‘Grace,’ he groaned huskily, nipping at her bottom lip before reclaiming her mouth, his fingers playing at the rim of her knickers.
She slipped a hand down the front of his shirt, all the way down to his trousers, lower, until she reached the hardness of his erection. A noise came from his throat, almost a groan, a husky sound that speared her skin. Quickly, she undid the button and pulled the zip down, tugging his trousers and snug boxers down past his hips, allowing him to spring free. With fervoured hands, she held his length and rubbed a thumb over the head, rediscovering the hard, velvet smoothness. If ever an erection was beautiful, Luca’s was it. Once she had made him lie on their bed naked, cajoled him with her mouth and tongue until he was as solid as rock then, with a wicked grin, had backed away and sketched him.
Now she had no intention of backing away.
Forget a bed. Forget foreplay. Forget everything. It had been so long.
She gasped as her knickers were ripped off and discarded, and when he inserted a finger into her sodden warmth she moaned and ground herself against him, wanting more, needing more.
All she wanted was to feel him deep inside her, filling her and fulfilling her as only Luca could, and she almost screamed in frustration when he moved his hand away and reached round to clench her buttocks, lifting her off her feet.
Immediately she released her hold on him and grabbed his shirt, pulling him so he was flush against her.
He broke their kiss and stared at her with a hungry, animalistic look, his eyes devouring her. ‘You are the sexiest woman on the planet,’ he said, the words coming out as a growl before he smothered her mouth.
Gripping one of her thighs, he raised it, giving her the extra lift she needed to wrap her legs around his waist, his strength supporting them both.
In one sure move he was inside her.
She cried out his name, tearing her mouth from his, biting his earlobe. There was no time to savour the feeling because it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. All the cells inside her felt ready to explode.
Clinging to him, she buried her face in his shoulder and breathed in his musky scent, nipping at the salty flesh.
It was as if they’d never been apart, their bodies perfectly in tune to the other’s needs. And what they both needed was release.
She met every carnal thrust as if it were the last, could feel the pulsations within her core thicken. Luca’s groans deepened and she knew his control was hanging by a thread, something she had always revelled in, the knowledge that this sexy bear of a man wanted her so badly. He knew her body as well as if it were an extension of his own. By pushing her thighs apart just a little and raising her slightly higher against the wall, he deepened the penetrations.
And then she was there. Closing her eyes tightly, she ground into him, her climax careering through her like a cresting wave, the ripples spreading out into every cell from the ends of her toes to the tips of her fingers and up to the strands of her hair.
He plunged into her with one final thrust, before losing his control with a cry, breathing heavily into her hair as together they wrung out every last millimetre of pleasure.
For an age they stayed that way, holding on to each other tightly until the spasms subsided and clarity broke through the haze.
Reluctant though she was to break the union, Grace’s legs became limp and unfurled from around him.
Luca laughed lightly and withdrew from inside her, holding her waist securely while she found her feet.
‘Okay?’ he asked, brushing his lips to her neck.
‘I think so.’ She wrapped her arms more tightly around him and swayed into his chest, nestling her head into his shoulder. She could feel the thud of his heart reverberating through him, and gave a wistful sigh at the familiarity.
His hands brushed the length of her back. ‘Your bed or mine?’
Tilting her head, she met his midnight stare, her heart catching at the warmth in it, and the gleaming heat that was of a very different nature.
As dangerous as she knew it would be to actually spend a night sharing a bed, sharing even more intimacy with him, she didn’t care. At least not then. If she regretted it in the morning, then...well, then she would deal with it in the morning.
‘Mine.’
* * *
Taking great care not to disturb him, Grace disentangled her limbs from Luca’s and crept out of bed.
After making love again, he had pulled her into his arms and fallen asleep. Usually the sound of his deep, steady breathing was enough to pull her into slumber too but tonight her brain refused to switch off. Which was hardly surprising under the circumstances.
Padding out of the bedroom, she headed into the main room of the suite and began rummaging through the bureau. There, she found an A4-sized notepad and an expensive-looking fountain pen with a variety of nibs and ink cartridges. She hardly cared. Her fingers were itching worse than any itch she could recall. She would have been satisfied with a lip liner.
Back in the bedroom she turned the small light of the dressing table down to its dimmest setting, quietly dragged the armchair to the side of the bed and nestled into it.
She had no idea how long she had been drawing when Luca’s deep voice broke through the silence. ‘Have you given me horns?’
She raised her eyes from the pad on her lap and threw a sheepish smile. Shoving her hand down her side, she pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and threw it at him.
He sat up, unfurled the paper and smoothed it out. He looked from the paper to her and back again. There was no anger in his expression, more a sad acceptance. But that could easily have been a trick of the light.
She’d sketched him sleeping. The more detail she’d put into it, the tighter her chest had become. The longer she had drawn, the more the hate inside her had continued to squeeze out, and so, in desperation, she had drawn a thick, narrow goatee on his chin, quickly followed by a set of intricate horns above his ears. She’d even popped a red cartridge into the pen to tint the eyes, the only colour on the page. When she’d finished, her gaze had flittered between the devil on the page and the devil on the bed. Except her eyes no longer recognised the devil on the bed for what it was. All she could see was the man, sleeping, strangely innocent in his slumber. Her heart had clenched so tightly her eyes had brimmed. And she’d looked back down on that page and it had felt all wrong.
Screwing it into a tight ball, she’d started again, using nothing but her eyes to dictate what her hands drew. This picture felt cleaner somehow.
‘If it’s any consolation, the picture I’m drawing now is definitely sans horns.’ Despite her best efforts she couldn’t hide the catch in her throat.
‘It is,’ he said, his voice thick.
She looked up.
‘It is a consolation,’ he clarified, a wry smile playing on his lips.
She dropped her gaze back to the pad on her lap and added some strokes to thicken the hair. ‘Are you ready to tell me about the breakup of your partnership with Francesco Calvetti?’
Her question seemed to surprise him, catching him mid yawn. ‘There’s not much to say. I have decided now is the right time to break it.’
Dropping a tiny splodge of ink along the jaw, she rubbed it with her middle finger to represent the dark stubble of his jawline. ‘But why now?’
‘There are many reasons.’
Silence hung in the air.
‘How did you come to work with him in the first place? You never did tell me.’ She kept her voice calm and non-accusatory. The soft lighting in the dark room had created a peaceful ambiance and she wanted to keep it that way, reluctant to spoil the harmony they had created, however fleeting that harmony might be.
Expelling a deep breath, Luca swung his legs off the bed and strode to the window, drawing back the curtains.
With his back to her, his naked torso had never looked more magnificent.
Quickly she turned the page of her pad over and started on a fresh sheet.
She waited for him to speak.
‘Our fathers were great friends as well as associates. Francesco and I went to school together, spent time on holiday together, that kind of thing.’
‘Really? I vaguely remember him from our wedding, but until you went into business with him when you bought the first casino, I didn’t even know his name.’ And then they had bought another casino and then the nightclubs. It hadn’t taken long before she had grown to hate the name Francesco Calvetti.
‘Francesco’s father was a bastard.’
She paused, saying nothing, letting him fill the silence.
‘If you wanted to know what a proper gangster looked like, you would have looked no further than Salvatore Calvetti. He made the de’ Medici look like pussy-cats.’
She could hear the disgust in his voice.
The frozen pen on the page had blotted and she whipped it away, rubbing her thumb over the blot, transforming it into shading down the arch of his back.
‘The older Salvatore got, the more vicious he became. My father was very different. Age mellowed him. It was no surprise to any of us when he decided to break the association. He wanted to take what you would call a more...legitimate path, especially with Pepe and I at an age to follow in his footsteps. The estate had been in the family for generations and had always been a good source of income. My father decided it was time to realise its full potential and turn the vineyard into the pride of the country.’
‘And Salvatore was happy to break their...association?’
‘No. Only the fact they had been close friends since childhood allowed him to break away without any repercussions.’ He placed his hands on the window-sill and stretched a leg back, peering out. ‘My father died barely a year later. Pepe and I agreed we would follow his wishes and run the estate free from Salvatore’s influence.’
‘Did Salvatore try and muscle in?’
‘Naturally. He felt it was his right.’ His tone became menacing. ‘But we set him straight.’
‘Is that why the estate is protected like Fort Knox?’
He nodded. ‘It had always been highly guarded, but after my father’s death I thought it prudent to add extra security measures. I was not prepared to let that bastard anywhere near my family or our home and business. And God knows, he tried.’
‘So, when you took over the estate, the business consisted of just that—the estate?’
‘We already had the vineyards and olive groves.’
‘But only on the Mastrangelo estate.’
He nodded.
Her mind reeled as she considered what her husband had accomplished in the thirteen years before she met him. It wasn’t just the expansion, although, considering they now owned dozens of estates in eight European countries and a couple in South America, the expansion was no small feat.
Mastrangelo wine was world famous and had won every prestigious award going. Mastrangelo olive oil came at a premium and was the oil of choice for discerning chefs in all corners of the globe.
Yes, Pepe had come on board once he had graduated, but Luca had been the driving force behind it all.
‘If you hate Salvatore so much, how come you ended up in business with his son?’
‘He died a few weeks after our first wedding anniversary.’
‘Ah.’ Hazily she recalled him mentioning an old family acquaintance passing away, remembered the way his lips had curved in a manner she had been unable to discern.
‘You didn’t want me at the funeral.’ When she’d offered to go with him, Luca had rebuffed her; the first time in the whole of their marriage he had attended anything that could be classed as even vaguely social without her.
‘I didn’t want you anywhere near that bastard even if he was in a coffin. Pepe and I only went to assure ourselves he really was dead.’
‘Is that when you and Francesco reconnected?’
‘Yes. Francesco’s relationship with Salvatore was difficult to say the least, but he showed his father great loyalty. Salvatore’s death freed him to take his own path.’
‘And his own path included working with you.’
‘Only in certain areas. In some businesses it is good to spread the risk.’ He sighed. ‘I was only twenty-one when I took over the running of the Mastrangelo estate. This gave me a chance to spread my wings too.’
‘Pepe didn’t agree?’
‘Pepe and Francesco have loathed each other for years—they fell out over a woman. I was at university when it happened. I forget the details.’ Luca raised his broad shoulders. ‘I am my own man. I do not need my brother’s permission or blessing to do anything. Francesco is his own man too. He is not his father. What he proposed made a great deal of financial sense and earned us both a lot of money.’
‘If it earned you so much money, why break the association?’
‘It is the right time. I shall keep the restaurants—they practically run themselves—but the casinos and nightclubs are nocturnal activities and require a lot of hands-on involvement. I have a child now who is deserving of my time and attention. I want to be there for her bath times, I want to read her stories. I want to be a proper father to her.’
Lucky Lily, she thought, as an unexpected wave of desolation streamed through her.
There was a truism in the saying that you couldn’t miss what you’d never had. And Grace hadn’t missed her father during his long absences—even when he was at home, Graham’s mind was always on worthier causes. She’d known he loved her and that had been enough. She’d known her mother loved her and that had been enough.
Or so she’d told herself.
She’d never pushed either of them on it. She’d simply accepted the situation with her parents for what it was, never allowing herself to consider it in any real depth, too fearful of what the answers might be—that her mother’s art and her father’s good causes were more important to them than their only child.
She’d never properly pushed Luca about what was really going on in his life either, too fearful to probe too deeply—she hadn’t wanted to know the truth, only confronting the reality when her pregnancy had left her no choice.
She hadn’t stuck around to confront him with the undeniable truth, which had scared and horrified her. Instead, she had run away without even giving him the basic opportunity to defend himself...
‘And is that the only reason you’re breaking the association?’ she asked him softly. ‘Because you want to spend time with Lily?’
He turned his head to look at her, his spine straightening. ‘What other reason could there be?’
She shrugged. ‘I guess I thought—hoped—it was because you realised what you had become.’
His eyes hardened. ‘And what might that be?’
‘Everything your father never wanted you to be.’
She regretted the words the moment they left her lips.
Luca barely flinched but that small movement was enough for her to know she’d hit a nerve.
He sucked in a breath and turned his back to her.
Feeling like the worst person in the world, she got up from the chair and joined him at the window. In silence they looked out at the Piazza del Duomo. Under normal circumstances, the starlit cathedral would fill her with joy and contentment. But not tonight. Even though she knew she had been right in what she had said, it had been cruel.
How incongruous was that? Just twenty-four hours ago she would have snatched at an opportunity to hurt him.
‘I’m sorry, Luca,’ she said quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘That wasn’t fair of me.’
When he didn’t answer, just gazed out of the window, his jaw clenched, s
he pressed on. ‘I don’t want another argument. I know my thoughts and opinions don’t mean jack to you, but I’ll say it anyway—I’m pleased you’ve broken your association with that man. It makes me feel safer knowing he’s no longer in your life.’
It seemed to take for ever for him to break out of his trance.
Slipping away from her, he said, ‘It’s late. We have an early flight to catch. I’ll get some sleep in my own room.’
Biting her lip, she let him go.
Her heart heavy, she turned out the light and got into bed. The thick duvet felt cold without him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LUCA UNLOCKED THE door of the cottage and switched on the light. Immediately the studio went from darkness to bright, bright light.
Closing the door behind him, his head aching, his chest tight, he paced to the far end of the room where Grace kept her paintings neatly stacked.
This was something he had done on many occasions during her absence, especially in the lonely nights when his bones had always felt cold whatever the outside temperature. He’d examined every one of her paintings, like a detective trying to find clues, seeing if there was anything in them that would even hint at why she had left him.
But it had been more than a mere forensic examination. He’d felt closer to her in there, her personality and spirit etched in her work. If he closed his eyes he could imagine her standing before her easel, her head tilted, her face screwed in concentration.
He sank to his knees to look through the paintings for what had to be the hundredth time and now, finally, he began to see.
Her early paintings had been vivid. She’d painted him, his family and many of the estate workers individually; beautiful, colourful pictures with personality and gusto. There were plenty of celebrity pieces too. He remembered how she would scour magazines, her excitement when she found a picture that ‘jumped out’ at her. She would cut it out and hurry to her easel, her mind already working overtime. The finished article would be nothing like the original photo but the person in question would never be in doubt.
As the length of their marriage increased, he could see a difference. Nothing obvious, not at first, but if you placed the pictures in chronological order... The later paintings were more muted, as if the vibrancy that lived inside her and extended into her artwork had dimmed.
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