was for that reason she did as offered and changed her mind! There wasn’t a romantic bone in her body—Ella knew that as she undid her blouse. She stood in the bathroom undressing and then headed into the bedroom and watched him sleeping for a moment. Then, naked, she looked at the warm bed and the man in it and, toes curling, she prepared to dive in.

  She was cold, because as she joined him he told her she was.

  He pulled her right into him and caught her feet between his calves and pressed his warm body to hers. For a moment she thought he had gone back to sleep, and then had a slight panic that he didn’t even know who she was, because Santo was very used to not sleeping alone. He’d rung her once from a hotel bathroom, terrified to go back into the bedroom because he completely couldn’t remember his date’s name and had needed Ella to tell him.

  She had to remember that.

  ‘You feel better than you look,’ Santo said, running warm hands over her breasts and then down to her hips, ‘and you look amazing.’

  Ella did not close her eyes. She would not give in to his effortless, well-used lines, would not allow herself to believe they were exclusive to her, even if he sounded as if he meant them.

  ‘Am I dreaming, Ella?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because I won’t be able to look at you if I am. This is going to be a really filthy dream….’ He purred the words to her ear and she concentrated on the hands that were expert, that ran over and over her body till she was no longer cold and far more than warm. She felt the deep kiss on the back of her neck which would ensure her hair was worn down till late in the week as she was branded by Santo, and it felt good.

  It felt good for Santo too.

  That she had come to his bed was the most pleasant surprise. She was the strangest mix, direct at times and then so evasive, the one woman he had no idea about and yet he wanted to. ‘What made you change your mind?’ he persisted. ‘Tell me so I know for next time.’

  ‘There won’t be a next time,’ Ella said. ‘Remember, we’re writing off today.’

  ‘Oh, there will be…’ Santo would make sure of it. ‘I’ve wanted you for so long.’

  She squirmed as his mouth moved up and he kissed her ear. Ella tried to move away, but he clamped her down, his thigh over hers and trapping her still. His arm gripped her tight, his mouth unrelenting. It was horrible and wet, but he persisted till she found out she liked it, till her mouth was parting, till she wanted to crane her face to meet his mouth. He just kept on going and then stopped and taunted her wet, sensitive skin with words as his erection reared higher up the backs of her thighs.

  ‘What made you change your mind?’ he persisted, but still she did not answer, so he moved in with a different approach, ‘I flew you to Roma.’ It was wretched of him to bring it up here, horrible and mean, because he could feel her body burn in shame. ‘I flew you first class and to a top hotel thinking you were going to the doctors when you were going to your interview….’

  ‘I told you I wanted to make my own way,’ she attempted. ‘I was going to tell you. I thought I’d be called back for a second interview.’ She stopped talking because he was kissing her neck and his fingers were pinching her nipples and none too gently either. There was this assault on her senses. He hurt a bit, but not enough, and his tongue was driving her crazy and her body wanted to turn, but still he pinned her, still he kept pausing to deliciously taunt her.

  ‘What excuse would you have used for the second interview—would you have said you were having surgery this time?’ His hand crept down. ‘I was worried sick that you had to go all that way for a doctor’s appointment.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘I was,’ Santo insisted. ‘I thought it was women’s stuff, so I could not ask you.’ His hand crept to a very womanly place. ‘I thought you were being prodded and poked,’ he said to her ear as he demonstrated and played doctor with his fingers. He was so indecent she thought she might cave there and then as intimately he explored her.

  ‘Santo…’ She didn’t want her back to him. She wanted to turn to his mouth, wanted his kiss, wanted to see, but he held her firmly down. His fingers were inside, incredibly long fingers that thoroughly stroked, and if he carried on like that for much longer, Ella would be sobbing a confession of her own soon.

  ‘Last night, with leech girl, I did consider I might be impotent.’ He was licking the side of her breast, trying to get to her nipple as his hand brought her closer still.

  ‘Please.’ How could she be laughing and on the verge of coming, how could he make such a terrible topic so light?

  ‘And now I worry that I might have l’eiaculazione precoce.’ She was lying there, just giving in to her body for the first time and laughing, because he even made premature ejaculation sound sexy. ‘So you understand when I say…’ He released her then and her body, that had been desperate to turn, turned so naturally to him. It was just so wanton and readied by his hands, by his mouth, by his skin. As her mouth moved in to kiss him, he halted her, caught her chin with his hands and made sure she was looking as he spoke. ‘Ella, in a moment I’m going to take you really fast,’ he said. ‘I mean, really fast, and then I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon making up for it and doing you really slow.’

  He leant over, his chest over her face, and patted the bedside table and then glanced around the room and cursed because his wallet was in his jacket in the bathroom. Then he smiled when Ella waggled a few packets she’d retrieved before coming to the bedroom.

  Yes, it had been a calculated move.

 
‘Good girl,’ Santo said, thinking he’d never been more pleased to see a condom. And then, ‘I’ll do it…’ because from the feel of her hand closing around his base and the lick on her lips as it did, it really could be over way to soon.

  He dealt with things swiftly but Ella couldn’t quite catch her breath as she saw firsthand the sight of Santo fully aroused. She reached out to touch him again, but he slapped her hand away. There was the tightness of anticipation in her throat because instead of kissing her, instead of joining her, he knelt between her legs and dragged her down the vast bed, till there were no pillows beneath her.

  ‘I have been thinking about you for a very long time, since you turned up to be interviewed,’ he admitted. He looked down at her naked beneath him and then smiled as he remembered that day. ‘Your Italian was shocking.’

  ‘So why did you hire me?’

  ‘I wanted you.’ Santo grinned. ‘On sight I wanted you, and you can tell me tomorrow that you find that offensive. Right now I don’t care.’ And no, here in his bed, Ella didn’t find it in the least offensive. She was just trying to remind herself that Santo was a master with women, knew how to say exactly the right thing, except she kept forgetting, found herself falling more and more to his corrupt charm. ‘But if I had known how long you would make me wait…’

  Just his words, just his want as he lifted her up by her buttocks and positioned her, had the blood flood to her groin. She had always thought him sexy, but there was this animal side to him, and it was a turn-on to watch the pleasure in him. His unrivalled passion had her shivering now to his words and had Ella wondering not just why, but how, she had waited. Being with Santo was just amazing, being in the spotlight of his gaze could so easily become addictive.

  ‘Ella…’ He didn’t say any more for a moment, he didn’t need to. Both their eyes closed as he squeezed into her, and she moaned at the excess, and then moaned again, because once he had filled her he was still for a second. Ella was desperate for movement, and her thighs were starting to shake. Then he stroked her slowly from the inside, a movement that had her squirming in pleasure. He opened his eyes and smiled down. ‘You are worth the wait.’

  And did he have to say such things, did he have to be so nice? Because for a second she believed he meant them. In that moment she had this vision of her near future—of her weeping and wailing and calling and being sent straight to his voice mail and being everything she had sworn she would not, because he was heart-stoppingly amazing. He was way, way more than she had envisioned. Until now, nothing, not a single thing in her life, had ever felt this good.

  ‘Buckle up.’ Santo smiled a decadent smile.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Cross your ankles, Ella.’

  And in this, she rather liked having Santo as her boss. Ella did as she was told—locked her ankles together behind him—and he leant back into them, a small safety check before he shot her to the sky. There was no room for thoughts any more, no struggle to hold on, or anticipate regret. There was nothing other than the rapid thrust of him, the ferocity of Santo between her thighs as he jolted her out of sexual complacency, showed her how good it could be. She felt the first shudders of orgasm, felt the arch of her back in his hands, and she moaned her come as still he thrashed inside her.

  ‘Come on, Ella…’ He did not give her a moment to think, he just completely consumed her. He was holding on for dear life, when there was surely no need to, Ella thought, because she had already come, except she’d never been locked in orgasm with Santo. It was like falling through a trapdoor and then into another. He took her deeper into herself than she had ever been, deeper into them. This was supposed to be strictly sex, yet she was biting down not to shout his name. He moved her hips faster and then as his hands stilled her, as he bucked freely within, Ella was coming in a way she never had before, like lightning that strikes from the ground up. She didn’t know where it began and ended. She was taut, writhing, frenzied and already crying over Santo as, satisfied by her surrender, he gave in then and pushed and pulsed within, dragging words out of Ella that made no sense even to her as she came again.

  ‘Thank you…’ The delicious assault on her senses didn’t end as their bodies slowed down. He made it sound as if she’d just saved his life. He toppled onto her, was kissing her, his words dizzying. It wasn’t over, it was a mere interlude. She was in his bed and going nowhere, Santo was sure of it, because finally there was one good thing today and he wasn’t about to let it go.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SANTO SOON DECLARED he was starving.

  ‘There are some pastries out there…’ Ella started, but then stopped. As if Santo would make do with stale pastries and tepid fruit juice—he was already reaching for the bedside phone.

  ‘What do you want?’ There was no consulting menus with Santo, Ella already knew that. He ordered and generally got whatever came first to mind.

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  Santo ordered finger food and champagne, but unable to wait, he headed out and poured some fruit juice, looking out to the press below and sticking up one finger.

  He’d checked his phone—still nothing from Alessandro. He flicked on his computer, more to see if there was any breaking news on his family, but he stood quiet for a moment, reading the email she had been sent, the last thing she’d been looking at before she joined him in his bed.

  That was what had changed her mind.

  He’d spent a long time wondering about Ella.

  Too long thinking about how they’d be in bed.

  And now he knew.

  Except, unusually for Santo, he wanted to know more, a lot more.

  He climbed back into bed and gave her a drink. When a little while later there was a knock at the door that declared their refreshment break was about to commence, unlike Santo, Ella couldn’t just lie there as supplies were brought in, so she hid in the bathroom for a few moments, much to his amusement.

  ‘You are such a prude.’ Santo grinned as she walked back into the bedroom and he held open the sheet for her to climb in. ‘And soon we will work on it, but first, I apologise—I am going to have to make some phone calls.’ Of course the real world was waiting and she was more than used to Santo on the phone. All too often he wandered off, or stepped into another room, but this afternoon, privacy was somewhat discarded and they ate and drank champagne as he made a couple of rather terse phone calls to various family members. From the gist of things there was a lot of fallout from last night, which Santo confirmed when he hung up on the previous call and asked her to divert all calls unless it was his brother.

  ‘Unless it is Alessandro I’m staying out of it.’ He lay back and rested his hands above his head and looked up at the ceiling, examining yesterday’s events a touch more calmly now. For once he wanted to talk about it with someone who wasn’t family—not, of course, that he could tell Ella everything.

  ‘You know we are going for the contract to renovate the docklands?’

  ‘Sort of.’ Ella, who was trying to decide between the sweetest figs she had ever tasted and the last of the chocolate-covered strawberries, looked over at him. Everything was so guarded with the Correttis and yet so intertwined. The docklands they were hoping to renovate was in fact being used for filming. She knew that the Correttis were hoping to breathe new life into the area and, naturally, bring a lot of money in.

  ‘For me,’ he said as she decided on a strawberry. Ella looked at him, aware almost that she was being tested.

  She was.

  She knelt over him and Santo took the food from her fingers. She watched as his teeth cracked the chocolate, as he took the last one, but at the last second he relented and pulled her head to his, let her have half. As she nibbled at the strawberry, she tasted, too, his mouth.

  ‘I want to ring down for more strawberries.’ Ella smiled as she spoke with her mouth full.

  ‘There are figs—’ he smiled ‘—and they are harder to separate and we don’t want disturbing.’ He looked at her gl
ittering amber eyes and the pink on her cheeks that would soon be scalding again. He saw the new flare of arousal and he was about to pursue it, yet, surprising himself, he spoke. ‘Salvatore, my grandfather, put it all in place before he died—that was the point of the wedding.’

  ‘So it wasn’t a love match between Alessandro and Alessia?’ Ella asked. When Santo gave her a quizzical look Ella remembered she was in bed with a Corretti—and so she took it as a no!

  ‘Battaglia has withdrawn his support.’ What Santo didn’t add was that Battaglia was now throwing his might behind Santo’s half-brother, Angelo. There was just so much history in his family, so much feuding, and last night things had suddenly got a whole lot worse, not that he could tell her even half of it. ‘Right now, all I want to concentrate on is the film.’ Then he smiled over to her. ‘And you.’

  ‘I think you should save it for the film, Santo.’ Ella wanted things left at the hotel checkout. She had no intention to wait till Santo got bored, yet as the conversation turned to the film, as his hands lazily wandered, as they fed each other figs with their mouths, reluctantly Ella admitted that there was no place she would rather be than here with him today.

  ‘When did you first want to start directing?’ He had dusted her breasts with chocolate powder and was now licking it off. The white sheets—like Santo, an absolute disgrace—but right now, Ella didn’t care.

  ‘Always,’ Ella said.

  ‘Always?’ Santo checked. Ella thought for a moment, remembered being five or maybe six and just shutting herself in her room, closing off from the noises downstairs and making movies with her mind. Not just once, but over and over, changing the camera angle, concentrating on a scene, getting it so right. Any money she’d had went towards buying scripts, and later it was bliss to find them online. She was twenty-seven and had no experience, but she had been training for more than two decades now. ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.’