by Reina Torres
He stood and the blanket that had covered him on the couch was now on the floor.
“Oh my-” she clapped a hand over her eyes and turned away, facing the wall. With her free hand, she reached to her side and made a blind grab and managed to get a handful of clothing from her new guest. “Make him put something on!”
She felt the vibration of a laugh before she heard it. “Have I interrupted something?”
She turned to glare at him, dropping her hand away from her eyes. “No, but you did get me out of bed before dawn!”
He shrugged and stepped further inside, closing the door behind him. “When my boss says to bring something over for a client, that’s what I do.” Reaching up, he tugged a sleek messenger bag free from his shoulder and tossed it across the room. Salvatore snatched the bag from midair and unzippered it a moment later, focused on the task at hand.
“I should introduce myself, since my brother is apparently otherwise occupied,” relieved of his burden, he turned toward her, “I’m Uberto Orsino.“ She took his offered hand and shook it. “I’m the prettiest of the brothers.”
The floor felt like it was vibrating and Natale turned to see if something was threatening to fall off of her entryway table. Uberto didn’t show any outward signs of worry. In fact, he seemed to lean toward the sound, his smile widening on his lips.
“Something wrong, Tore?”
“Back away from her.” The words flung across the room and Natale almost felt the physical impact of them, pushing Uberto away. She heard the unspoken undercurrent of his words loud and clear. ‘Mine.’
“So, I am interrupting something.” Uberto moved around Natale, taking a wide arc around her on his way to his brother. “We can arm wrestle over the lady later, Tore. But before you challenge me to a duel, you’re going to want to take a look.” He pointed to the bag in Salvatore’s hands. “And I brought the security system to install. I left the components in the car downstairs, I want to take a look around first.”
Natale latched onto the idea of a way to leave the room without looking like she was running away from him because he was standing in her living room, bare naked without a care in the world. “I’ll take you on a tour!” She felt her smile pull a little too tight, her voice echoing in her ears. Natale touched Uberto on the arm. “We’ll start with the kitchen.”
Taking mercy on her, Uberto stepped to the side and set a hand on her lower back to guide her toward the kitchen. They’d only gone a few steps when Natale saw Salvatore narrow his chocolate-dark eyes. “Keep your hands away from her.”
His hand disappeared a second later and she nearly stumbled over her own feet. She turned her head enough to meet Uberto’s curious look. “I go most of my life being ignored by men, and now I have two that seem to be using me to fight with each other. Maybe I’ll just go back to bed-”
“Natale?” Salvatore’s voice had softened a bit from his last words to his brother, and she felt it settle on her shoulder as if it was his hand caressing her. “I needed him to know.”
“Know?” She had to say something. He sounded contrite, but she wasn’t sure. “Know what?”
“That you’re mine.”
He said it like it was undeniable, like the sky being blue and the sun rising in the east. She wanted to roll her eyes and laugh off his words, but when she looked into his eyes she realized that it would be only too easy to start to believe him. How could she not? A man who had filled her dreams with all manner of naughty ideas and breathless sighs said he wanted her.
That just didn’t happen to her. Natale Durante could handle a pair of shears and a sewing machine like nobody’s business, but while men might respect her from time to time, they didn’t see her as desirable.
Was it any wonder that she really was thinking of jumping in with both feet? At least until the show? After that, when his job was done… She shook herself and swallowed hard, she would just deal with it then. At least, she would have an awesome memory, right?
She started to move, but stopped when she heard his voice. “Natale?”
“Sure,” she felt her stomach twist, but she just wanted to get out of the room. Being around Salvatore was like swimming out into the ocean instead of a pool, the riptide was waiting just beneath the surface, ready to suck you under. So, she plastered a smile on her face and nodded. “Okay, he knows.” She left the room a heartbeat later with Uberto at her heels, wondering if she really knew what she was getting into.
The tour was fast enough. Her apartment was large by New York standards but there wasn’t much to see. She spent more time at the workroom or the fabric district or meetings than anything else. It had been years since anyone besides Ericka had spent more than the few minutes it took to deliver food inside her apartment. It had only taken a few nasty letters and a pesky death threat to change that.
Yeah, her life sucked.
Uberto was all business, his eyes raking over each room, his hands testing all the windows and door locks, his mind mentally making notes as they went. It gave her a chance to think, her mind quiet enough to realize that being in a room with him wasn’t the same as being with Salvatore. The younger Orsino didn’t suck the air out of the room leaving her breathless. He didn’t make her tremble with a look. And even though they were both insanely gorgeous, the only one she wanted to undress and have sweating above her in bed, was Salvatore.
She squeezed her eyes closed to block out the image and felt a strangled moan pass her lips.
If he heard the sound, Uberto had the good manners not to mention it. He did make a production of opening the door, letting the squeal of the hinge cue her in that he was ready to leave. She swallowed her pride and opened her eyes. The look in his as he stepped to the side of the door for her to precede him told her all she needed to know. The smile that played across his lips was plainly visible beneath his perfectly trimmed mustache. The look in his eyes wasn’t mean, but it certainly held more than a little humor.
When she walked past him she poked him straight in the chest. “You better keep that to yourself.”
Uberto leaned close enough to whisper in her ear. “I wouldn’t say a word if I wanted to. My brother means what he says. There’s no way I would get between the two of you, unless I wanted him to rip my arms off and feed them to me for breakfast.” The laughter fell to the wayside as he looked at her, his eyes almost the same dark chocolate brown as his brother, but their centers were lighter around his pupils and now it held a deeper intensity as he searched her eyes. “He’s guarded hundreds of people,” he paused and she struggled to understand the magnitude of that number, “and he’s never said those things about anyone else.”
For a moment she almost started to believe, but she shook it off, an awkward laugh caught in her throat. “I think my father’s been over-reacting to all of this. My cousin and I think it’s just a bunch of people with too much time on their hands, and time is something I don’t have right now. The Bellezza show is in a few days,” she picked up his arm and looked at the watch on his arm, “and I need to start getting ready to go to work. So, I’m going to do that while you and your brother-”
“’Berto!”
Startled, Natale let go of Uberto’s arm and covered her heart with her hand. She turned to ask the younger Orsino a question, but he was gone, running down the hall toward the living room.
Natale followed as quickly as her legs would allow. When she re-entered the living room she saw the two brothers crowded around a little metal box on the coffee table. She’d seen that box on her father’s shelf for the last few months.
“Did my father give you that?”
Salvatore didn’t look up as he held up a handful of letters and shoved them into his brother’s hand.
Moving closer, Natale felt sick to her stomach. She’d put those letters out of her mind. She had to. If she let them in her head, she’d be a complete mess, and her business, her people deserved better than a quivering, sobbing mess.
With the Orsino brothers the
re she couldn’t ignore their words, what they were saying about the letters. There were other things in the box as well, things she hadn’t seen. By the weight and look of the paper they were newspaper and magazine clippings. The print marching across the top of the cut sheets said Letter to the Editor. Instead of just sending her the mean letters, they’d gone to the newspapers to try to ruin her reputation.
She felt her middle twist painfully, but she tried not to let it show on her face.
She heard an odd scratching sound, as if Salvatore’s nails were scoring the metal bottom of the box. When he withdrew his hand, he held another paper from the bottom of the box. He handed it to Uberto and that’s when she saw it. A picture of her, taken outside under some trees. She recognized it immediately. Seated in the grass, a sketch book in her lap, she was in the Ramble, her favorite ‘me’ spot in all of New York.
That someone had taken the picture without her knowing was enough to shake her, but what they had done to the photo made her knees weak. It had been cut into what looked like a couple dozen pieces and crudely taped back together. Over the layers of tape someone had worn down a red ink pen painting her with red, slashes all over her body, but the most red was focused across her neck.
There was no mistaking the message they were sending.
Natale swallowed around the knot in her throat and gasped, her hand lifting to touch her throat, needing to find it whole under her fingertips. Her skin was cold and she trembled enough that her breath rattled from her lungs.
“Natale?”
She heard Salvatore’s voice and saw him begin to stand, the blanket he’d tied around his waist lowered to pool around his hips, but her focus was on remaining upright. Holding up a hand she begged them. “Stay. Please.” Closing her eyes, she shook her head and pleaded with her stomach to stop churning. “I need to get ready to go to work. I would,” she drew in a breath and slowly let it go, “appreciate it, if you would put those things away. I don’t ever want to see them again.”
Natale left the room a moment later. If they answered her, she didn’t hear it. Even if they had, she wouldn’t have heard it through the blood rushing in her ears.
She managed to make it to her shower before she let the tears fall and her shoulders shake with gasping sobs. She’d laughed off her father’s worries, but now she understood exactly what he feared. This wasn’t just a matter of people not respecting her work.
Someone really wanted her dead.
Chapter Five
Salvatore sat beside the door, willing his hands to remain still. The early morning appearance of his brother should have given Natale a sense of calm, but he’d ruined it. Angered by the contents of the box, he’d called his brother back to look through the contents. He’d been so focused on the job at hand, he hadn’t considered that Natale would come to see what he was doing.
He was wrong.
And she hadn’t given him the chance to apologize or explain. Once she’d dressed, she’d gone straight for the door, her bag and keys in hand. Salvatore had already dressed and asked his brother to bring his clothes to the workroom after installing the security system to her apartment.
She’d remained quiet in the car, silent in the elevator, and by the time the doors opened up to the floor where the Durante Fashion House made its home, he wasn’t at all sure she was still breathing.
“Girl, you look tired!” Ericka stepped onto the elevator with a cup of coffee that she shoved into Natale’s hand. She took Natale’s other hand and dragged her into the hallway. “You better have some good stories to tell me,” he could hear the playful admonishment in her voice, “but first, come and see the girls in the outerwear pieces. You, my friend, are so damn good at what you do.”
He watched Ericka take Natale to a back corner of the room. A quick sip of coffee and Natale managed a smile on her face. Narrowing his gaze at her, he saw that the smile wasn’t quite real. She placed it there as she moved from one model to the next. One woman was willowy tall, the woman beside her was extremely petite and the woman standing behind the table had curves like Natale. All three were wearing coats and ensembles that were suited to blustery weather, and all of them had genuine smiles on their faces.
His hearing was excellent and it didn’t take much effort to hear the women as they spoke to Natale. They were all thrilled, not only to be cast to walk in her show, but that the clothing was incredibly comfortable and still made them look fabulous.
Salvatore’s bear rolled within him like he was enjoying a sunlit field as he leaned forward on his chair. Natale wasn’t just beautiful to him, he was proud of her talent. The people around her didn’t simper, bowing to her because of her position, they appreciated her talent and followed because she led. He didn’t need his sharpened senses to seek out the strength in her, anyone with eyes could see how amazing she was.
The elevator door opened and Salvatore sat up at the odd sound of a hard, clipped staccato on the clean laminate flooring.
He got up when he heard someone tug on the outer door of the workroom. As fast as he was, he wasn't in time to stop the pounding on the glass window in the door.
“Someone open this damn door!”
Natale walked past him, setting her hand on his arm to ease his worry. “That's just Caprice.”
He heard the strain in her voice and instead of moving back to his post he followed Natale, moving along the wall just out of view. Caprice, he remembered, was Natale’s cousin. The daughter of Giovanni’s younger brother.
An angry cousin at the moment. Her face was a vibrant orange mask of outrage. Holding a set of keys aloft in her hand, she pounded the keys against the glass. “Open the door, Natale! This isn't funny!”
Blowing out a fortifying breath, Natale opened the door and was nearly knocked back when Caprice stormed through the entryway. Her strides were long, and the way she moved made it look like there was a fan whipping her hair back from her face. The exaggerated movements of her legs mimicked what he’d seen of the models who had come into the workroom, but the way she surveyed the room wasn’t one of wonder. He could see that in the rigid lines of her back. He stayed at Natale’s side trying to read her feelings, but all he felt from her was tension and loving indulgence.
“Well?” The voice that tore through the silence was imperious in nature and as pointed as her stiletto heels. “I'm waiting for someone to explain.”
No one moved in the room, and Salvatore didn’t need his sensitive hearing to know that they were holding their breath. The only one who managed an expression other than pensive fear was Ericka. One sculpted brow raised up as she started forward.
Salvatore felt Natale tense beside him and then move forward into the room. He saw her smile, but knew it wasn't genuine. He heard a bright tone in her voice, but knew it was a fake. “I’m not sure what you want me to explain, Caprice.”
“What were you thinking?” Caprice turned back around to confront Natale, the sudden movement made the two inches of bangles on her wrist slide and clash against each other. “Changing the locks this close to a show, are you out of your mind?”
“Father was concerned about safety. He messengered out the new keys.”
That's when Ericka joined in, her eyes scouring her clipboard. “You received your keys last week.”
The statement hung in the air and he wondered what the significance was. He didn't have to wait long.
“I,” her voice rang in the large room, “was on a press trip and talking to our suppliers. I can't possibly be expected to remember every little thing.”
“No problem,” Natale shrugged, but Salvatore could feel the tension rolling off of Natale in waves. “We didn’t expect you to come in until after the show. But, just so you know, we’re in the middle of fittings for Bellezza and everything is going well.” He saw her square her shoulders and lift her chin a fraction of an inch. Something about her cousin had her on edge. Natale’s father had given him the names of the people working for Durante and their positions in the
business. Caprice was listed as a family connection, and a designer, but the elder Durante hadn’t mentioned any issues between the cousins.
Caprice took in her cousin’s words with narrowed eyes. “It better be. You know how much is riding on this.”
He saw her words hit Natale like a physical blow. She struggled to keep her chin up and her voice level. “I know.”
Salvatore moved before he could think better of it. He stepped up behind Natale and set his hand lightly on her shoulder, aware that his size and weight would buckle her knees unless he was very careful, but he wanted to lend her his support.
He felt some tension leave her shoulders and his bear nudged him in approval.
That was when Caprice noticed him. It wasn’t a large reaction, a slight shift of her gaze, but he saw the hardening of her eyes and the slight whitening of her lips.
“And who,” her voice dropped in tone, “is this?”
“Mr. Orsino,” he admired Natale for keeping her tone even, “is part of Papa’s security changes.”
Caprice’s gaze crawled over him from head to toe, a slow calculating perusal. “He’s here to keep an eye on the workroom?”
He felt frustration roll through Natale. “He,” she stepped forward and he lost touch with her shoulder as she moved closer to her cousin, “is with me.”
The room chilled around him as Caprice leaned closer to Natale, seemingly unaffected by her show of courage. “Whatever, Nat. It’s going to take more than hired muscle to keep you from ruining this company. You better keep your mind on the work and off of his ass.”
Salvatore’s bear wanted to rip her to shreds almost as much as he did.
“Then again,” she leaned back, running her tongue over her teeth beneath her blood-red lipstick, “maybe he’s just your consolation prize when this falls down around your ears.”
Caprice let her words settle over the room like a shroud before she drew in a breath that sucked every last bit of air out of the room.
