Breathing Room

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  Massimo gave him a grape to crush. “Are your fingers sticking together?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Still not enough sugar. Maybe two more weeks, and then we will be ready for the vendemmia.”

  In the late afternoon, when Ren got back to the villa, he’d invariably find Jeremy hanging around waiting for him. The kid never said anything, but it hadn’t taken Ren long to figure out that he wanted to practice his martial-arts moves. The boy was smart and well coordinated, and Ren didn’t mind. Harry and Tracy were usually sealed away with Isabel for their daily counseling, but if the session ended in time, Harry liked to join them. Ren got a kick out of watching Jeremy teach his father what he’d learned.

  Sometimes Ren found himself wondering how he’d have turned out if he’d had a father like Harry Briggs. Even Ren’s success hadn’t won his father’s approval. Being an actor, especially a successful one, was too public, too vulgar—this from the man who’d been married to Ren’s playgirl, pothead mother.

  Fortunately, Ren had stopped caring about his father’s opinion a long time ago. There was nothing useful about having the approval of a man he’d never respect.

  Anna began pestering him about holding a festa after the harvest was in. “This was done for many years when I was a girl. Everyone who helped with the vendemmia would come to the villa on the first Sunday after the grapes were picked. There would be much food and laughter. But your Aunt Philomena decided it was too much trouble, and the tradition ended. Now that you are living here, we can begin again, yes?”

  “I’m only living here temporarily.” He’d been in Italy nearly three weeks. He had to go to Rome next week to meet with Jenks for a few days, and filming would start a couple of weeks after that. He hadn’t discussed any of this with Isabel—not the meeting in Rome nor how much longer he’d be staying at the villa—and she hadn’t asked. But then, why should she? They both knew that this was short-term.

  Maybe he’d invite her to come with him. Seeing familiar sights through her eyes gave him a whole new view. Except he couldn’t invite her. All the disguises in the world wouldn’t keep some sharp-eyed paparazzo from spotting them, and being seen with him would finish off what little was left of her good-girl reputation. There was also the inescapable fact that she’d refuse to go along once she discovered what Night Kill was really about.

  His resentment resurfaced. She’d never understand what this role meant to him, just as she refused to understand that it wasn’t some distorted image of himself he carried around that made him want to play bad guys. He simply couldn’t identify with heroes, and that didn’t have a freakin’ thing to do with his demented childhood. Well, not much anyway. And since when did someone who hired crooked accountants and got engaged to an asshole have the right to sit in judgment?

  It was a wonder their affair hadn’t already fizzled out, although it was hard to picture anything simply fizzling where Isabel was concerned. No, when this affair ended, it would go out with a bang. The idea was so depressing that it took him a moment to realize Anna was still talking to him.

  “. . . but this is your home now—your family’s home—and you will keep coming back. So we will hold the festa this year to begin a new tradition, yes?”

  He couldn’t imagine coming back, not when Isabel wasn’t here, but he told Anna to go ahead with her plans.

  “You’re not one of those people who thinks pregnant women don’t need sex, are you?” Tracy regarded Isabel accusingly. “Because if you are, take a good look at this man and tell me how any woman, pregnant or not, could resist him?”

  Harry managed to appear both embarrassed and happy. “I don’t know about that. . . . But really, Isabel, it’s not necessary any longer. Definitely not necessary. We’ve had more than enough time to talk, and the lists you’ve asked us to make have been very helpful. I hadn’t quite realized . . . I just didn’t know . . .” A smile melted his face. “I never imagined all the ways she loves me.”

  “And I had no idea he admired so many things about me. Me!” Tracy gave a shiver of delight. “I thought I knew everything about him, but I’d only scratched the surface.”

  “Let’s give it a little longer,” Isabel said.

  “What kind of marriage counselor are you?” Tracy retorted.

  “No kind. I’m winging it. I told you that from the beginning. You’re the ones who insisted on this, remember?”

  Tracy sighed. “We just don’t want to screw things up again.”

  “Then let’s discuss today’s lists. Did each of you come up with twenty attributes the other one has that you wish you had yourself?”

  “Twenty-one,” Tracy said. “I included his penis.”

  Harry laughed, and they kissed, and the pang of envy Isabel felt made her ache. Marriage had its rewards for those who could survive the chaos.

  “Hurry up! They’re gone.”

  Isabel dropped her pen as Ren entered the villa’s rear salon, where she’d been sitting at a beautiful eighteenth-century desk writing a note to a friend in New York. Since the Briggs family had just left for dinner in Casalleone, she didn’t have to ask Ren whom he was talking about.

  She reached down to pick up her pen, but he pulled her out of the chair before she could grab it. He’d been so moody lately, one minute acting as though he wanted to snap her head off, the next minute looking as he did now, full of devilry. The more she was with him, the more she sensed the battle he had going on inside him between the person he believed himself to be and the man who was no longer comfortable living inside his bad-guy skin.

  He jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go. I figure we’ve got two hours before they come back.”

  “Anyplace in particular?”

  “The farmhouse. Too many people around here.”

  They raced down the hill, through the door, and up the farmhouse stairs. As they got to the top, she pushed him toward the smaller bedroom. “Clean sheets.”

  “Like that’s going to last for long.”

  She pulled off her clothes while he locked the door, closed the shutters, and flipped on a lamp. Its low-wattage bulb cast the small room into shadow.

  He tossed the contents of his pockets onto the nightstand and undressed. She lay on the narrow bed, then rolled to her side as he settled next to her. He nuzzled her neck and slipped off her bangle. “I want you completely naked for me.” Her nipples pebbled at the husky, possessive note in his voice. She shut her eyes as he buried his lips in the palm of her hand. He spoke against her skin. “Naked except for this . . .”

  He reached toward the nightstand. Seconds later cold metal snapped around her wrist.

  Her lids shot open, and she let out a squeal of alarm. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking charge.” He snagged both wrists, the one that was free and the cuffed one, and drew them over her head.

  “Well, stop it right now!”

  “I’d rather not.” He fed the chain through one of the bars in the headboard, then clamped the free cuff to her other wrist.

  “You handcuffed me to the bed!”

  “I’m so rotten I even surprise myself sometimes.”

  She tried to decide how upset she was, but couldn’t quite get a bead on it. “These are real handcuffs.”

  “I had them FedExed.” He slid his lips along the underside of her arm, just above the armpit. As she strained against the cuffs, her skin prickled with delicious waves of response.

  “Don’t you know there are rules for bondage?” She gasped as he found a nipple, drew it deep into his mouth, and sucked. “There’s a . . . protocol!”

  “I’ve never paid much attention to protocol.”

  He continued to abuse her poor, defenseless nipple, but she wouldn’t let herself succumb to the delicious tremors until she’d made her point. “You’re not ever supposed to use real handcuffs, only something that can be easily unfastened.” She suppressed a moan. “At the very least they should be padded. And your partner has to agree to being ti
ed up—did I mention that?”

  “I don’t believe you did.” He settled back on his heels, pushed her knees apart, and gazed down at her.

  She licked her lips. “Well, I’m mentioning it now.”

  His fingers played in the curls. “Duly noted.”

  She caught her lip between her teeth as he opened her. “I did . . . ah . . . a research paper when I was working on my master’s.”

  “I see.” The erotic timbre of his voice vibrated through her nerve endings. The motion of his thumb felt like a warm, wet feather stroking and probing. “You also need . . . a code word to use . . . ahhhh . . . if things go too far.”

  “We can do that. I even have a few ideas.” He abandoned his caress too soon, moved up on her body, and whispered in her ear.

  “They’re not supposed to be sexual words.” She slid her knee along his inner thigh.

  “Now, what’s the fun of that?” He cradled her breasts, lifted and molded them in his hands, feasted.

  She gripped the bars of the headboard. “They’re supposed to be words like ‘asparagus’ or ‘carburetor.’ I mean it, Ren. . . .” A moan slipped out before she could repress it. “If I say . . . ‘asparagus,’ it means you’ve . . . ahh . . . gone too far and you have to stop.”

  “If you say ‘asparagus,’ I’m going to want to stop, because I can’t think of a bigger turn-off.” He pulled away from her breast. “Couldn’t you say something like ‘stud’? Or ‘stallion’? Or . . .” Once again he whispered in her ear.

  “That’s sexual.” She shifted her thigh ever so slightly to rub against him. He was so hard she shivered. He brushed her armpit and made another suggestion. She strained against the cuffs. “Very sexual.”

  “How about this?” His whisper changed to a dark purr.

  “That’s obscene.”

  “Great. Let’s use it.”

  Her hips arched off the bed. “I’m using ‘asparagus.’ ”

  Just like that, he abandoned her. He settled back on his heels between her splayed feet so their bodies were no longer touching, and waited.

  Despite the diabolic glint in his eye, it took her a moment to get the point. When was she going to learn to keep her mouth shut? She searched for a bit of dignity, not easy to do in her current, vulnerable position. “You can disregard that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  And wasn’t he just Mr. Smug? “I’m sure.”

  “Positive? In case you haven’t quite taken it in, you’re naked, handcuffed to the bed with no chance of rescue, and about to be violated.”

  “Uh-huh.” She slid her knee higher on the bed.

  He traced the soft curls with his thumb, enjoying the view. She felt his desire, burning as hot as her own, and heard the dark, husky note beneath his teasing. “I don’t just make my living abusing women, you know. I threaten everybody who represents truth, justice, and the American way. And—not to put too fine a point on it—your only protection from me is a vegetable.”

  She moved her legs farther apart to show him she wasn’t entirely defenseless. At the same time she promised herself that when this was over, she wouldn’t rest until she’d used those handcuffs on him. Unless she missed her guess, he wouldn’t put up much of a struggle.

  “I see what you mean.” His finger slipped inside her. “Now, be quiet so I can violate you.”

  Which he did. Masterfully. First with his fingers and then with his body. Moving on top of her, pushing inside. Torturing her until she heard herself beg. At the same time she’d never felt safer or more cherished than now, a prisoner to his exquisite care.

  “Not yet, sweetheart.” He gave her another fierce, possessive kiss and thrust deeper. “Not till I’m ready.”

  He was more than ready. His muscles strained as though he were the one in bondage. This fierce pleasure was costing him even more than it was costing her. He sank deeper into the cradle of her thighs. She wrapped her legs around him. They moved together, cried out together . . .

  The shackles that held them to the earth broke free. In the end he became as much a prisoner as she.

  While he dozed, she slipped out of bed and picked up the handcuffs that lay on the floor along with the discarded key. She gazed down at him. His thick lashes formed spiky crescents against his cheekbones, and strands of dark hair fell over his forehead. The contrast between his exotic olive skin and the white of the sheets gave him the look of a gorgeous infidel.

  She made her way to the bathroom, where she stuffed the handcuffs and key under a towel. She should have hated what he did to her, but she hadn’t, not for a moment. What had happened to the woman who needed to stay in control? Instead of feeling helpless and angry, she’d given him everything she had.

  Including her love.

  Her fingers constricted around the edge of the sink. She’d fallen in love with him. She stared at herself in the mirror, then dropped her eyes. Who wanted to look at someone that stupid? They’d barely known each other three weeks, yet she, the most cautious of women when it came to romantic relationships, had tumbled head over heels.

  She splashed her face and tried to detach so she could consider the business of male-female attraction from a biological level. Early humans were attracted to their opposites as a method of ensuring that the strongest of the species survived. Some of that instinct still remained in most people, and obviously it still remained in her.

  But what about her survival as a modern woman? What about her survival as a woman who’d been determined to engage in healthy relationships, a woman who’d vowed she’d never repeat her parents’ tempestuous patterns? Her affair with Ren was supposed to have been about claiming her sexuality and liberating it. Instead, she’d liberated her heart.

  She stared glumly down at the soap dish. She needed a plan.

  Right. As if any of her other plans had worked.

  For now she simply wouldn’t let herself think about it. She’d go into total denial. Denial wasn’t always bad. Maybe if she didn’t dwell on her feelings, they’d disappear.

  And maybe not.

  19

  Would you like chocolate cake or cherry pie?” Isabel stopped at the edge of the villa’s garden and watched Brittany extend a clay saucer toward Ren.

  He gave the assortment of leaves and twigs all his concentration. “I believe I’ll have the cherry pie. And maybe a glass of scotch if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  “You can’t say that,” Steffie admonished him. “You have to say tea.”

  “Or a Slurpee,” Brittany said. “We can have Slurpees.”

  “No, we can’t, Brit’ny. Only tea. Or coffee.”

  “Tea will be fine.” Ren took an imaginary cup and saucer from her, his pantomime so skillful that Isabel could almost see it in his hand.

  She lingered for a few moments to observe. His concentration when he played with the girls was oddly intense. He wasn’t like that with the boys. When he tossed Connor around or poked under the hood of the recently repaired Maserati with Jeremy, he did it casually. Equally odd was the fact that he seemed willing to play whatever game the girls decided to force on him, including imaginary ones like this tea party. She’d have to ask him about it.

  She headed for the farmhouse to see if they’d made any progress since yesterday with the metal detectors. Giulia spotted her and gave a weary wave. She had a smudge on her cheek and shadows under her eyes. In the background three men and one of the women were methodically scanning the olive grove. Others stood around with shovels, ready to dig whenever the detectors beeped, which was much too frequently.

  Giulia handed off her shovel to Giancarlo and came over to greet Isabel, who immediately asked for an update.

  “More coins, nails, and part of a wheel,” she said. “We found something bigger about an hour ago, but it was only part of an old stove.”

  “You look tired.”

  Giulia rubbed her cheek with the back of her hand, spreading the dirt. “I am. And my business is suffering because I am here all
the time. Vittorio, he does not let this affect his work. He takes his groups out right on schedule, but me . . .”

  “I know you’re frustrated, Giulia, but try not to take it out on Vittorio.”

  She gave Isabel a wan smile. “I have been telling myself the same thing. Vittorio, he has to put up with so much from me.”

  They moved into the shade of one of the olive trees. “I’ve been thinking about Josie, Paolo’s granddaughter,” Isabel said. “Marta’s talked to her about the statue, but apparently Josie’s Italian isn’t very good, so who knows how much she understood? I was thinking about calling her myself to see how much she knows, but maybe you should call. You know more about the family than I do.”

  “Yes, this is a good idea.” She glanced at her watch, calculating the time difference. “I need to get back to the office. I will call her from there.”

  After Giulia left, Isabel took her turn with one of the metal detectors before she handed it over to Fabiola, Bernardo’s wife, and returned to the villa. She fetched her notebook, then tucked herself away on one of the chairs in the rose garden.

  The seclusion of the garden made it one of her favorite places. It lay on a narrow terrace of land below the formal gardens but was sheltered from view by a small grove of fruit trees. A horse grazed in a field by the woods, and the late-afternoon sun made a golden halo around the ruins of the old castle on the hilltop. It was warm today, more like early August than late September, and the scent of roses hung in the air.

  She looked at the notebook in her lap but didn’t open it. All the ideas she jotted down seemed to repeat her earlier books. She was getting the uneasy feeling that she’d already written everything she knew about overcoming personal crisis.

  “There you are.” Ren ambled toward her, wearing a blue-and-white-striped rugby over a pair of shorts. He propped his hands on the metal chair she was sitting in, and leaned down to give her a long kiss. Then he cupped her breasts. “Right here. Right now.”