Marco’s wariness was instant and visible. He straightened, his eyes slashing hers, his doubts communicated in every line of his body. “What about?”
“You said before … you said that you loved me.”
He angled his face away, his eyes dark like onyx as he stared across the room at the drawn curtains.
“Is it true?” Grace closed the distance between them and folded her hands around his hips to draw his attention back to her. But when he tilted his head down, his face was as hard as granite, his jaw clenched, his eyes spearing her.
“Past tense. And I was mistaken. I didn’t know you.”
The rejection sparked a fierce ache in her gut but she wasn’t going to be put off. “I thought … I think I fell in love with you the first day we met.” Her smile was coated with the sweetness of the thought. “Do you remember?”
Of course he did. A heap of interns had arrived from all over the world and then Grace had walked in, late, her hair glowing like sunshine and saffron and he’d stared at her for at least thirty seconds before recollecting his thoughts. It was the first time he’d ever been rendered speechless by a woman. By anyone.
“Not really,” he said coldly.
“I was so nervous when I walked into that room and then you looked at me and everything clicked inside of me. I was going to be fine. Isn’t it weird that you made me feel that straight away?”
He didn’t respond. He couldn’t. Her words were doing something strange to him and he didn’t want to follow that through.
“I’d come out of a long relationship with a man I thought I loved and then I met you.” Her eyes lifted to his. “I loved you too, Marco. I thought it was just me. That maybe it would go away. But once we slept together…”
“Don’t.” A harsh word; a definitive plea. He sucked in an angry breath. “You went back to him.”
Urgency made her words soft. “Because I didn’t think you’d ever love me. Don’t you see? You were this incredibly awe-inspiring boss CEO and you obviously wanted me physically but I didn’t know there was anything more to it. If you’d told me…”
“You’re blaming me?”
“I’m blaming both of us.” She swallowed, nerves weakening her knees. But she was going to do what she should have done then. “Why did we let that slip through our fingers? If we both felt the same way, why didn’t we make it work?”
“You’re the one who walked away,” he pointed out with the appearance of cold detachment, crossing his arms over his chest and dislodging her touch at the same time.
“You let me.” Determination fired the words. “You never called. You didn’t email. Nothing.”
He moved away from her, not wanting to sift through the memories. It had been hard enough the first time. But the pull of what had happened demanded his attention.
“I thought about calling,” he said softly.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“You were engaged weeks after leaving.”
She nodded, her marriage to Steve something she didn’t want to discuss. It was both totally relevant and a complete red herring – a decision she’d made that had little to do with their failings to make a go of what they felt.
“I wish I hadn’t married him. Steve was a dear man, and a close friend, but I used him because I was too afraid to raise Ben on my own. But that’s not what I want to talk about right now,” she murmured, before he could push her for any further details. “I fell in love with you two years ago and I don’t think I ever got over that.” Her eyes met his and though her heart was tumbling in her chest and fear was dogging her every step, she was brave despite that. “I think we could have a real marriage. A proper marriage. If we can just get past all this, and remember how we used to feel.”
He stared down at her, and he saw how genuine she was. He understood it.
But pride was a strange beast and it refused to allow him to cower.
“Do you know what I keep thinking?” He asked after a pause that had practically split Grace apart with anxiety. “What if he had lived? What if Steve was still here? I wouldn’t know about Ben, would I? You’d be raising my son in Chicago. So for all that you’re saying you want to make this work, it seems implausible.”
She bit down on her lip, and nodded slowly. “I know. Marco, it all happened so fast and I never stopped to think. To think about you and the decisions I was making. I’m not defending what I did. I was wrong. But I don’t want to live like this. With you so angry at me, and me falling more in love with you all the time.” She swallowed and looked over his shoulder. “I’m still terrified of this, but I want … this time… to make the right decision.”
He practically jerked at her last statement. “This is not love,” he said defiantly.
“You’re wrong.” And she was so confident that the words seemed to almost float out of her mouth.
“No, you are wrong, Grace. I have told you what I want from you. I’ve told you what I’m prepared to give you. If you can’t live with that, then go. It is your choice.”
“You’d let me walk away?” She challenged, disbelief and pain spreading through her.
“Why not? You’re good at it.”
She sucked in a breath at the harshness of his response. What had she expected? Chocolates and roses? A declaration of love in return? “I’m not going to leave. I’ve made that mistake once. And I’m … I’m sorry. More sorry than you’ll ever know. I wish I could change everything.” She squeezed her eyes shut as tears threated to moisten her eyes. She wouldn’t cry. She was being brave, damn it. “I’m not going to make any more mistakes.”
His eyes narrowed. “Because you love me.”
Her nod was tight. “And because it’s the right thing to do. For Ben. For you. For me.”
“Even though I don’t love you? Even though I want you in my bed and nowhere else?”
She swallowed past the pain. “I don’t think that’s truly how you feel.”
His laugh was a harsh sound of disbelief. “Come here.”
Grace, her heart in her mouth, moved towards him. She closed the distance, her knees still quivering, her belly flopping.
“This is what I want.” He reached for her nightgown and lifted it painfully slowly, his eyes locked mockingly to hers as he pushed it up her thighs, over her abdomen, and finally her breasts. She trembled and goose bumps danced across her naked flesh. He removed the nightgown but kept it in his hands, running it from one palm to the other until it was a thick piece of fabric.
Then, his eyes locked to hers still, challenging her to say something, he caught her wrists behind her back, wrapping them in the material and pulling it tight. It was a crude knot, yet it was surprisingly firm and she was incapable of moving. Her breasts thrust forward and her breath was panting from her.
“You’re angry with me,” she said softly.
“Damned straight.”
“I am too.” She swallowed, forcing him to meet her eyes. “But you don’t hate me.”
His face was ash beneath his skin. “I don’t know what I feel for you,” he said finally. “But it’s nothing I’m proud of.”
The cryptic comment was swallowed by something else as he lifted her easily, and placed her on the bed, her arms behind her back uncomfortable and impossible to move.
“You want me to forgive you?” He grunted, bringing his mouth to hers and kissing the words into her.
She nodded. “I need you to forgive me.”
“And if I can’t?”
She had no answer. No words. She couldn’t contemplate that world.
His mouth on her feminine heart was as unexpected as it was welcome. With her hands bound behind her back she was powerless to do anything but feel. He pushed her legs wide apart, gripping her thighs and holding her still, so she could only writhe as the pleasure of his ministrations spread through her like a coil.
“Marco…”
“I need you to need me,” he said, flicking his tongue. “I need you to need me like you do air and water
. It’s all I know.”
Oh, she needed him. She needed him so much more than either of those two commodities. They were luxuries compared to what her body craved from him. “Because you need me?”
He didn’t answer. He stood, staring down at the wanton picture she made, and he felt a brick of relief land in his gut. This is what they were now.
Sex.
Wild, savage, meaningless sex. He undressed slowly, his eyes pinning her to the bed as he stripped his clothes piece by piece. He wanted her with a desperation that was burning through him.
But Grace wriggled into a sitting position and completely rocked him off his foundation by taking his length in her mouth. Without warning. Without preamble. Her lips glided down his length, her tongue rolling across his sensitive tip, making his body jerk with a desperate sense of fulfillment.
Marco swore sharply and stepped back, taking a moment to let his breathing slow before pulling her to standing. He lifted her then, landing her down on his arousal and pushing backwards. With her hands behind her back, he had all the power and all the control. He pressed her against a wall for support and then he owned her.
His body was hard; his need harder. He thrust into her and she cried out as his possession snaked around them both, tying them together for the darkest of reasons. Grace was wrong; this wasn’t love.
It was obsession.
And that was so much more dangerous.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“HOW WAS TUSCANY?” Emma bounced Ben on her hip, her eyes smiling.
Grace found it easy to return the smile. Emma was normal. Emma was sanity. Emma was her old life, her old assurances, from when things made sense.
“Grace? Tuscany? Everything okay?”
They’d been back two days. Two nights. Two nights in which Marco had come to bed. Teased her, pleasured her, aroused her until she was at breaking point. Two nights in which he’d proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, his body’s mastery over hers.
Just remembering the way he’d undressed her the night before was making her abdomen clench and her insides swell with warm heat.
“Good,” she managed to croak out, hoping her smile was more convincing.
“I can’t wait to go there,” Emma murmured, flicking the coffee machine to life and reaching for a pod. “Coffee?”
God, a thousand coffees wouldn’t be enough to erase her exhaustion. But strangely, when Marco touched her, she forgot that she’d barely slept in days; she was completely energized.
“I’m okay, thanks.” Then, belatedly remembering that Emma had been travelling too, Grace asked, “How was your weekend?”
“Amazing. Italy is so beautiful. I can’t believe this place.”
Grace could vaguely recall feeling a similar way when she’d first travelled here. “Yes,” she agreed quietly. If Emma thought the somber response was strange, she didn’t have a chance to query it. The doorbell rang and Grace, relieved to have an escape route, spun on her heel.
“I’ll get it,” she called over her shoulder, moving out of the kitchen towards the front door.
It was after six – Marco would be home soon. The thought was enough to make her pulse hammer. They were managing to maintain an air of civility now – no longer avoiding one another like the plague. They talked, but it was only skin deep.
The undercurrent of tension was thick enough to be cut with a knife.
At least, until they were in bed together. Then there was nothing but need. A sharp physical requirement that wouldn’t ease.
She wrenched the door inwards, a smile on her face. At first, she didn’t recognize the man on the other side. After all, they’d only met once. But then, after a few seconds of blank staring, a cautious smile spread. “Will?” Claudia’s husband. Coldness spread through her.
“Grace.” He stepped in, and paused, awkwardly going for a kiss on her cheek when she stepped back to allow him to pass. And though it was an uncomfortable moment, Grace laughed at the awkwardness, and the humour was a sort of ice-breaker.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said, holding the door wide as he moved deeper into the house then pushing it shut.
“No. It’s a spur of the moment visit. I forgot…” His expression was clumsy. “I forgot about you, actually.”
The British man had a sort of Hugh-Grantish diffidence to him, and his mop of dark brown hair added to that impression. Grace found herself warming to him despite the fact his wife would certainly serve her an arsenic biscuit if she was given half the chance.
“I’ve only been here a few weeks,” she pointed out.
Will laughed. “Claudia’s away,” he said, as though that explained everything. “And I always have dinner with Marco when she travels.”
Grace’s heart thumped. This little insight into normality was dangerously humanizing. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see Marco as a kindly family man.
“But I don’t want to bother you…”
“Oh! Not at all,” Grace shook her head. “Of course you should join us.” The idea was instantly palatable. Dinners with Marco were a tense affair which involved silent eating, ruminating, and finally, the heavenly conclusion. Had they really fed each other olives and tomatoes, their first night together, and talked until they were hoarse? It seemed like something that must have happened to two different people.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to impose…”
“Trust me, you’re not.” She moved back towards the kitchen, and he followed. “This is Emma, our nanny,” she explained. “She’s been with us since Ben was born.”
“Hi,” Emma waved, then pulled her coffee cup out of the machine, Ben still propped on one hip. But, when his little eyes landed on Will, he made a noise of excitement and held a hand up, as if to high five.
“Hey, buddy. You remember, huh?” Will skirted the island bench and dutifully returned the gesture of greeting. Grace laughed at the toddler’s obvious delight.
“What a clever boy,” Emma grinned. “I’m going to give little master here some dinner.”
She placed Ben onto the floor and, at the promise of food, he thumped through the kitchen towards the dining room. Emma followed behind, a tray in her hands which was weighed down with Pasta, a sippy cup of milk and her coffee.
“Wine?” Will offered, and Grace noted how much more at home he was in Marco’s kitchen than she. He belonged; she didn’t. It was that simple. She nodded, pleased to defer to him.
He pulled two glasses from above the fridge – she hadn’t even known there were glasses up there, and then rescued a bottle from a vintech bar beneath the island bench. “This is one of my favourite bottles. It’s produced in the North of Italy – cold climate grapes. It’s very dry. Try it.” He poured two generous measures and slid one across to her.
Grace allowed the fragrance to hit her nose first and then she swished it in the glass before lifting it to her lips and tasting it.
He was right – it was so dry it was almost acidic – yet there was an aftertaste of fruitiness that was deliciously moreish.
“Well?” He prompted, as she analysed the flavours.
“I like it.”
“Good.” A nod of approval. “Shall we sit on the deck?”
Grace usually joined Ben for dinner, but the thought of grown up company with someone other than Marco was impossible to resist. “Sure.”
She followed him onto the balcony that overlooked Rome. In the dusk light, the glow from the city looked almost like something from a fairy tale. She sighed as she sat down, glass of wine cradled in her hands. She brought her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees.
“How long have you and Claudia been married?” She asked, as Marco settled into the seat beside her.
His eyes ran left to right over the view of the city. “Six years.”
“Oh! So long. I hadn’t realized.”
“We dated four years before that,” he said with a lopsided smile. “But I would have married her a week after we met.”
&nbs
p; “Really?” She smiled at that. “Love at first sight?”
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded, then sipped his wine.
“That’s so romantic.”
“What about you and your husband?” He swore then, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I’ve put my foot in it. This is awkward as hell, isn’t it?”
Grace laughed; what else could she do? “Yeah, that’s one word for it.”
“I don’t want to ignore the fact you were married,” he said. “But we don’t have to talk about it.”
“It’s okay,” Grace smiled. “I don’t mind. The thing is, Steve was my best friend.” The truth of their marriage, the secret she’d promised she’d keep, sat in her mouth like a stone she couldn’t expel. “I think, when I first met him, I was overwhelmed by him. And I’d never had that. I’d never had anyone look at me like I was their whole world. I loved the way he made me feel.” Her smile was self-condemnatory.
“You broke up with him before you came over here?”
“He proposed and it didn’t feel right.” She bit down on her lip.
“I see.”
Grace shook her head and then turned to face Will. He was looking at her speculatively. “I highly doubt that.” Her smile was kind. “It’s very complicated.”
“Life is,” Will shrugged. “I’m glad you and Marco have worked things out finally.”
“Finally?” She prompted, and Will shifted, instantly shutting himself off.
“Well, just because of Ben,” he explained.
“Right.” She nodded, ignoring the hope that had started to swell in her chest.
“He’s a cute kid.”
“Thank you.”
Silence gathered around them, but it was companionable, somehow. “You’re a lawyer?” He said after a moment, breaking it with the casual question.
“Yeah. Corporate.” She frowned. “I was, anyway.”
“No plans to go back to it.”
“Actually, I miss it,” she said honestly. And she realized then that she did. Completely. She loved Ben, she adored being his mother, but she’d spent so much of her life working towards the goal of her career; she didn’t want to hang it by the door like a hat she no longer needed. “I gave up my job when Steve … when he… when I lost him,” she rushed. “He left the company to me – God knows why, I’m terrible at what he did – but I didn’t have any choice but to take it over.”
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