by Susan Meier
“Barcelona is beautiful.” He sucked in a breath. “Actually, a drive might be a good idea.”
They climbed into the little red sports car again. Within seconds Antonio eased them into traffic. Cool air and scenery—a mix of old buildings and new, leafy green trees standing beside palms, and a sea of pedestrians—whipped by as he shifted gears to go faster and faster and swung in and out of lanes.
Air ruffled her hair. The sun warmed her. But it was the power of the Jag that put a knot in her chest. For all her intentions to stop lusting after the wonderful toys and lives of her rich friends, she loved this car.
Longing rose up in her, teasing her, tempting her. Her fingers itched to wrap around the white leather steering wheel. Her toes longed to punch the gas to the floor. For twenty minutes, she constrained it. Then suddenly she couldn’t take it anymore.
She leaned toward Antonio. Shouting so he could hear her above the wind and the noise of the city, she said, “Would you mind if I drove?”
He cast her a puzzled frown, as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.
She smiled hopefully. “Please? Let me drive?”
“Oh!” His voice vibrated in the wind swirling around them. “Can you drive in a city you don’t know?”
She nodded eagerly. “I’ve driven in New York.”
He frowned. “Can you drive a stick?”
“Are you kidding? I was driving my granddad’s old farm pickup when I was thirteen.”
He eased the car over to a space on a side street between two tall stucco buildings with black wrought-iron balconies that looked to belong to apartments. “Thirteen was a long time ago for you. Are you sure you remember how to use a clutch?”
She playfully punched his arm.
“Okay, I get it.” He shoved open his car door. “Let’s see what you can do.”
It took a minute for them to switch seats. When she got settled, she caressed the soft leather steering wheel before she turned the key in the ignition, depressed the clutch and punched the gas.
They jolted forward and he grabbed the dash for support. “Careful, now.”
She laughed, hit the clutch and shifted to a better gear. “This car is like heaven.” When the engine growled for release, she hit the clutch, shifting again. “Holy bananas. It’s like driving the wind.”
He laughed, but he still clung to the dash. “You’re going to kill someone!”
She depressed the clutch and shifted a final time, reaching the speed she wanted, barreling through yellow lights, weaving in and out of traffic.
“I never knew you were a daredevil.”
His eyes weren’t exactly wide with fear. But they were close. Still, she was good. She knew she was good. Driving was in her blood. “I’m not. I just like a good car.”
“Really? I’d have never guessed.”
“What? You think women can’t appreciate a powerful engine?”
“No, you just seem a little more tame than this.”
She shook her head. Yet another person who thought she was dull Laura Beth. “Right. I guess we all have our secrets.” She spared him a glance. “Our passions.”
He tilted his head.
She shrugged. “You like to express yourself through art. I want to be free.” She took her eyes off the road to catch his gaze. “And maybe a little wild.”
He laughed. “You? Wild?”
“Thank you for underestimating me.”
“I don’t underestimate you.”
“Right. That’s why you refuse to paint me. You all but said you don’t think I can handle it.”
“I said I can’t handle it.”
“Oh, sure you could. I can see in your eyes that you could. You just don’t want it to happen.”
“Sitting for a portrait can be long and boring.”
She shrugged. “So?”
Antonio shook his head, but didn’t reply. Laura Beth suddenly didn’t care. With the wind in her hair, the sun pouring down on her and the engine in her control, for once in her life she experienced the joy of total power. She soaked it up. Swam in it. She was so sick of everybody underestimating her, thinking they knew her, when all they knew was the shadow of the person she could be with no money, no opportunities.
She suddenly wondered if that’s what Antonio saw when he thought of painting her. The longing to be something more. The hidden passion.
Hope spiked through her, then quickly disappeared. He might see it, but he didn’t want it.
Saddened, she slowed the car. Palm trees and four-lane streets nestled into Old World architecture gave the city a timeless air but she barely noticed it. Something inside her ached for release. She didn’t want people to pity her or dismiss her. She wanted to be herself. She wanted to be the woman Antonio saw when he looked at her.
And she honest to God didn’t know how to make that happen.
* * *
The more she slowed down, the more Antonio relaxed in the passenger’s seat. He forgot all about her little tantrum about him underestimating her when he realized how much she truly loved driving. A passenger on Laura Beth’s journey of joy, he saw everything in squares and ovals of light that highlighted aspects of her face or body. The desire to paint her didn’t swell inside him. Longing didn’t torment him. Instead, his painter’s mind clicked in, judging light and measuring shapes, as he watched the pure, unadulterated happiness that glowed from her eyes as she drove.
But something had happened as she slowed the car. Her expression had changed. Not softened, but shifted as if she were thinking. Pondering something she couldn’t quite figure out.
He tapped her arm. “Maybe it’s time to head back?”
She quietly said, “Yeah.”
Curiosity rose in him. She was the second person that day to do a total one-hundred-eighty-degree turn on him. Happy one minute, unhappy the next. Still, he’d made a vow to himself not to get involved with her, and he intended to keep it.
He pointed at his watch. “We have a gallery opening tonight.”
She nodded, and at the first chance, she turned the car around. He thought she’d stop and they’d switch places, but she kept driving, and he leaned back. Surreptitiously watching her, he let the images of light and lines swirl around in his brain. Normal images. Calculations of dimension and perspective. They might be pointless, but at least this afternoon they weren’t painful. She was a passionate, innocent woman who wanted to love life but who really hadn’t had a chance. And that’s what he longed to capture. The myriad emotions that always showed on her face, in her eyes.
Eventually, she pulled into a side street and turned to him. “I’m a little bit lost.”
He laughed. “I think you are.”
“So you don’t mind taking over?”
“No.”
She fondled the steering wheel, then peeked at him. “Thanks.”
The sudden urge to gift her the car almost overwhelmed him. Watching her drive might have been the first time he’d seen the real Laura Beth. And he knew that was the person she wanted to be all the time. The woman who wasn’t afraid. The woman who grabbed life and ran with it.
“You looked like you enjoyed it.”
Her gaze darted to his. “Maybe too much.”
The desire to lean forward and kiss her crept up on him so swiftly it could have surprised him, but it didn’t. The woman who’d pushed that gas pedal to the floor piqued his curiosity. Not just sexually, but personally. She was as complicated as his desire to paint her.
He moved closer, watching her eyes darken as she realized he was about to kiss her. His eyelids drifted shut as his lips met hers and everything inside him froze, then sprang to glorious life. She was soft, sweet and just innocent enough to fuel the fire of his need to learn more. His hands slid up her arms to her
shoulders, pulling her closer as his mouth opened over hers and she answered. His lips parted. Her tongue darted out enough for him to recognize the invitation.
Raw male need flooded him. The powerful yearning to taste and touch every inch of her rose up. But when his hormones would have pushed him, his common sense slowed him down. It was as if kissing her made him believe they could have a real relationship. No painting seduction of an innocent, but a real relationship.
The thought rocked him to his core. Dear God, this woman was pregnant. A relationship meant watching her grow with another man’s child, sadly realizing he’d lost his own.
Worse, the last woman he’d been in a relationship with had made a mockery of their marriage. She’d broken his heart. Stolen his ability to paint. He’d never, ever go there again. He’d never trust. He’d certainly never give his heart. And whether she knew it or not, that was what Laura Beth needed.
Someone to trust her. Someone to love her.
He broke the kiss. But he couldn’t pull away. He stared into eyes that asked a million questions he couldn’t answer.
“I’m sorry.”
She blinked. “Sorry you kissed me?”
He stroked her hair as the truth tumbled out. “No.”
Her voice a mere whisper, she said, “Then...what are you sorry for?”
“Sorry that this can’t go any further. There can’t be anything between us.”
“Oh. Okay.”
But she didn’t move away and neither did he. Confusion buffeted him. If he knew it was a bad idea to get involved with her, why couldn’t he move away from her?
“We should go.”
“Yeah.”
Grateful that she wasn’t bombarding him with questions about why there couldn’t be anything between them, he opened his door and got out, and she did the same. She rounded the trunk. He walked in front of the car to get to the driver’s side. He slid behind the wheel, started the car, made a series of turns and headed toward Constanzo’s penthouse.
Still rattled by their kiss, he wanted to speed up and get them the hell home so he could have a few minutes alone. But he slowed the car and let her admire the architecture, the town square, the street vendors and shops.
When they returned to the penthouse, she took one last look at the Jag before shoving open her door and stepping out onto the sidewalk.
Joining her, he tossed the keys to the doorman and led her to the elevator. Neither said a word. A strange kind of sadness had enveloped him. For the first time since he’d met Gisella, he found a woman attractive, stimulating. But he was so wounded by his marriage he knew it was wrong to pursue her.
He walked through the entry to the main room of Constanzo’s penthouse, and saw a huge white sheet of paper propped up on a vase on the coffee table.
He ambled over, picked up the note written in Constanzo’s wide-looped script and cursed.
“What?”
“My dad has gone.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Gone?”
“He took the jet and went home.” Realizing this ruined Laura Beth’s trip, Antonio faced her. “I’m sorry.”
She bit her lower lip. “I think that little tiff with your dad this morning was bigger than you thought.”
“Seriously? Do you really believe he was angry that I said I was happy to have someone else entertain him every once in a while?” He tossed his hands in disgust. “I tell him that four times a week.”
She shrugged. “That might be true, but he seemed a little more sensitive than usual this morning.” When Antonio groaned, she added, “Why else would he leave?”
He crumpled the paper, annoyance skittering through him. What did his dad expect him to do? Race after him? Apologize, again? He’d apologized already and Constanzo had blown him off, told him he was tired. He’d given him more reason to believe he wasn’t angry than to believe he was.
“Don’t worry about it.” He certainly refused to. If Constanzo wanted something, expected something, then maybe he needed to be forthright and not sulk like a sour old woman. “It’s not a big deal. It just means you’ll have to—” Go to the gallery opening with me. He almost said the words, but snapped his mouth shut as the truth finally hit him.
That meddling old man!
That’s why he’d left him and Laura Beth alone that morning. He wasn’t mad. He must have seen something pass between them, and he’d left so they’d be forced to interact.
No. They wouldn’t just be forced to interact. They’d have fun, as they’d had driving that afternoon. And they’d connected. He kissed her.
Oh, Constanzo was devious.
Antonio shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on the sofa, his blood boiling. As if making him feel guilty wasn’t bad enough, matchmaking was the ultimate insult.
Still, just because Constanzo had played a few tricks, that didn’t mean he had to roll over and be a victim.
His voice crisp, casual, he said, “The real bottom line to this is that he took the plane. But even that’s not a big deal. If he doesn’t send it back for us, I have a friend I can call.”
She bit her lip again, took a few steps back. “I don’t want to be a burden.”
He sighed. When he saw Constanzo again he intended to let him have it with both barrels, if only for scaring Laura Beth. He’d left a shy, broke, single woman in a city where she didn’t even speak the language.
“You’re not a burden.” But he also wasn’t going to let Constanzo set them up this way. As much as he would like to take her to the gallery, to have her on his arm, to laugh with her he couldn’t do it. It had been wrong for him to kiss her. Equally wrong for him to be interested in her. She deserved so much more than the broken man he was. He wouldn’t be a bad host, but Constanzo’s plan ground to a halt right here. They’d eat something, then he would retire to his room until it was time to dress for dinner and the gallery opening—for which he had plans with Olivia. Because this was business, he didn’t even have to make an excuse for not inviting Laura Beth along. His plans were already set.
He glanced around. “So, lunch?”
“We’re past lunch and jogging toward dinner.”
“Oh, you want to wait for dinner?”
“Are you kidding? I’m pregnant and I haven’t eaten since breakfast. I’m starving. I need something now.”
“That’s fine. We’ll have Cook make whatever you want.”
Antonio led her to the kitchen, but as soon as he opened the door, he knew Cook was also gone. The place wasn’t just empty. It appeared to have been buttoned down, as if Cook had stowed everything away until Constanzo’s next visit.
The prickle of anger with his dad heated his blood again. Now the old coot wanted him to take Laura Beth to dinner? Well, he had another thought coming, because Antonio had plans.
Strolling toward the pantry, Laura Beth said, “I can make something for us to eat. It’ll be fun.”
He winced. “I can’t eat now. I have dinner plans with Olivia.”
She stopped and faced him. “Oh.”
“I’m sorry. We haven’t had a real meeting in weeks, and she likes to give me pep talks...check in with me.” He shrugged. “It’s a working dinner.”
She waved her hand in dismissal. “No. No. I get it. This is a business trip for you.”
Feeling like a first-class heel, and not able to completely ditch her, even though he knew getting involved with her would only hurt hert, he halfheartedly said, “You can come—”
* * *
But Laura Beth knew she couldn’t. It would be one thing to go to dinner and the gallery with Constanzo. People would look at her and assume she was his assistant. It wouldn’t matter what she wore, how much she ate, if she laughed at all the wrong places. But with Antonio and Olivia and Tucker? They would look like a foursome. O
livia would be dressed to kill, and Laura Beth would be in an old sundress, looking foolish.
“No. Thanks.” She caught his gaze. “I’m tired. It’s better for me to stay in. I’ll fix myself a little something to eat and probably go to bed.”
“You’re sure?”
The relief in his eyes rattled through her, confirming her worst suspicions, filling her with disappointment. He didn’t want her to tag along. They’d been fine in the car, chatty even. She’d admitted things she normally didn’t admit and he’d listened. But just as he didn’t want to give in to the urge to paint her, he didn’t want to like her, to get to know her. He’d made that clear after their kiss when he said there could be nothing between them.
And now here she was, like Cinderella, being told she couldn’t go to the ball. Even though she knew damned well she didn’t belong there, it still hurt.
So she smiled. “Sure. I’m fine.”
He took a few steps backward. “If you’re sure.”
“Antonio, stop being so polite and go.”
“Okay.” He turned around and walked out of the kitchen.
She leaned against the center island, disappointment flooding her. She didn’t know why she was upset. So what if he’d kissed her? The moment had been right. For all she knew she could have looked like a woman issuing an invitation. He’d taken it...but regretted it. And she was wise enough not to want a man who didn’t want her. She’d already had a guy like that and she was smarter than to want to get involved with another. Her current overload of emotions had to be hormonal, brought on by her pregnancy.
So why did being left behind feel like such a huge insult?
Because, deep down, she knew he liked her. Damn it.
That’s what had been simmering between them all along. Not her desperate need for a job or his unexpected desire to paint her. But attraction. Maybe even genuine affection.
She pulled away from the center island and straightened her shoulders. She had to stop thinking about this. She was hungry. She needed to rest. She also needed Antonio’s plane or his friend’s plane, or his help, at least, to get back to Italy. She couldn’t get upset because he refused to admit he liked her.
