Her neck fought not to arch and her mouth not to part to kiss his palm.
But then her guardian angels dashed in.
They flew from their clouds, or wherever they’d been hiding, and there was no time for them to apologise for their absence. They hauled her back from the brink.
‘Goodnight, Nico.’
Well done, Aurora!
Though it wasn’t actually Aurora who had halted things, for she was desperate for his kiss. No, it was a force greater than she that had somehow gathered and dragged those words from her mouth.
‘It’s been a long day,’ she added, then gave him a smile and walked off.
It would be a long, lonely night.
But at least she would awake with her pride.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tuesday:
Room Service breakfast
RSVP’d Marianna to decline Nico’s kind invitation to breakfast, explaining I had already made plans.
Social Media Training.
Room Service dinner.
Read for a little while
Cried.
Wednesday:
Breakfast in restaurant.
Forgot about Nico!
Bought a red dress during lunch break.
Worked the day on Reception and was shouted at.
Went to the hotel’s hair salon and drank champagne while hair was done!
Read some more.
Hate him.
Thursday:
Woke early
Coffee at sunrise in a café opposite the hotel.
Grateful that I didn’t sleep with him again...
Not really...
THERE WAS SOMETHING so special about Rome early in the morning. The gleaming cobbled streets, fresh from the street cleaners, the lack of people, the abundance of all things beautiful.
Everywhere she looked there was more to see.
The disgusting gargoyles with their erections and horrible tongues.
The timeless beauty of the Spanish Steps.
And there it was. The Trevi Fountain, standing resplendent.
Almost alone, Aurora gazed into the water and saw there were just a few coins, so it must have recently been cleaned out. Then she looked up to Triton and his horses and then back down to the water.
All she had to do was throw in a coin to assure her return to Rome.
Never.
Aurora wanted to return to her simple life.
She almost meant it.
She would find her fireman, or a man who worked the vines, and she would love him completely, and he would love her in return.
And she would not hanker for Rome.
Nor for sitting in a bar with Nico and the sheer exhilaration of being near him.
And she would not regret that abrupt goodnight. She would be proud of her resolve. For instead of kissing his palm, and going where that would have led, she had called a halt and said goodnight.
Good, Aurora!
And she would say this to her daughter, if God gave her one.
I knew a wicked man once. A man who made my heart both bleed and sing at the same time...a man who made me succumb to my wildest urges. A man who made me believe we had been together in another life, for even if I did not know him completely I recognised him in my soul.
But I walked away, dear daughter. I did not let him use me again and again. And I don’t regret it. No, not even for a moment.
So why was she suddenly crying and scrabbling in her purse for a coin? Throwing it into the water with her eyes closed as she wished with all her heart for her time again...?
Because she would always regret Rome and the decision to walk away from the man she would love until her last breath.
She couldn’t tell that to her daughter...
Her wings were unfurling in colours she had never envisaged, and no matter how hard she tried she could not stuff them back in.
Aurora tossed in the coin.
Let me return to you, Nico. Let me in. Make love to me in Rome.
She was ashamed of her coin-toss in a way it would be too complicated to explain to someone else, or even to herself, but Aurora also felt better for it. And her mood lifted.
Today she was to work in the Club Lounge, which the very best of the guests frequented, and she had been told to dress to impress.
Back in the hotel, her curls fell into perfect shape as she ran her fingers through them, and she took out the make-up she had bought and applied it.
A little blusher, but not too much.
Eyeliner. Her new best friend.
Mascara.
And a slick of very subtle lipstick.
Should she wear the red dress, even though Nico would never see her in it?
Aurora couldn’t make up her mind.
But first she put on a new bra and panties in the most stunning coral.
They would clash, if she wore the red dress, but who cared? No one was going to see.
Aurora wore the red dress.
She found the Club Lounge rather fascinating.
There was breakfast, and then pastries mid-morning, and even champagne cocktails just before midday for a couple who, Aurora found out, had just got engaged.
‘Complimente!’ Aurora smiled as she placed the drinks down.
She was pleased for them—excited for them as she spied the way they held hands even as they sipped their drinks.
But she was sad for herself.
They knew love.
She looked out at the panoramic view of Rome that the Club Lounge afforded and wondered why all she could think of was Silibri and the temple ruins, and the little house her nonna had lived in, and had anyone watered the jasmine? Was Nico there now, strolling around confidently because there was no chance of bumping into her?
‘Aurora!’
Realising that she had been daydreaming, and had missed what Marianna had said, Aurora snapped to attention. ‘I’m sorry. I was miles away.’
Many miles away, in fact—all the way to Silibri.
‘I asked if you’d mind going to Nico’s. There’s some maintenance being done on the balcony. You might be there for a couple of hours. I don’t like to ask just anyone, and you were there the other day.’
‘Of course,’ Aurora responded politely, for what else could she say?
‘You look nice,’ Marianna commented.
‘I was worried it was too much for work.’
‘Not here, it’s not,’ Marianna said. ‘Every day is like a wedding! Your hair is nice too.’
All her early life Aurora’s mother had trimmed her hair, and later Aurora had done it herself. For her confirmation and on special occasions she had gone to an aunt who, until yesterday, Aurora had believed to be a hairdresser.
Oh, no, she wasn’t.
Luigi was a hairdresser!
And a therapist.
And an ego-boost.
All rolled into one delicious package.
Aurora had left the hotel salon feeling like a rock star.
Her dark locks felt like silk, and looked as if every strand had been polished by hand. Her hair now fell in a glossy, snaky curtain, several inches shorter than it had been when she had walked through the heavy brass doors.
The cost?
Astronomical.
Almost a week’s pay, gobbled up in two luxurious hours.
Actually, two weeks’ pay had been spent, if she included the dress, but when in Rome...
It was a short trip to Nico’s, and the driver gave her his number to call when the maintenance was done.
Soon she would be alone in his stunning villa... But not quite, for there were two men in overalls who were waiting for her to arrive.
‘Buongiorno!’ Aurora greeted them warmly as she disarm
ed the security system and let them in. And as she led them up the grand stairs she learned a little more about Nico’s home.
It was a heritage building, they said, and the balcony inspection was just routine.
There was nothing routine about Nico, Aurora thought.
His bedroom was exactly as it had been the last time she had seen it, with not a thing out of place.
Except for Aurora!
She was a little unsure of her place.
In Silibri, she would have put on coffee for the men, and then gone to chat with them as they worked.
But of course she was not at home, so she hovered in the main bedroom as the men inspected the balcony.
It took mere minutes.
‘Completato,’ the older man said.
‘You’re finished?’
‘Sì.’
It really had been a routine check.
Aurora saw them out and then went back upstairs and locked the French doors. She took out her phone to call the driver to come and take her back to the hotel.
Except she didn’t make the call.
Instead she stood in his bedroom for what was undoubtedly the last time. The coffered ceiling was a work of art, and she looked at the intricate engravings and wondered if Nico lay on the vast bed pondering how such art had been crafted and by whom.
Or did he lie with the drapes open at night and look out to Rome and Villa Borghese Park? Aurora wondered.
Or was he too busy when he was in bed?
Of all the regrets she had—and there were many where Nico was concerned—her biggest regret was Monday night.
Despite her promise to be aloof and professional, despite her promise to herself to get over him, it was the closest they had ever been.
Two people sharing a drink and conversation.
He had told her he loved his father, and that had been a revelation in itself. And he had been about to kiss her, Aurora was sure.
And take her to bed too.
Her body and her heart had wanted him to, yet foolish pride and her determination to put him behind her had told her no.
She wasn’t snooping, Aurora told herself as she wandered around the stunning room. Of course she wasn’t.
She was merely checking that everything was in order for Nico’s return, just as his PA surely would.
She walked to his bedside and saw the small shelf of books that was beside it. Leafing her way through them, she frowned when she saw they were all books on productivity and increasing focus.
‘Nico, how do you relax with this?’ she asked out loud.
And then Aurora smiled and reached into her bag—not for her phone, but for the sexy romance she was currently reading. She would slip it into his reading pile, and even if he didn’t want her she would spice up one of his nights, somehow!
But she hadn’t finished reading it herself yet.
Well, she almost had. It wouldn’t take her long to do so, and Marianna wasn’t expecting her back for a couple of hours...
Putting her bag on the floor, she sat down on the edge of his bed—and, truly, that was how Aurora meant to remain. Except as she read unthinkingly she slipped off her high heels.
Nico would have told her to make herself at home, she told herself as she lifted her legs onto the bed and lay back on plump pillows. Of course he would. Well, if he’d behaved as he should then he would. How many times had he rested his head in her pink bedroom, after all?
It was the most peaceful hour she had found in Rome. There, in his bed.
Now and then she would glance up and look out to the lush green park, and then back to her book she’d go, letting out a contented sigh at the end.
It would be Nico who would read it next!
After she’d leant over and placed the book on his shelf, between his boring other ones, she lay back with a smile, imagining Nico’s expression when he found it.
Imagining him.
Imagining them.
It was something she knew all too well in her head...
‘Aurora!’
It was clearly her day for being caught daydreaming.
His voice startled her and her eyes snapped open. She realised she had dozed off. ‘You’re back!’
‘Clearly.’
In fact Nico wasn’t surprised to find her here. Marianna had mentioned that Aurora was at the house, sorting out the maintenance guys.
For the first time in living memory Nico had ‘popped home’ in the middle of a working day.
And there, in a blood-red dress, with her snaky black curls and bare feet, lay Aurora, asleep on his bed.
He was turned on even before he called her name.
‘I wasn’t asleep,’ she said.
‘Then what are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Daydreaming,’ Aurora said, for to her it was the most normal thing in the world to do.
She wasn’t flustered. She didn’t rush to sit up, and nor did she apologise; instead she looked him right in the eyes.
‘About...?’ Nico asked, when he knew full well he should be telling her off, or just getting the hell out. For there was seduction in the look she gave him, and he had sustained it with his low reply.
‘My husband,’ Aurora said. ‘My future one.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what is he like?’
‘He has a beard,’ Aurora said.
‘A beard?’
‘Sì.’ She nodded. ‘And when he comes home to surprise me at lunchtime, he laughs when he finds me reading in bed and the house unkempt.’
‘Where has he been?’ Nico asked, arrogantly assuming she was speaking of him, and of the life they might have lived had he stayed in the village. ‘Out working on the vines?’
‘No.’ Aurora shook her shiny new curls. ‘He’s a firefighter.’
‘I seem to remember you left a firefighter to come home to me,’ Nico pointed out, and he could not keep the slight snap of possession from his voice.
‘That was for sex, Nico. I’m talking about my husband.’
‘The one who laughs when he finds you in bed?’
‘Not at first,’ she said. ‘I think he pretends to be cross.’
He stood so still, fighting not to be provoked.
Except a vital part of him was extremely provoked, and he felt her eyes drift there.
‘He spanks me,’ Aurora said, and with a smirk moved her eyes back up to his.
‘That’s your fantasy, is it, Aurora?’ Nico drawled, trying to sound bored. ‘Some bearded man lumbers home and gives you a spanking?’
‘Perhaps...’ She shrugged. ‘What is your future wife like?’
‘I told you once, but I will tell you again—I will never marry.’
‘But if you did, what would she be like?’ Aurora persisted. ‘Come on, Nico, it’s just a game.’
Nico did not and would not play games—not that it perturbed Aurora, for with only her eyes she dragged in the most unwilling participant.
‘Tell me about your future wife.’
‘She’s quiet,’ Nico said. ‘Undemanding.’
‘How nice.’
‘I never come home in the middle of the day to find her asleep.’
‘She sounds rather boring.’
‘I think demure would be a better word.’
‘No,’ Aurora said, and shook her head. ‘She bores you so much that I bet you don’t even bother coming home in the middle of the day just for sex.’
‘Exactly!’ Nico said. And it was a most dangerous admission, because it exposed him. With one word he had revealed to Aurora his craving for her. ‘I don’t come off the phone hard after speaking to her. She gives me no drama, leaves no chaos in my brain. And when I’m working she respects that fact and leaves me alone.’
<
br /> ‘Good for her,’ Aurora sneered.
She pulled her knees up—not in a deliberately provocative move, more to relieve the ache low in her belly and thighs.
His quick gaze caught a damp patch on her coral silk panties. He didn’t know if he had imagined it, but once the idea was in his head he could not rid himself of it.
He should not be playing this game—glimpsing how they might have been. Or rather, he had already played it out in his mind. He should certainly not be sharing that vision with Aurora.
Yet Nico did.
He dragged his eyes from her silk-lined sex and back to her face as he told her some more about his perfect wife.
‘There aren’t fifty missed calls, demanding to know where I am; there’s no, “Nico, we didn’t make love this morning...”’
He did a lower version of her raspy voice, but it was certainly Aurora that he impersonated, and now they were heading into dangerous territory indeed.
‘In fact, when I come home late she doesn’t even ask where I’ve been. She accepts that I’ve been working.’
‘She’s so understanding!’ Aurora cooed.
‘Yes,’ Nico said. ‘She is.’
‘And do you make slow, boring love to her?’
‘There is nothing boring about me in bed, Aurora. But, yes, I make very slow love to her.’
She had to remind herself to breathe. ‘Does she fake it and let out a little whimper to signal that she’s done?’
‘No, she screams my name.’
Those shaky curls shook as she refuted him. ‘I don’t think so.’
He crossed the room and decided to lose the stunning view of Rome. He had something infinitely better to look at.
‘Not only that,’ Nico said. ‘She even closes the drapes.’
He did so, and it was unthinkable that he was closing out the busy day he’d had planned.
Not quite unthinkable—because with Aurora he knew this was how life would be. Chaos and tangled limbs. Making up and kisses and heaving tears. Drama from which he had run as a young man as though there was a wolf on his heels.
The heavy drapes blocked out the light, denying him the sight of her body, so he turned on the bedside light and looked down at her.
‘Get into bed.’
‘But you forgot to switch off your phone, darling,’ Aurora said, in the voice of his fabled wife.
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