by Day Leclaire
He could tell the size and grandeur unnerved her. Hell, as a child it had unnerved him, as well. Built in the 1920s, his grandparents purchased it during Dantes’ heyday, when Primo controlled the reins of the company.
Sev had recently updated the house from top to bottom, taking a diamond in the rough and giving it the glitter and polish it deserved. While still on the formal side, he’d made a point to add a more welcoming feel to the place. From the two-story entry foyer, a curving staircase, complete with wrought-iron railing, swept toward the second story and an endless array of rooms perfect for entertaining.
“When I’m hosting guests, I stay here. More often I use my Nob Hill apartment. It’s more compact. More to my taste.” Unable to resist touching her, he slid his hand down her spine to the small hollow just above her buttocks and guided her toward the private den he kept exclusively for his own use. “This is my favorite room in the house.”
Francesca visibly relaxed as she looked around. Light filtered in from a bank of windows that provided an unfettered view of the bay and Alcatraz Island. Two of the other walls bulged with books that overran the floor-to-ceiling mahogany cases. The final wall, at right angles to the windows, offered a cozy fireplace fronted by the most comfortable couch Sev had ever owned. He used the electronic controls to light the fire and gestured for her to have a seat.
It amused him that she took the precaution to sit as far from him as the couch cushions allowed. Understandable, but still humorous. “Okay, let me give it to you straight,” he began.
She listened intently while he ran through Primo’s explanation of The Inferno, refraining from asking any questions until he finished speaking. “You said that, in the past, your family experienced this Inferno,” she said after a moment. “What about your brothers? Have they felt anything similar?”
“I’m the first,” Sev replied.
Wariness crept into her gaze. “That suggests you buy in to all this.”
“No, not really.” And he didn’t, despite Primo’s insistence that legend matched reality. “I think it makes for a charming story, but a story, nonetheless.”
“Then how would you explain what’s happened to us?”
He’d given that a lot of thought and decided to believe the simplest explanation. “It’s nothing more than lust. Given time, it’ll fade.”
Though she took his comment with apparent equanimity, a pulse kicked to life at the base of her throat, betraying her agitation. “But what if it’s more than that? Has it ever infected the women in your family?”
“I don’t understand. Which women?”
She made an impatient motion with her hands. “Haven’t any of the Dante men had daughters? Have any of the Dante women experienced this Inferno?”
Sev shook his head. “There’s only been one daughter in more generations than I can recall. My cousin, Gianna. Here, let me show you.”
He circled the couch to a cluster of photos on a console table and picked up a panoramic photograph in a plain silver frame that showed a group shot of all the Dantes. Seated in the middle were Nonna and Primo. Sev, his parents, and brothers stood to Primo’s right, while his Aunt Elia, and Uncle Alessandro, with their brood of four, stood beside Nonna. He handed the picture to Francesca when she joined him, tapping the image of the only female of his generation, a striking young woman with Sev’s coloring.
“If Gia’s been cursed by The Inferno, she’s never mentioned it.”
A hint of laughter lightened Francesca’s expression. “Cursed? I thought you said Primo called it a blessing.”
He couldn’t help himself. He leaned toward her, cupping her cheek. “Does it feel like a blessing to you?”
She shut him out by closing her eyes, concealing her inner thoughts. “No, this isn’t a blessing. It’s a complication I could live without.” She eased back from his touch and opened her eyes again, at the same time slamming impenetrable barriers into place. “And what about the other women? The women who are the object of the Dante men’s . . . blessing?”
“Like you and Nonna and Aunt Elia?”
“Yes. What choice do we have? How do we escape this Inferno?”
He gestured toward the image of his parents. “My father escaped by marrying someone else.”
Francesca blinked in surprise. “Your mother wasn’t an Inferno bride?”
Sev shook his head. “Shortly after they died, I discovered letters that indicated he’d been in love with one of his designers, but married my mother, instead.”
“Why didn’t he marry the woman he really loved?” she asked hesitantly. “Do you know?”
Sev shrugged. “When I confronted Primo about it, he admitted that my mother had invaluable contacts in the industry. It was more of a business arrangement than a true marriage. Not that it did either of them any good.”
“What went wrong?”
Maybe it was the hint of compassion he heard in her voice, but he found himself opening up in way he never had with any other woman. “All of my mother’s contacts couldn’t make up for my father’s lack of business savvy.” He studied the photograph. God, they looked so youthful. Just six or seven years older than his own thirty-four, he suddenly realized. They also looked remote and unhappy, though how much of that related to their marriage and how much to business difficulties, he couldn’t determine. “They were on the verge of a divorce when they died in a sailing accident.”
“And you blame that on The Inferno?” she asked in patent disbelief.
“No. I blame it on bad luck.” He couldn’t tell her the rest. Couldn’t admit that he blamed himself for what happened right before and immediately after his father’s death. That piece of guilt he kept locked tightly away. “I’d just graduated from college. The day after their funeral, I stepped into my father’s shoes. I spent the first year of my tenure dismantling Dantes and the last decade rebuilding it.”
“I’m so sorry.” She slipped her hand into his and squeezed. Just that, and yet it made all the difference. The connection between them intensified in some indefinable way. Before it had been sheer sex, or so he believed. Now another emotion crept in, one he resisted analyzing. She hesitated a split second before confessing, “I lost my mother, too. I know how painful that must have been for you.”
That might explain some of the sorrow he’d seen lurking in her eyes. “How old were you?” he asked.
“Five.” Soft. Abrupt. And a clear message that she had no interest in pursuing the conversation.
Not that he planned to drop it. He’d just approach the subject with more care. “It helped that my brothers and I were older, though at just sixteen, Nicolò had a tough time adapting. Fortunately, Primo and Nonna stepped in, which made a huge difference.” He paused. “What about you? Did your father ever remarry?”
“My parents weren’t together,” she admitted, avoiding his gaze. “I went into foster care.”
Oh, God. He tiptoed across eggshells. “Didn’t the authorities contact him?”
“They didn’t know who he was. I didn’t find out myself until after I’d graduated from college and hired someone to locate him for me.” She picked up the next picture in the line, putting a clear end to the discussion. A slight smile eased the strain building around the corners of her mouth. “Primo and Nonna on their wedding day, I assume?”
“They eloped right before immigrating to the U.S.”
The ancient black-and-white showed a couple arrayed in wedding finery. They looked impossibly young and nervous, their hands joined in a white-knuckle grip. But the photographer managed to catch them in an unguarded moment, as they gathered themselves for a more formal pose. They glanced at each other, as though for reassurance, and the power of their love practically scorched the film.
“Nonna didn’t want to escape The Inferno, did she?”
“No.”
Francesca returned the photograph to the table with clear finality. “Well, I do.” She paced restlessly toward the windows. Once there, she glanced over he
r shoulder. With the sunlight at her back, her expression fell into shadow. But he could hear the tension rippling through her voice. “I’m not interested in you or the Dante Inferno or having an affair with you. I just want to be left alone to pursue my career. This is a distraction I don’t want or need.”
“I wish it were that simple. That I could make it go away for you. But I can’t.”
He wanted to see her, to look into her eyes and know her thoughts. To touch her and reestablish the physical connection between them. Without conscious thought, he joined her at the windows. The instant he slid his palm across her warm, silken skin, his world righted itself.
“Why can’t I just walk away from you and never look back?” she demanded. He heard the turmoil underscoring her question, while hunger battled common sense. And he understood what she felt since it mirrored his own reaction to their predicament. “Why can’t I simply return to the life I built for myself?”
“You can. We both can.” Steely determination enveloped him. “The minute we work this out of our systems.”
Sev swept Francesca up into his arms and carried her to the couch. She murmured a token protest, one lost beneath the series of tiny, biting kisses he scattered along her throat. They tumbled onto cushions that molded to their entwined bodies and enfolded them in a private world of suede-covered down. The buttons of her silk blouse parted beneath his hands, revealing a feminine scrap of lace that struggled to contain her breasts. He couldn’t help himself. He reared back, drinking in the sight.
Two nights ago, he’d seen her by moonlight and thought it impossible for her to look any more stunning than adorned in shades of silver and alabaster. But now, with her hair and skin gilded in sunlit gold, she robbed sense and sensibility with her beauty. Inch by inch, he lowered himself onto her. And inch by inch, the heat they generated soared, an inferno in the making. Given the number of promises he’d made and broken, he half expected her to push him away. Instead, she basked in that heat and wrapped him up in an ardent embrace.
It was as though they’d never left off from the night before last. He reacquainted himself with her mouth, plundering inward. She moaned in welcome and met him with a feminine aggression that sent him straight over the edge. There were too many clothes between them. He yanked at his tie and the first few buttons of his shirt, but somehow he’d lost the ability to work past the knot imprisoning him. Instead, he turned his attention to her and unhooked the front clasp of her bra. He filled his hands with her bountiful breasts and her breath escaped in a fevered rush.
“We were supposed to have worked this out of our systems by now,” she gasped.
“We will.” Maybe in a decade or two. “But until then I need your hands on me. I need to be inside you again.”
He shifted a knee between her legs and slid the hem of her skirt upward, uncovering acres of smooth, creamy thigh and a tantalizing glimpse of butter-yellow panties. He itched to explore all that lay beneath that scrap of silk. To see those soft curls gilded with sunlight, as well. He ran a finger along the scalloped edging, stroking inward toward dewy warmth until he found the sweet heart of her.
Francesca groaned in response, a rich, feminine, keening sound that called to him on every level and drove him ever closer to the edge. He knew that sound, had heard her make it countless times during the night they’d spent together. But there was another sound he wanted to hear. Needed to hear. The sound she made when she climaxed in his arms.
She shuddered against his stroking touch and he couldn’t stand it another minute. He needed her. Now. In a single swift move, he skimmed her panties down her thighs and tossed them aside. Next, he ripped his belt free and unfastened his trousers, pausing only long enough to remove the protection he’d had the foresight to stick in his pocket before their meeting. Her hands joined his, helping to free him from the restriction of his clothing. And then she cupped him, her touch cool against the burning length of him. Instead of easing the raging fire, it only served to intensify it.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so desperate to have a woman that he’d been unable to make it to the comfort of his bedroom. With Francesca, nothing mattered except to have her, right here and now. He lifted her and slid deep inside. Her legs closed around him as she welcomed him home.
His groan of pleasure mingled with hers, the heavy pounding of his heart in perfect tempo with hers. The breath exploded from her and then he heard her siren’s song, signaling her scramble toward the highest of peaks. He joined her there, calling to her, mating with her, locking them together until he could no longer tell where her body ended and his began.
They moved in perfect harmony, continuing a dance that had begun their first night together. The tempo this time around quickened, turning fast and hard and greedy. He couldn’t get enough of her, not how tightly she clenched around him or how she cushioned him against the softness of her woman’s body or how she met each thrust with joyous abandon. Long before he was ready for the encounter to end, she spasmed beneath him, and he found he couldn’t hold back, couldn’t resist going up and over the peak with her before crashing down the other side, holding her tight within his arms.
Long minutes passed without either of them moving, maybe because movement proved a physical impossibility. Finally, the breath heaving from his lungs, Sev levered himself onto his elbows and gazed down at Francesca.
Heaven help him, but she was beautiful, her face delicately flushed with the ripeness of passion, her mouth moist and swollen from his kisses, her eyes heavy-lidded and slumberous. In that moment, his world rested within the warmth of her grasp. How had she come to mean so much to him in so short a time?
“I can’t walk away from you, Francesca.” Pure steel swept through the words. “And I won’t.”
She closed her eyes with a groan. “I shouldn’t have agreed to have lunch with you. I should have known we’d end up like this again.”
He caught the hint of regret and deliberately kissed it away, plying her with soft caresses and long, slow strokes until she trembled in his arms. “Something tells me we’ll always end up like this.”
Her eyes flew open, the sultry darkness lit with a want so deep and strong, she couldn’t disguise it as anything else. “We can’t. We can’t do this again,” she whispered through lips still red and swollen from his kisses. The scent of their passion enclosed them, belying her statement and he could feel the tension within her battling against the soft, hungry give of her body.
Sev wanted her again. Again and again and again. For the moment, he’d allow her to escape. But only for the moment. He eased himself up and off her. Holding out his hand, he assisted her from the couch and helped return a semblance of order to her clothing.
“I didn’t give you a choice about lunch,” he informed her. “And just so you know, I don’t plan to give you a choice in the future, either.”
She eyed him in open alarm, but didn’t ask the question he suspected hovered on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she murmured, “Where’s the bathroom?”
He directed her, then excused himself long enough to freshen up, as well. He returned to find her fully tucked and buttoned and preparing to leave. “There’s something I want to ask you,” he told her. “Actually, it’s the reason I invited you to lunch.”
A smile flirted with her mouth, a genuine one that filled him with fierce pleasure. “You mean, you didn’t invite me so we could indulge in a wrestling match on your couch?”
He regarded her with a hint of laughter. “As delightful as that was, no.” He crossed to her side. Unable to resist, he slipped a hand into her hair. Cupping the back of her head, he took her mouth in a swift, hungry kiss, a kiss she returned without hesitation. “Come work for me,” he offered when they broke apart.
Her eyes were alight with a slumberous passion and he suspected she didn’t assimilate his offer immediately. He saw the instant words connected with comprehension. The passion eked away, replaced by astonishment. “Work for you?” she r
epeated.
“I can offer you a far better salary than you receive at Timeless, excellent benefits, your own studio. You’ll have the Dante name behind your designs.” He pressed, determined she see how much more he could do for her than the Fontaines. “I can assist you become one of the most sought-after designers in the world. Best of all, we won’t have to sneak around hiding our relationship from your employers.”
She took a hasty step away from him, pulling free of his hold, if not the connection burning between them. It refused to release either one of them. “Let me get this straight. You’re offering me a job so we can continue our affair?”
“Of course not.” Honesty compelled him to admit, “Okay, fine. In part. But mostly because you’re a damn good designer. Dantes would be lucky to have you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And what happens when we’re no longer Infernoed?”
The word provoked a swift smile. “Infernoed?”
“Right now, the hot, southern climes of your anatomy are doing your thinking. Once that brilliant mind of yours kicks in, you’ll regret any decisions you make while in the throes of this thing. And I’ll have thrown away a job I love for a position at Dantes as the ex-mistress of the owner. How long do you think that’ll work?”
He struggled not to take offense. Until two nights ago his southern climes had never before overruled the cooler, dispassionate northern half of his body. Yet, he suspected Francesca assumed it happened on a regular basis. It was part of the price he paid for having a Latin name. Emotion over intellect. Total nonsense, of course.
“I won’t compromise the family business for anyone or anything,” he stated. “My offer is genuine, Inferno or no Inferno. When our affair ends, you’ll still have your job, and it’ll be a hell of a lot more secure than your future at Timeless.”
He could tell she didn’t believe him. “Thank you, but I’m happy with the Fontaines.”
“Would you at least allow me to make an official offer?”
She dismissed the idea with a swift shake of her head. “I have my reasons for staying at Timeless Heirlooms, and money isn’t really one of them. I’m up for a permanent position there. In fact, I would have it already if I hadn’t ruined my reputation by spending the night with you. The only saving grace is they don’t know it’s you.”
