by Dani Collins
When she had stiffened, he’d said, “Go to sleep,” in the same quietly firm tone he would use on any of his abundant underage cousins, nieces and nephews who might creep down the stairs when they ought to be in bed. Molding Gwyn to him, he’d gone quietly out of his mind while she had relaxed into the hot curve of his chest and thighs.
She had dropped into a deep sleep, leaving him nursing an aching erection, blood burning like acid in his arteries. Every time he dozed, his mind took him back to kissing her on the deck, when she’d aggressively tested his control.
He didn’t know how he’d kept from lifting her skirt. Possessiveness, perhaps, because in that moment he hadn’t cared if anyone saw his naked ass, but the idea of the paparazzi catching another glimpse of her unclothed had been intolerable.
He’d tried to slow things down while he calculated whether to steal into a stateroom or ask for one to be assigned, so they wouldn’t risk interruption.
She had started to cry.
This woman. He was trying very hard to vilify her, to help maintain some distance, but there was no question in him any longer as to whether she had posed for those photos. She was too devastated to be anything less than violated.
Which did things to him. Provoked something that could turn into a blind savagery if he dwelt too much on the injustice.
He sipped the coffee he’d made in the small pot, studying her timeless features, so well suited to her surroundings.
The building was classic Renaissance, imposing and symmetrical. The interior was equally ornate and gracefully proportioned, enriched with dark wood grains and gold accents upon fervent reds and royal blues. The setting made a beautiful foil for her pale skin, pink lips and long dark lashes.
He’d neglected to close the heavy curtains so sunlight poured across her cleanly-washed face. The collar of his white shirt was turned up against her cheek, the unbuttoned sleeve pushed far up her bare arm.
His Lover At Rest, he thought with a sardonic smile, toying with the idea of snapping her photo. His conscience stopped him. If it makes you feel objectified, well, you have a glimpse into how I feel right now.
He wasn’t bothered by her taking a photo of his photo. He knew he was good-looking. Female attention had always been abundant in his life in the very best way. He wasn’t surprised that she found him attractive and certainly wasn’t offended by it. He liked it. Too much.
She wasn’t as comfortable with their chemistry. She was feeling used and he was being a bastard, not letting her see that he was equally ensnared by lust, but wanting her was weakness enough. Letting her see it would be akin to handing over a weapon, something he was too innately self-protective to ever do.
His phone vibrated in his hand and he dragged his attention off her peaceful expression to see that his cousin was forwarding something.
Can you deal with this? Will talk more when I get there. Leaving in a few hours.
Vito understood by Paolo’s desire for a face-to-face that he was being abundantly cautious with traceable, hackable things like texts and emails, but it surprised him that Paolo was coming to Como. He had been working from home, refusing to leave his wife’s side as she approached the end of her third pregnancy.
But his cousin was smart enough to see the implication behind Vito’s appearance with Gwyn last night. He would want more details, to be sure they had their story straight, especially before he made further statements to the press.
The multitude of demands for more information from all corners was threatening to break Vito’s phone, coming from every direction from family to news contacts to the bank’s core investors. The story across the sea of media had shifted from lurid curiosity about the woman in the photos to deeper speculation as to who she was and how she had ensnared not just one, but two powerful men into a nude photo scandal. Was she sleeping with both of them?
He stroked his thumb along the edge of his screen, deciding it was time to feed another tidbit to the press, leading them away from Jensen’s version of events toward his own.
Yesterday, he had ordered a team to look for a connection between the spa owner and Jensen, suspecting it could be a laundry for some of the funds Jensen had funneled. Even if the spa’s only crime was the breach of Gwyn’s privacy, he didn’t see any reason they should remain open and making money while Gwyn suffered.
With enormous satisfaction, he touched the query from one of his former paramours who worked as an anchor for an Italian morning talk show. Quote me as stating that the photos were taken without her consent at a local spa, he messaged to her.
As the whoosh sounded to tell him the text was sent, he could practically hear her spiked heels racing down to her producer’s office, intent on identifying said spa and surprising the owner with an early-morning interview. She would seize world coverage with her exclusive by noon.
With a smirk at how easily the press was played, he turned his attention to the email Paolo had forwarded.
It was from Travis Sanders, director of an architectural firm Vito had never heard of. A quick swipe to his browser revealed it was a growing global corporation based in Charleston. Henry Sanders had started in real estate and morphed into renovation and restoration. His son, Travis, had earned his degree then took over his father’s firm, expanding into design and engineering. All of their projects were prestigious; the most current one was a cathedral in Brazil.
Vito read Travis’s email to Paolo:
I haven’t heard from my sister since the tenth of last month. If you’re screening her calls, stop screening me. I want to hear from her.
Short and decidedly acrid.
Gwyn shifted on the bed, rolling onto her back and opening her eyes. Confusion quickly fell into a wince of memory. She glanced at the empty spot beside her, sat up, saw him and brought the edge of the sheet up to the buttons closed across her chest.
“I thought you said he was your stepbrother?” Vito said.
“Who? Travis?” She frowned in sleepy confusion. “He is. Why?”
“He wants to hear from you. He thinks we’re preventing you from calling.”
She sighed and looked at the landline beside the bed like it was a snake he’d asked her to pick up.
Since she’d left her own mobile back at the house, he rose and took his across to her. “Would you rather text?”
Her gaze flickered across his bare chest and wariness trembled in her eyelashes while sexual awareness brought a light pink glow to her skin. He would have smiled with satisfaction if his entire body hadn’t tightened in response. Her scent was coming off those rumpled sheets in a way that tugged at his vitals.
She expertly sent off a quick message and handed back the phone, not looking at him.
Despite it being very early in Charleston, the phone vibrated immediately with a response.
Vito glanced at it and couldn’t help a dry smirk. “He wants to know his father’s birthday. To confirm that was actually you who just texted, I imagine.”
“Seriously?” She took back the phone, tapped out a lengthy message and slapped it back into Vito’s hand.
He glanced at the exchange, reading that she’d told her stepbrother she was fine, not being held hostage, didn’t know what to say and hoped the press wasn’t bothering Henry. She wanted Travis to apologize to him for her.
Vito frowned at her expression of misery, started to tell her what was in store for the spa, but another message came through.
“‘This isn’t like you,’” Vito read.
“How the hell does he know what I’m like?” she muttered, sliding her feet out the side of the bed. “He barely talks to me.”
“You’re to call him when you can talk freely,” he read aloud as she headed toward the bathroom.
She made a noise and said, “I’m going to see if it’s possible to drown in a shower.”
“Don’t take too long. I’m hungry and plan to order breakfast now that you’re up.”
* * *
Funny how something as simple
as a shower became a saving grace in a time of crisis. Washing her hair, smoothing a soapy facecloth over her body... It was comfortingly normal. Routine. She took her time, thinking of nothing as water rained down upon her.
Until her mind drifted to hearing the shower in the night.
Why had Vito risen to shower at 2:00 a.m.? He’d been hard against her butt. She remembered that. If she hadn’t been so drained, she might have turned and let him do something she would be regretting right now.
Had he touched himself in here? Pleasured himself?
When he could have had her out there?
The thought struck like a blow, tightening her midsection, making her miserable all over again. She had to stop thinking there was any sort of potential between them. Maybe sex was an option. He’d told her to go ahead and use him, after all. But that’s all it would be: empty sex. There was no room for romance. They weren’t lovers. Despite appearances, they weren’t dating. They weren’t even friends.
This was all fake.
And her life was a complete disaster, she confronted anew as she stepped from the shower and faced a choice between last night’s sparkling evening wear and his rumpled white shirt. She was not in a fit mental state to start any kind of relationship.
She pulled on the robe from the back of the door. It had an embroidered sailboat on the left lapel and was made of thick, comforting chenille. She knotted the belt and emerged to scents of ham and eggs, coffee and sweet pastries. Her stomach contracted. When had she last eaten, she wondered? Vito had forced a few morsels on her last night from the extravagant buffet, but she hadn’t been interested.
He was closing the door behind someone as she came out and waved at a stack of clothing that had been delivered. “See if that fits.”
She didn’t know what to say and found herself fingering through the clothes. There was a clean shirt for him, a short-sleeved, collared one in cobalt blue along with clean socks.
For her, he’d ordered clean underpants, a camisole with a shelf bra in butter yellow, palazzo pants with a subtle floral print and a sheer top that picked up the colors in the pants with splashes of emerald and streaks of pink.
“We’re going shopping so you won’t have to wear it long if you don’t like it,” he said, making her realize she was frowning.
“No, it’s fine. I thought I’d be wearing the robe back to the house.” She looked for price tags, didn’t find any and started to worry. How would she pay for this?
“Let’s eat,” he said, indicating the set table before the now open window.
Their view looked onto the red umbrella tables six stories below, the marina of bobbing, million-dollar boats and the deceptively placid lake glinting in the cradle of mountain peaks.
“Is the shopping really necessary?” she asked, breaking the yoke of her poached egg with the tine of her fork.
He shrugged. “It’s a parade for the cameras and you need clothes for all the circulating we’ll be doing over the next few weeks, so, yes. I would say it is.”
She watched her fork tremble as a fresh wave of helpless anger swamped her.
“I would like to remind you that I don’t have a job. How am I supposed to pay for a new wardrobe?”
“You are so cute, Gwyn,” he said, so patronizing. “I am indulging my innamorata. It’s what besotted men do.”
Her appetite died. She put down her fork, vainly wishing she wasn’t sitting here naked under a robe he had funded. She wished she had a better choice than walking out of here in clothes that were borrowed or an outfit chosen and paid for by him. She wasn’t used to being this powerless. Even when Travis had been unknowingly annihilating her sense of self-worth, she’d had a job and enough savings to get herself and her mother started over in a cheap room if Henry had called off the wedding.
“Women love shopping, Gwyn. Why are you so upset by the prospect?” Vito asked, tucking into his breakfast with gusto.
“Because this isn’t like me,” she said, tartly quoting her stepbrother. “My mother didn’t have much. She made ends meet, but we lived very simply and I still do.”
She typically ate scrambled eggs she cooked for herself, not delicately poached orbs on toasted ciabatta with garlic and a pesto hollandaise, garnished with shallots and plum tomatoes. She drank orange juice she mixed from concentrate, or instant coffee, not mimosas and rich, dark espresso that made her want to moan in ecstasy with the first taste.
She swallowed her tentative sip of the hot, bitter brew and set down her tiny cup, noting that Vito was watching her, like he was deciding whether to believe her. She hesitated to open up, but figured it was better to be honest about her background than to hide it.
“Mom met my stepfather while working as a janitor in his office. Travis was not impressed by his father’s choice in second wives. He was at university and I moved into his old room for my last year of high school. I guess it was weird for him to suddenly have this geeky girl underfoot whenever he visited his dad. Strangers living in his house.”
She had taken refuge in homework when Travis was around, only emerging to eat dinner where Henry had put her at ease and made her laugh.
“My mother genuinely loved his father,” she said, silently willing Vito to believe her. “She never would have brought me into any man’s home for any reason except to give me a father. I think of Henry that way.” She had to drop her gaze as she admitted, “But the day before their wedding, I overheard Travis warning Henry that we might be gold diggers. I thought his mind would change over time, as he saw that we were just trying to be a family, but a year into their marriage my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I was supposed to move out, go to college, but instead I stayed to help Henry nurse her. I took some online courses, but Mom felt like such a burden on us. Travis didn’t come around much. I know how it looked to him, like Henry was stuck with a pile of medical bills for someone he shouldn’t have to support.”
She stared into the harsh glare of sunlight on the water to sear back the tears gathering in her eyes.
“It was such a raw deal that she finally found a man who loved her, who wanted to take care of her, and she died before she could make a proper life with him. Make him happy.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Vito said, sounding sincere, covering her hand.
She removed her hand, forcing herself to shrug off the bleak sadness.
“I’m very conscious of the fact that Travis thinks I’m only maintaining a relationship with Henry because he has money and I don’t. I never take any when he offers, so letting you swan me in and out of Italian boutiques is not exactly the picture I want to paint so my stepbrother will let me continue visiting the only father I’ve ever had.”
She looked at him, blinking several times to bring her vision back from a wall of white to see his toughened yet brutally handsome expression.
“But I’m hardly in a position to demand the luxury of pride, am I?” she added caustically.
He was watching her with a gravity that made her feel naked all over again. “Would he really stop you from seeing him?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she muttered. “He loves his father as much as I do and wants to protect him. He wasn’t trying to be cruel. I mean, you’d probably say the same thing to your own father in that situation, wouldn’t you?”
Vito’s stare was inscrutable. He held her gaze for a long time, like he had a million responses and was sifting for the best one. He settled on saying, “Eat,” and lowered his attention to his plate.
Well, that settled that, didn’t it, she thought facetiously, and forced herself to take a bite.
* * *
No matter how sincere Gwyn seemed, Vito couldn’t afford to let himself be swayed emotionally. While she finished getting ready, he reviewed her background more thoroughly.
She interrupted, emerging from the bathroom with a more natural look that was infinitely more beautiful than last night’s smoky eyes and sharp cheekbones and red, glossy lips painted
by the stylist. Gwyn had frowned when he’d handed her the pots of color and paint, grumbling about not wanting to look like a ghost if she was going to be photographed. If not for that, she implied, she wouldn’t have accepted the makeup at all.
“What do we do with last night’s clothes?” She looked for them.
“I’ve made arrangements.”
She stared at him.
He lifted his brow in inquiry.
“I borrowed something. I want to be sure it’s returned in good condition,” she said.
“It will be.” He frowned, annoyed by what sounded like a lack of faith, but also seeing yet more evidence of the do-it-myself streak of independence she seemed to have. “I reviewed your file and some other details,” he told her as they left the room.
She looked over her shoulder at him, dismayed, but not fearful. “Like?”
Her financial situation. Her debt level was low, but she had a little, and hadn’t made any significant payments or purchases recently. There had been nothing to red flag her as possessing or spending a sum that might have been embezzled. Instead, he’d found more evidence that she was exactly as she portrayed herself.
“You’ve worked hard for the education and position you’ve attained,” he acknowledged once they were in the privacy of the elevator. “But Fabrizio signed off on your transfer despite there being two candidates with more experience. It supports what you said yesterday, that you might have been recruited because you were green and possibly more likely to let things slide out of ignorance.”
“So you’re willing to believe it based on your own assessment of hard evidence, but nothing I say has any bearing. My word means nothing to you. Isn’t that the story of every woman’s life.” She shrugged on the cloak of righteous anger she’d been wearing since he met her, but he could sense the hurt beneath.
He wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he expected, but he hadn’t expected that. His belief in her meant something to her. It made him realize exactly how much power he had over her and he wasn’t sure he was comfortable with it.
