by Day Leclaire
Now she’d deal with the consequences. Her family would take care of the problem from this point forward, sweep them up in an unbreakable net of demand and propriety and cart them to the altar—willingly or not.
And then he would be in charge of The Inferno. He would find a way to douse the fire. At the very least, he’d wield the flames instead of suffering from the constant burn of its touch.
Gianna woke a few hours later with a panicked gasp, swimming to the surface from a terrifying nightmare landscape filled with monsters and screaming tires and bogs of quicksand that sucked at her legs and prevented her from fleeing from some unseen threat. Before she’d shuddered out a single breath, Constantine joined her on the bed, pulling her into the warm protection of his embrace.
“Easy now,” came his steadying voice. “You’re safe. He can’t get to you.”
His mouth drifted across the top of her head in the lightest of caresses. Reassuring. Passionless. Compassionate. Although she appreciated the reassurance and compassion, she didn’t want passionless. She wanted to feel something other than fear. She curled tight against his bare chest. His warmth surrounded her, easing her bone-deep chill, while the calm, steady beat of his heart soothed her.
“Nightmare,” she explained through chattering teeth. “Bad.”
“I gathered.” She thought he might have feathered another kiss across the top of her head, though she couldn’t be certain. But it gave her hope. “It’s not real,” he soothed.
“I know. At least, part of me knows. The other part—”
She broke off with a shrug. Unable to help herself she pressed closer, sliding her arms around his waist and clinging. To her relief, he didn’t push her away, though she sensed a serious internal debate raging. Not that she cared. She was scared and alone, and tired of being both. It wasn’t a case of “any port in a storm.” She needed Constantine. Only Constantine.
“Stay with me,” she whispered.
He swore in Italian, a soft, intently masculine comment that under other circumstances would have made her laugh. “Gianna, this is dangerous.”
“I’m not asking you to make love to me.”
“I may not be able to help myself.”
“You’re not David.”
He stiffened. “No, I’m definitely not d’Angelo. But I’m still a man. You’re vulnerable right now. It’s late and I’m tired. And you’re not wearing many clothes. For that matter, neither am I.” He adopted a reasonable tone. “Admit it, Gianna. Given our reaction to each other, it’s a volatile combination.”
True. That didn’t change anything. “I swear I won’t take advantage of you.” To her relief, he released a snort of laughter. “But right now I need someone to hold me.”
He sighed. “I should have taken you to your parents.”
“Probably,” she conceded. “Since you didn’t, you’re stuck with me.”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Fine. Lie down.”
She did as he requested. To her surprise, he jerked the covers up to her chin so she was completely cocooned, then slid an arm around her while he remained on top of the sheet and blanket.
“Seriously?” she asked.
“Seriously.” The metaphorical—or maybe not so metaphorical—immovable object. “Now go to sleep. It’ll be daylight in another few hours.”
“Would you do one more thing for me?”
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“No.” She leaned into him, doing her best to be an irresistible force. In her case, definitely not a metaphorical one. “Would you kiss me good-night?”
“You are determined to test the limits of my self-control.” He spoke in Italian, a dead giveaway.
“Would you rather David was the last man to have kissed me?”
It was the wrong thing to say. Absolutely. Totally. The. Wrong. Thing.
The soft light from the bedside table cut across the rigid lines of his face, striking off the hard planes and sinking into the harsh angles. He gazed down at her, his eyes black crystals of barely suppressed emotion, anger in the foreground, hot desire glittering behind. He said something else in Italian, the words fighting each other. Biting words that came too fast for her to catch. Not that she needed to understand each and every word. The underlying message came through loud and clear.
Constantine wasn’t a man to taunt.
He moved so fast she never saw it coming, stripping away the covers and baring her to his gaze. He took his time, looking his fill. The cotton shift she wore provided next to no protection, the fabric so sheer it revealed more than it concealed, hugging her feminine curves and misting his view just enough to make it all the more enticing.
He took his time, studying the generous curve of her breasts, the nipples tight coral peaks thrusting against the cotton and betraying the extent of her hunger. He noticed. Of course he noticed. How could he not? His gaze wandered lower, across her belly which quivered in reaction. Lower still. To the soft brown shadow at the apex of her thighs.
He lifted his hand and for a split second she thought he’d touch her. That he’d rip off her nightshift the way he’d ripped off her gown in the gas station parking lot. Her breath caught and held, waiting for that touch. It never came. Instead his hand hovered a scant inch above her, before following the same path as his gaze. He splayed his fingers, heat pouring from his palm and burning through her shift. Not once did he touch her, though her body reacted as though he had.
She waited for the acrid wash of fear to sweep over her. But it never did. Hunger and want—those existed without question. So did a keen edge of pleasure. Her breasts felt painfully full, lush and acutely sensitive. A heaviness invaded the very core of her, loosening and softening and ripening. A woman preparing for the possession of her mate.
One emotion was lacking.
“No fear,” she murmured in relief. “None at all.”
He froze. “This is a mistake.”
She smiled. Hell, she beamed. She was just so thankful that Constantine could look at her with such intense desire without it sparking flashes of David. “A lovely mistake.” She caught his hand in hers, guiding it to her body. “Touch me,” she whispered. “Touch me the way a man is meant to touch a woman.”
And then he did. As though unable to help himself, he trailed a finger from the juncture between neck and shoulder downward over the slope of her breast. Her nipples pressed against the cotton, so tight she almost couldn’t bear it. He hooked a finger in the neckline of her shift and nudged it down just enough to expose them. Gently, sweetly, he took the first into his mouth and caressed it with tongue and teeth. A cry caught in the back of her throat, a keening sound of intense pleasure. Then he turned his attention to the other.
Her head tipped back and the breath shuddered from her lungs, his name escaping on a moan of delight. She slid her fingers deep into the heavy waves of his hair and held him close. “How can this be a mistake?”
He lifted away from her, ignoring her attempts to pull him back into her embrace. Then he waited, allowing the tension to build. Stillness settled over them both, their breath harsh in the silence of the night. Then, slowly, oh, so slowly, he cupped her head. Little by little he leaned in until their lips were no more than a breath apart.
Then he erased even that bit of space. He kissed her, eradicating all memory of everything and everyone who’d gone before. He took his time, the kiss slow and potent and deliciously thorough. She responded, helpless to resist. And why should she? She wanted this as much as he did. Maybe even more. She’d waited for months. Nearly two full years. She refused to wait another minute.
“Make love to me,” she urged.
To her distress, he shook his head. “That’s not going to happen, Gianna.”
“But—”
He stopped her with another kiss that had every thought seeping from her head except what he was doing to her and how he did it. “D’Angelo drugged you tonight,” he murmured between leisurely, sampling tastes. “It’s likely that
you’re still feeling the effects.”
“I’m not. I swear I’m not.”
“You were drugged, attacked. Terrorized. Still in shock.” She wished she could deny his catalog of events, but she couldn’t. “And you just woke from a nasty nightmare. That makes you vulnerable, and I don’t take advantage of vulnerable women.”
“Even if the vulnerable woman in question says it’s okay? Because that’s what I’m saying. Okay. Go right ahead. I’m all yours.” He was killing her. “Please, Constantine.”
“Would you have me compromise my sense of honor?” he countered.
She closed her eyes. “Considering how I feel right now? Yes, yes I would.” An inner debate raged, one that filled her with frustration. Damn it, she’d been a Dante for too long, knew all too well the importance of honor. She continued to debate for another full minute while he waited her out. Then she caved. “When you put it like that…”
“There’s no other way to put it.”
She couldn’t argue, not about an issue as serious as a man’s honor. It wasn’t something the Dantes took lightly, any more than the Romanos. “Will you still hold me?”
“That I can do.” He covered her again and settled in beside her. Pulling her into his arms, he just held her. “Better?”
“Frustrating.”
He chuckled. “That makes two of us.” He kissed her with unmistakable finality. She could still feel the edge of desire, banked, but white-hot around the edges. “Go back to sleep. And this time, try not to press my buttons.”
She yawned. “Push your buttons. And I wasn’t.”
“No? I seem to remember you throwing David in my face. You didn’t just press my button. Or even push it. You kicked it with those spiked heels you love to wear.”
“Maybe.” Honesty forced her to concede, “Okay, definitely.”
“Don’t do it again. Not with d’Angelo.”
She looked at him curiously. “David said the two of you had a history.”
Tension speared across the muscles in Constantine’s jaw. “Is that what he called it?”
“What would you call it?”
“Funny. I’d have said you were in a better position to answer that question.”
She stiffened. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“How would you describe what he attempted to do tonight?”
She didn’t want to say the word. Couldn’t. It would make it too real. She moistened her lips. “After you rescued me… You said he’d done this before. I’d forgotten until just now.”
“The drug will do that to you.”
“Who else did he drug? Who did he do this to before me?”
“Ariana.”
Five
Gianna bolted upright in bed. “Oh, no. Oh, Constantine, no. Not Ariana.”
“It’s all right. I found her—”
She burst into tears. “How could it be all right? He…he…” She fought to get the words out. “She would have been terrified when she returned from Italy and saw me with him. I’d never have gone out with him if I’d known. And I’d have made him pay for hurting her. I swear I would have. Somehow. Someway.”
“Calm down, Gianna.” Constantine lifted onto his elbow and smoothed her hair back from her face. “She wouldn’t have been terrified when she saw the two of you together for one simple reason. Unlike you, she consumed all of the drug d’Angelo gave her. She has no memory of the events of that night. Not being drugged. Not of how close she came to disaster. Not of my arriving in time to save her. I saw no reason to tell her the sordid details then, or mention it since. She was barely seventeen.”
“Seventeen?” Tears slipped down Gianna’s cheeks. “So, he didn’t…?” She couldn’t say the word.
“No. I got there in time. She barely even remembers d’Angelo.”
Something else clicked. David’s opening salvo at the Midsummer Night’s gala when he’d first spoken to Constantine. “That’s what he meant about your timing.”
Constantine nodded. “I wasn’t in a position to make him pay with Ariana. But I swear to you, he won’t get away with it again.”
“What happened? To Ariana, I mean?”
“Come.” He eased her back into his arms and she surrendered to the embrace, using his warmth to comfort her distress. “I’ll tell you the story if you promise to go to sleep afterward.”
“I promise.” Honesty forced her to add, “If I can.”
“You have to understand something that is very uncomfortable for me to speak of.”
He’d switched to Italian again, his voice stiff with pride and something else. Pain? “Something from your past?” she hazarded a guess.
“It has to do with the manner in which I was raised.”
“Old Italian aristocracy?”
“That’s at the root of it, yes. The Romanos have the name, but not the money to go with it. We own the land and the palazzo, but have no way to maintain it. Because it has been in our family for so many generations, it would be sacrilege to sell. So we struggle over money.”
“Why not get a job?”
Constantine laughed without humor. “You and I think alike. Unfortunately my father considered this beneath him. We are only recently poor. My grandfather made some unfortunate investments and my father finished the job with other bad choices. More than anything, I wished to start up my own business. But there was no capital. No seed money. I attended Oxford. My grandmother—she wrote the Mrs. Pennywinkle children’s books before Ariana took over. You are familiar with Mrs. Pennywinkle?”
“Sure. I loved her stories as a child.” They were beautifully illustrated tales, all about a china doll named Nancy who passed from needy child to needy child. With each subsequent owner came exciting adventures and heartrending problems for whichever youngster came into possession of the doll. By the end of the book, Nancy had helped resolve the child’s problems and magically moved on to the next boy or girl in need. “I even owned a Nancy doll. It was one of my favorite toys growing up.”
“My grandmother, Penelope, paid for my education with the royalty money she earned from them. But I could not take her money to start up my business. It would have been—”
“Dishonorable?”
He slanted her a swift, hard look. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Not even a little,” she instantly denied. “I’m in total sympathy with you. Our family also went through a period of financial difficulty.”
“I vaguely remember Babbo telling me about that. It involved your uncle Dominic, didn’t it?”
“Yes. He made some unwise investments, expanded into other areas of the business too fast, and nearly put Dantes out of business. Since my father never handled any of the financial aspects of the business, he had no idea how to turn things around. Like Luc, he dealt with the security end of things. So, after Uncle Dominic’s death, Sev stepped in and salvaged the business. It was a point of honor that he make up for his father’s mismanagement. But it was touch and go there for a while and we had to sell off almost all of Dantes except for the main jewelry business. It took Sev years to buy back all we’d lost.”
“Then you do understand.” He hesitated. “This brings me to the d’Angelos.”
She made the connection. “They’re bankers. They were in a position to loan you money for Romano Restoration.”
Darkness descended. “Yes. D’Angelo and I met at Oxford. I had the name. He had the money. I didn’t think anything of it. We were…” He shrugged. “Friends. Or I thought we were. I didn’t realize at the time that he deliberately set out to cultivate a friendship. He liked bragging about his close relationship with a Romano.”
“I assume at some point he met Ariana.”
“It happened on a vacation we took with the d’Angelos when Ariana was in her early teens.” There was something in his voice when he said that, something unbearably painful and forbidding. Something he wasn’t telling her. “At first, I didn’t think anything of it. When I looked at my si
ster, I saw a child. D’Angelo saw a toy that he didn’t yet own. And he needed to own all the toys.”
She thought about David’s Jag and Rolex and suite at the Ritz. “He still does.”
“I’m not surprised.” Constantine scrubbed a weary hand across his face. “At some point, d’Angelo made a comment about dating Ariana and I came on like the typical big brother. She was too young, the differences in their ages too great.”
“I gather that didn’t stop David.”
“Not at all. If anything, it made him want her all the more.”
“Because she was forbidden fruit.”
“Yes. It caused a rift between us. I began to really look at him, listen to him. When I did, I heard rumors about d’Angelo and women. Ugly rumors that perhaps not all the women were willing. I learned afterward that d’Angelo’s father kept it all hushed up with huge payoffs.”
Constantine trailed a finger along her arm. He did it in an absentminded manner, not really paying attention to his actions. The featherlight caress sent desire cascading through her and she shut her eyes, fighting to focus on the story instead of his touch.
“What happened then?” Gianna managed to ask.
“By this time we’d become somewhat estranged. But one day he came to me unexpectedly and offered to arrange an interview with his father. He said Aldo was extremely interested in financing my start-up restoration business. It surprised me. But hell, I’d talked about it for years. I thought perhaps d’Angelo extended the offer as an olive branch.” He hesitated. His mouth compressed and he shook his head. “I’m deluding myself. I went along because I wanted the opportunity so badly—”
“Stop it, Constantine.” She wouldn’t allow him to shoulder so much of the blame. “David is responsible for his own choices, not you.”
He didn’t argue the point, but she didn’t think she’d convinced him that he didn’t bear some fault in what happened. “A time was set,” he continued the narrative, “and I showed up in my best suit, prospectus in hand, my sales pitch polished. David should have been there, but I wasn’t too surprised when he wasn’t.”
