by Dani Collins
Not unlike Gwyn, who didn’t take lovers strictly for the pleasure of physical release.
Because, he suspected, no man had given her a release like that. He probably shouldn’t have, but her animosity had been eating at him. That remark about buying women and her resistance toward him on every level had been grinding away at his control. When she had called herself “cheap” for wanting to sleep with him, something feral in him had snapped, demanding that he show her how good they would be together.
Cheap? It was unique and precious, beyond even what he had imagined it could be. Disconcertingly powerful.
And honest.
Her reaction now, so taken aback by her own abandonment, told him how thoroughly he had owned her in those moments. He thrilled to it, but it caused a shift inside him. Something he wasn’t fully prepared to examine, fearing he was making a rationalization to justify getting what he wanted: her.
But the way she’d ignited in his arms made thinking of anything except possessing her impossible.
* * *
They seemed to have left the paparazzi far behind and circled back toward the house. As soon as they were inside, Gwyn went straight through to the small patio outside the back door, where the cool afternoon breeze off the water gave her the first proper breath she’d taken since coming apart at Vito’s touch.
She went down the steps to the pool deck where she stared out over the lake, blood cooling, hands curled around the rail to ground her back into harsh reality. Why had she let that happen? And what did it mean for the rest of this pantomime they were acting? Would they become lovers in every way, not just a one-sided grope that only proved his superiority over her?
That was the part that devastated her. She could give herself orgasms if she wanted them. But despite all the ways he’d turned out to be different from the urbane Italian gentleman she’d fantasized about, she was even more in thrall than ever. Would she become his lover?
She couldn’t imagine finding the will to say, No.
Vito came outside with two wineglasses and a corked bottle. He wordlessly poured and offered her one, not speaking until she took hers.
“Salute,” he said, gaze trying to catch hers.
She couldn’t do it, too aware of how intimate things had been between them. Too vulnerable to him.
“I keep making you angry because it seems the only way to keep you from falling into despair,” he said, as though explaining the answer to a riddle.
“Something else for my own good?” She snapped her gaze up to his.
He smiled faintly. “Whatever works.”
She released a shaken sigh, finding his statement not exactly comforting, but oddly bolstering. He wasn’t toying with her for fun, but trying to help her in his backhanded way.
She couldn’t deny that his lovemaking had, for a few minutes, completely wiped away her anxiety over her nightmare of a life. Now everything was flooding back and she would be very thankful if he did something annoying. Despair hovered like a rain cloud looking to move in and burst over her.
He set his glass on a table and shrugged out of his new jacket, a vintage cut in light wool with leather patches at the shoulders. It was gorgeous on him, very debonair, but the dove-colored shirt beneath was equally smart, clinging to his muscled shoulders, buttons open in a V that showed his throat and collarbone and a few dark chest hairs.
He slung the jacket negligently over the back of the nearest chair, attention shifting to his phone. With a flick of his thumb across the screen, he paraphrased from something he was reading. “The spa is claiming they had no knowledge of the photos, but the press has found the same connection my team discovered this morning. Your masseuse is related to one of Jensen’s employees. I’ll take you to lodge a formal complaint with the police when we return to Milan so they can look at pressing charges for invasion of privacy.”
“Charging the masseuse doesn’t put the blame on Kevin, though, does it?”
“He has worked very hard to keep his hands clean, but we’ll get there. It’s early days yet.” He picked up his glass and sipped, continuing to read his emails.
Days. It hadn’t even been two full ones, but she’d already gone further with him than most of the men she’d dated for months. She was in so much trouble if that was a precursor of what was to come.
Pensively sipping the pale gold of the wine, she wound up exclaiming a very sincere, “Oh, that’s very good!”
Not that she was any sort of connoisseur, but Travis always brought wine when she cooked and he didn’t punish anyone with cheap stuff. She’d been enjoying trying bottles here in Italy and hadn’t found a bad one, but this surpassed anything in her price range.
Vito glanced up, offering what looked like a very genuine smile for a change. “It’s the private reserve from my great-grandparents’ vineyard. One of my cousins runs it and doles the bottles out to family every year. We could make a fortune, but it’s too good to sell.”
“Do you—” Gwyn forgot what she was going to ask as a flash of movement caught her eye.
Was that a little boy? He touched his lips to signal her to keep quiet as he climbed the rail that bordered the pool terrace then darted behind an oversize terra-cotta planter.
Vito followed her gaze and glanced backward at the empty landscape, then brought his alert frown back to her. “What’s wrong?”
She started to say, “I saw a little boy—”
Before she could get the words out, the boy was barreling straight for Vito’s legs.
In the same moment, Vito’s expression hardened. He plunked his glass down and spun in a fluid motion, like he knew exactly what was coming. He crouched, grabbed, then threw the boy high into the air as he straightened, then caught him firmly and held him nose to nose.
“You little gremlin. I ought to throw you into the pool.”
“Do it!” The boy’s laughing eyes brightened with excitement. He splayed out his arms and legs, ready to fly through the air into the still, blue water despite being fully dressed.
“I won’t,” Vito told him, hitching the boy’s wiry figure onto his arm so they were eye to eye. “That’s your punishment for trying to push me in. No swimming at all. Say hello to Miss Ellis,” he said, indicating her with a nod. “This is Roberto. He has all of his mother’s sass and twice his father’s disregard for danger.”
“I was going to come in with you,” the boy excused, curling his arm around Vito’s neck and pressing his cheek to Vito’s with open trust and affection. He was speaking perfect English but could have been Vito’s son, his looks were so patently Italian. He turned his attention to Gwyn and pronounced what sounded like a coached speech. “It’s nice to meet you. Welcome to our home.” He offered his small hand for a shake, making it a firm one.
“It’s a beautiful home,” Gwyn said, ridiculously charmed, even though he couldn’t have been more than five. “I’m very pleased to meet you, too.”
Roberto gave her a stare reminiscent of Vito’s most delving look.
“Are you American? Mama is Canadian and sometimes people think she’s American, but your accent is different. You sound like our housekeeper in Charleston.”
“Good ear,” Gwyn said with a bemused smile. Honestly, he had more sophistication than some thirty-year-old executives she had met.
“Did you drive here yourself? Where is your father?” Vito asked, giving the boy a little bounce.
“He won’t let me drive,” Roberto said with a disgruntled scowl, then pointed to the top floor. “He’s putting Bianca in her bed. She fell asleep in the car. She has a cold.”
“He brought both of you? How is your mother?”
“So pregnant,” a woman said, coming out the back door of the house.
Lauren Donatelli was very pregnant, but carried it beautifully on her tall frame, glowing and graceful as she came down the short flight of steps onto the pool terrace, nary a waddle in her step.
Gwyn recognized her from photos she’d seen in the Charleston ne
ws several years ago, along with the odd image published in the company newsletter where Lauren invariably stood next to Paolo looking warm and approachable despite how aloof and distant her husband always seemed.
“Hi, I’m Lauren,” she said, offering her hand.
“Gwyn,” she murmured, and tried to thank her for the loan of clothes, but was waved off.
“Anything for Vito. Hello, caro,” she said to him. He stooped a little so she could kiss both his cheeks.
“Should you be anywhere but a maternity ward?” he asked her.
“I offered to check myself into a clinic, but the doctor said there was no point since it will be at least two weeks. Paolo wouldn’t let me stay in the city without him, of course. His mother is at the house, but you know what he’s like. Won’t let me out of his sight.” She shook her head in exasperation.
“Roberto was born inside their front door. Bianca delivered in a car,” Vito informed Gwyn.
“It was easier to lose the paparazzi waiting at the gate if we made it look like we were going for a simple family outing,” Paolo said, arriving with a baby monitor that he set on the table next to Vito’s wineglass. “Miss Ellis,” he greeted with a cool nod.
“Signor Donatelli,” she murmured, intimidated to the soles of her feet.
Thankfully his son pleaded, “May I swim, Papa. Per favore?”
“Vito and I must talk about work, but if you put on your trunks you can come to the shore with us and wade.”
“Yes!” Roberto dropped out of Vito’s arms and started to run toward the house.
“Quietly,” Lauren warned, slowing his step. “Don’t wake your sister. I’ll start dinner,” Lauren said with a well-practiced hostess smile.
“You will not,” Paolo told her. “I’ll cook when I come in. Stay off your feet.”
A man willing to cook. Gwyn was so astonished it took her a moment to blurt out the sensible solution that broke the challenging stare between the married couple.
“I can make dinner.”
Everyone looked at her. These two men really were too much masculinity in one impactful wall for any woman to handle.
“Unless you need me to be there while you talk?” She had no doubt she would be the topic of their discussion. Frankly, she was hoping to avoid listening to her humiliation being kicked over like something a dog owner had failed to dispose of properly.
“I would appreciate your cooking, if it’s something you don’t mind doing,” Paolo said, then turned to his wife. “You may sit and chop tomatoes if you promise not to put your weight behind it.”
She made a face at him.
“If our daughter wakes, would you call me?” he added to Gwyn. “She’s under the weather and will want to be held, but Lauren needs to take it easy. At this stage the hiccups will start her labor. I have my hands full enough without catching a baby today.”
“It’s twenty minutes out of your life,” Lauren murmured, looking at her fingernails. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”
He caught her hand and brought her curled knuckles to his lips. “I can barely think of anything else as it is. You know that. Try to buy us a few more days while we settle this work crisis? Please?”
The looks they were giving each other were such a mix of open emotion, tender and teasing and loving, Gwyn knew she ought to look away. It was a private couple’s moment, but it was so beautiful, she was transfixed. She wanted that. The cajole and silent communication and connection that bound in a thousand ways. The secretive smile. The way they looked like they wanted to kiss, but were in no hurry because Paolo was stroking her bent knuckle against his upper lip and they had an abundance of time and opportunities for loving affection.
“Maybe this one will have my patience instead of your lack of impulse control,” Lauren teased. “We could get lucky.”
“Do not blame me!” Paolo scoffed. “They wind up with your sense of humor and think it’s funny—stop laughing. I’m serious. No laughing. You’ll put yourself into labor.”
Lauren disobeyed, releasing a hearty chuckle that made Gwyn smile along with her.
Their son came outside in his trunks and Gwyn turned her expression of amusement into a greeting for the boy, giving the couple their privacy to exchange a kiss.
When she glanced at Vito, she saw he was watching her, his expression unreadable.
* * *
A few minutes later, Gwyn was moving around Lauren’s kitchen, chatting with her with surprising ease. Perhaps Lauren wasn’t resting with her feet up as her husband had demanded, but since she wasn’t holding anything heavier than a paring knife, Gwyn didn’t say anything. Besides, every birth story she’d ever heard was a lengthy process, happening in the midnight hours. Lauren wasn’t complaining of a backache or any of those other things women talked about as precursors to labor. She was relaxed and pleasant and ever so nice!
Feeling as vilified as she did, Gwyn was deeply relieved to be treated like a normal person.
“Did you get that top at the boutique on the far end of the lake?” Lauren asked. “I bought the red-and-gold one two months ago. They have amazing stuff, don’t they?”
Gwyn agreed, then, as she set a pot of water to boil and the conversation lulled, she screwed up her courage and said, “I, um, lived in Charleston before I came here. I’m not trying to pry,” she hurried to add. “I just thought I should tell you that I couldn’t help but be aware of all the coverage about your husband. Um, first husband, I mean.”
Lauren’s expression smoothed to something very grave, gaze sliding away to hide her thoughts. “It was a heartbreaking time.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Gwyn said quickly, feeling it was the decent thing to say to the widow of a war hero, but it wasn’t why she’d brought it up. She wasn’t asking the big question that had been on everyone else’s mind at the time: had Lauren slept with her husband’s best friend the night she had learned her husband was dead? The answer to that was outside throwing rocks into the lake, as far as Gwyn could tell.
“I wouldn’t have mentioned it except... Is it bad taste to ask how you handled all the attention?” Gwyn asked.
Lauren smiled with empathy. “It’s exhausting, isn’t it? People so love to judge.” She opened a cupboard and drew out a box of linguine noodles. “I guess you make peace with whatever you’ve done to get yourself into that situation and accept that you can’t control what others think or say. It’s what you think of yourself that matters.”
“I’m obsessed with what other people think,” Gwyn admitted glumly. She had a childhood full of starting new schools, being teased for being first to wear a bra, then constantly being underestimated because she was smarter than anyone expected from a girl with good looks.
Her mother had nursed the same sort of angst, having quite an inferiority complex due to an orphan’s upbringing. Sometimes Gwyn wondered if that had been her mother’s reason for moving so often—part habit, but also a continuous attempt to reinvent herself in hopes of ever-elusive acceptance.
For Gwyn, landing this job in Milan had been her first step in believing she really was good enough and smart enough to earn respect on her own merit, but she was seriously struggling to believe in herself now.
And while she could dismiss the dim views of strangers and comfort herself with the knowledge she hadn’t done anything to deserve the humiliation she was suffering, she was acutely sensitive to what Vito might be thinking of her.
Why? Why couldn’t she shrug off his judgment of her?
Because he affected her on every level, she acknowledged. Because he had literally controlled how she felt in the car today, working ecstasy through her. If he had the power to make her feel good, he also had the power to devastate her.
She started to blush, feeling the heat rise from deep spaces to become a hot glow on her cheeks. Such power. She wished she could get him out from under her skin!
“My turn to pry,” Lauren said, handing Gwyn a bag of mushrooms, scann
ing Gwyn’s guilty pink cheeks with interest. “This thing with you and Vito. Have you really been seeing him? Or is it just for show?”
“What?” Gwyn said dumbly, nerveless fingers nearly losing the featherweight of the bag.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Lauren said with a teasing twinkle in her eye. “I’m being nosy because he’s one of my favorite people, but I realize there are things at the bank that can’t be discussed. Believe me, I know.” She made a face of long suffering. “But...” She sent Gwyn a cagey look as she moved to the sink. “I have a feeling that if he’d been seeing you before this story broke, I would have known.”
“What do you mean?” Gwyn asked, knocked off balance by something she couldn’t identify. Was she suggesting Vito acted differently around her? Lauren had only seen them together for a minute and a half before they’d come inside and the men had gone to the beach.
“I don’t know. There’s something in the way he looked at you—” Lauren shrugged, starting to wash her hands, then cut herself off as she gave the soap dispenser next to the sink a shake. “I think there’s a new one in the upstairs bathroom,” she said, turning off the tap.
“I’ll get it,” Gwyn said, setting down the mushroom she was stemming.
“I’ll peek in on Bianca while I’m up there,” Lauren said with a wave.
Seconds later, Lauren’s voice was considerably less relaxed as she swore loud enough for Gwyn to hear her all the way down in the kitchen.
“Are you all right?” Gwyn called, making a panicked start up the stairs.
Lauren came to the open door of the main bathroom, bracing herself against it with a white-knuckled grip, expression somewhere between exasperated and remorseful.
