Claiming My Untouched Mistress

by Heidi Rice

  I slapped at his hand, hard enough to make him grunt.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch me,’ I yelled. ‘How dare you ask me about my sex life...? You...’ I was so furious I could barely speak. ‘You have no right.’

  ‘I have every right,’ he barked back, but I could see my outburst had shocked him—almost as much as it had shocked me. ‘You’re my employee,’ he said, but for once he didn’t sound sure or indomitable. Instead he sounded tense and wary. ‘And I was your first lover. I’m trying to protect you. Alexi is a notorious playboy. He uses women and then he discards them, he...’

  ‘This has nothing to do with Mr Galanti,’ I interrupted him, finally finding the words I should have found three weeks ago. ‘And don’t you dare throw my virginity back in my face again. If I was ever innocent I’m certainly not any more. And if you wanted to protect me, why didn’t you protect me from you, Dante?’ I pointed out, just in case he’d forgotten that salient point.

  Tears rolled down my cheeks and I scrubbed them away, but I wasn’t ashamed of them any more and I wasn’t afraid to let him see them.

  ‘Bella, please don’t cry,’ he said in an agonised whisper and reached for me again. But I stepped back.

  ‘No,’ I said, firmly and succinctly, even though my heart was ripping open inside my chest. ‘You left me, Dante. Which means you don’t get to come storming back into my life three weeks later, telling me who I can and cannot sleep with. You don’t get to call me bella, or touch me as if you own me, or look at me as if you care about me when we both know you don’t. You hurt me,’ I said, my breath shuddering out as the tears mercifully stopped. ‘I know it was only five days. I know I overreacted, probably romanticised it too much. That it was too soon. But those feelings were still real. I was falling in love with you and you knew... And still you treated me like nothing.’

  ‘You were an innocent. I only discarded you to protect you,’ he said, his voice raw with emotion now too, and I could see he actually believed it—which only made the heartache worse.

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ I said, the tears still lodged in my throat as I realised how hopeless this situation was and had always been. He still wanted me and I still wanted him—we could have had so much, could have built on those five glorious days together—but it wasn’t my insecurities that had held us back, as a part of me had always believed—it was his. ‘You did it to protect yourself,’ I said.

  I clasped my arms around my waist to control the trembles threatening to tear me apart.

  ‘I don’t know what your mother did to you, Dante,’ I said and he stiffened, his eyes becoming shadowed and distant, as I hit the raw nerve I knew would always lie between us. ‘But, whatever it is,’ I said, ‘I hope one day you can get over it.’

  I walked past him. I had to get out of here, to get away from him. It had been a mistake taking this job. I’d done it for all the wrong reasons. I’d wanted to be able to see him again, to be near him, even if he didn’t want me any more. I’d wanted the chance to impress him, to soak up his approval. I had convinced myself in the last three weeks my susceptibility to Dante’s charms had been a result of the skewed legacy of being my mother’s daughter, being fatherless—that I had an unconscious need for male attention I had never acknowledged before. But I realised now it was more personal than that... And the mistakes made had been his as much as mine. He was right, I had been innocent and naïve and maybe too gullible. He’d been my first lover and my first love—and he was an overpowering man. But he had used me, and it was way past time I protected myself against him and the overwhelming effect he had on me.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he demanded. ‘You’re still my employee.’

  ‘Not any more,’ I said. ‘I quit.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ‘YOU NEED TO go get her back, Dante. Apologise, grovel, do whatever you have to do, but we need her here.’

  ‘No,’ I said calmly to Joe, even though calm was the last thing I felt.

  ‘Why not?’ My casino manager leaned forward in the chair on the other side of my desk, about to launch into the diatribe I’d been hearing for three days now, ever since Edie had walked out of the casino, still wearing the dress I’d bought her. The dress had been returned a day later, along with the rest of the wardrobe I’d ordered from Nina Saint Jus—but she hadn’t.

  The grinding pain in the pit of my stomach, that deep well of emptiness and guilt which had only got bigger since our showdown in the booth, grew another few centimetres.

  ‘Because there’s no point in apologising,’ I said.

  ‘Of course there is,’ Joe said. ‘You behaved like a dick. If you...’

  ‘It’s not that I won’t apologise; it’s that it would do no good,’ I clarified, feeling unbearably weary. I’d had three more sleepless nights since Edie had walked away from me. But this time, instead of hot, sweaty dreams of Edie, my nights had been filled with cold, rain-spattered nightmares—the same nightmares that had haunted me throughout my childhood. My mother’s face, sad and pleading. My childish terror as it had dawned on me that she was never coming back.

  The questions that had tormented me then had woken me in a cold sweat in the middle of the night.

  Why wasn’t I enough? Why hadn’t she loved me? Why had she abandoned me?

  But this time the answer had been all too obvious.

  Edie had abandoned me because I was a selfish coward. I’d been too scared to reach for the golden ring, had refused to trust my feelings and hers, because of something that had happened over twenty years ago. Edie had called it exactly right. I had discarded her to protect myself and this was the inevitable result. I’d destroyed what we might have had, only to realise what it was I’d lost when it was way too late to get it back.

  ‘That’s nuts!’ Joe said. ‘She needs this job—she’s got a mortgage to pay. And she’s brilliant at it. If you just tell her you’ll never behave like a dick again she...’

  ‘I can’t do that either,’ I said, the hopelessness of the situation suffocating me as I met Joe’s accusing gaze. ‘Because I can’t guarantee I won’t act like that again. I can’t be rational where she’s concerned. Seeing her with Alexi made me behave like a crazy person. Just thinking about her with another man is tying my guts in knots right now.’ Yet another cross I was going to have to bear for a long time to come.

  Joe’s eyes widened. He swore softly in Irish. ‘I had no idea you’d fallen in love with her.’ He slumped in his chair, finally realising the hopelessness of the situation too. ‘In less than a week. That’s a hell of a thing.’

  I let out a humourless laugh. ‘Precisamente.’

  How ironic that it didn’t even freak me out to admit how far gone I was over Edie.

  Less than a month ago—hell, only three days ago—I would have laughed in Joe’s face if he’d suggested such a thing to me. I would have called him a romantic fool. A gullible, naïve idiot—which is what I’d accused Edie of being.

  I hadn’t believed in love, then. Hadn’t believed it really existed. And, if it did, I had considered it a weakness, a foolish sentimental emotion to be avoided and denied until it went away.

  ‘I can’t believe she walked out of here after you told her,’ Joe said. ‘I could have sworn she felt the same way. She was gutted after you broke up with her at the Villa, even though she was doing her best to hide it, poor kid.’

  The shaft of guilt, fuelled by the memory of the tears streaming down her cheeks in the booth, combined with the hole in the pit of my stomach to make it a yawning chasm.

  I know it was only five days. I know I overreacted, probably romanticised it too much. That it was too soon. But those feelings were still real. I was falling in love with you and you knew... And still you treated me like nothing.

  ‘I didn’t tell her,’ I corrected Joe as the evidence of exactly how badly I’d treated her echoed in my head.

&
nbsp; ‘Why not?’ Joe looked dumbfounded.

  ‘Because I’d already hurt her too much.’

  What would be the point of telling her I loved her when she would never be able to forgive me? When I couldn’t even forgive myself?

  ‘That sounds like an excuse to me,’ Joe said. ‘How do you know what she’d do if you didn’t even tell her how you feel about her? Isn’t that making the choice for her?’

  Something built under my breastbone, fuelled by the conviction in Joe’s tone.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt her any more than I already have,’ I said, but my reasoning sounding weak even to me.

  Could Joe be right? Was there still a chance?

  ‘I don’t see how telling her you love her is gonna hurt her,’ he said bluntly.

  But what if she decides she doesn’t want me?

  The real reason I was reluctant to go to her, to lay my feelings bare, reverberated in my head. It was the same fear that had haunted me my whole life. What if I took this chance, risked everything, and she rejected me? Edie had the power to wound me in ways no other woman had—since my mother.

  Except Edie wasn’t my mother. She hadn’t abandoned me. Until I’d abandoned her.

  Images of her—in her second-hand ballgown playing poker to save her home, with a bruise blossoming on her cheek as she defended herself against a thug, with tears streaming down her cheeks as she stood up to me—shimmered across my consciousness.

  Edie was brave and tough, passionate and resourceful and strong. She’d taken terrible risks, defied impossible odds to protect her family and her home. Perhaps it was time I did the same... If I wanted to be worthy of her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ‘EDIE, AT LAST you’re back. Didn’t you get any of my texts?’ my sister greeted me as I dumped my bag of cleaning supplies on the hall floor.

  ‘I had a job to do, Jude,’ I said, stretching my back to work out the kinks that had set in after scrubbing what felt like an acre of parquet flooring. ‘I can’t answer my phone while I’m working. If anyone catches me, they think I’m slacking.’

  Walking out of my job at the casino had been the right thing to do. I would never get a handle on my feelings for Dante if I remained in his orbit. But having to return to scrubbing floors for a living had felt like an additional punishment I didn’t deserve.

  ‘There’s someone here to see you. He’s waiting in the library,’ Jude said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mr Allegri,’ she said, triggering the myriad emotions I’d been trying to suppress. ‘I think he wants to offer you your job back.’ She sounded so pleased and eager I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth.

  I hadn’t explained any of it to Jude. That I’d fallen in love with a man as damaged and ruthless as the men our mother had always gravitated towards.

  ‘I don’t want to see him.’ I couldn’t speak to him now, whatever he had to say to me. It would hurt too much to hash over it all again. And I couldn’t be sure that I would stick to my guns. That I had the strength to walk away a second time.

  But Jude had already grasped my arm and was tugging me towards the library. ‘Don’t be daft, Edie. You have to see him. He came all the way here in his helicopter. And he looks... I don’t know...he looks a little desperate.’

  Before I could muster the strength to tell her the truth, she had propelled me into the room, run out and slammed the door shut behind her.

  ‘Edie?’ Dante appeared out of the shadows in the room, which was lit by a single lamp in the corner.

  The sight of his tall frame and broad shoulders had a predictable effect on me. I tried to stifle it, to stay strong. I’d thought it all through. I’d fallen into the same trap as my mother by falling for this man. But if I could just stay away from him, I’d get over it eventually.

  ‘You have to leave, Dante,’ I said. ‘I can’t come back to the casino, if that’s why you’re here.’ I’d done a good job, I knew that—which was probably why he had come. He was a practical, pragmatic businessman, and I’d managed to spot three cheats at the high stakes game in as many weeks.

  ‘I’m not here about the job. I have one simple question to ask you.’ He walked towards me. ‘Do you love me? If you do, it is not too late.’

  Desperation assailed me at the intensity in his gaze. I shook my head. I wanted to tell him no. I wanted for it not to be true. How could I still be so besotted with a man who had hurt me? But I couldn’t say the words and I saw the spark of hope light his eyes.

  ‘Tell me you don’t still love me and I will go, bella,’ he said. ‘And we will never speak of this again.’

  A part of me hated him in that moment. Because I knew he would see right through the lie if I tried to deny my feelings for him. But it was so grossly unfair, that I should be bound by my emotions, tricked into giving in to him when it would make me so vulnerable again.

  Unable to speak, I turned to flee from the room.

  But he followed me, flattening his palm against the door as I tried to open it. I stood in the cage of his arms, pressing my forehead to the worn wood, feeling my body succumb to desire—as it always did when he was near me. I could smell him, the tempting scent of salt and cedar and musk assaulting my nostrils as he stood too close behind me.

  ‘You cannot say it, bella, because it is true,’ he whispered against my neck. ‘You love me and you still want me, you know you do. Let me make it better. Let me fix this.’

  I swung round and flattened my palms against his chest. He was going to kiss me. He wanted to kiss me. I could see the yearning in his face because it matched my own. But I found the strength from somewhere to hold him off.

  ‘Don’t you see it isn’t enough?’ I said. To my surprise, instead of taking advantage of my weakness, he let his arms fall and stepped back.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if I love you,’ I added, suddenly weary to the bone. ‘It doesn’t matter if I still want you. If I let you kiss me now, make love to me again, after the way you treated me, I’d simply be inviting you to do it again. I saw my mother eventually become a shadow of herself that way. Each time a new love affair started she would kid herself that this man would be different. She did everything in her power to make those men love her, but of course they didn’t because she was too compliant, too undemanding, too accommodating. She never asked for a commitment, for an equal stake in those relationships and, because she didn’t, they eventually grew bored of her, the way you grew bored of me.’

  ‘I never grew bored of you...’ he interrupted, his voice breaking now too. ‘I wanted you so much. I still do.’ His gaze roamed over me, the look of need in his eyes open and unguarded for the first time since I’d met him.

  ‘You’re just talking about sex,’ I said, despairing.

  ‘No, that isn’t it,’ he said, the fervour in his voice fierce and uninhibited. ‘I didn’t just want you in my bed. I wanted you to be a part of my life.’ He sighed. ‘Your wit, your joy, your kindness, your intelligence—everything about you turns me on, not just your delectable body.’

  He lifted his hand as if to touch me, but then dropped it when I flinched.

  ‘It’s why I couldn’t stay away from you. Why I went insane when I saw you talking to Alexi. I am in love with you too, bella. Please tell me it’s not too late to make this right.’

  His words crucified me, because I could hear the truth in them. He was serious. But I forced myself to stifle the hope that wanted to surge through me. Because it still wasn’t enough. In fact it was almost worse.

  If he had fallen for me too, how could he have hurt me the way he had? And what was going to stop him from doing it again?

  ‘How could you treat me that way if you loved me?’ I asked.

  He let out a heavy sigh and I could see the turmoil in his face, but I couldn’t let it go. I deserved an answer.

  ‘Because lov
ing you terrified me,’ he murmured.

  The clouds passed over the moon as he said it and the silvery light shone through the library window, illuminating his face which had been thrown into shadow by the lamp behind him. For the first time, I saw circles under his eyes and the tight lines around his mouth. He was exhausted, I realised.

  I wanted to cradle his cheeks in my palms, to hold him close and promise him that whatever demons were chasing him, I would scare them away... But I fisted my fingers and kept my hands by my sides. If I gave in to the urge to soothe and comfort him, I might never know why he had reacted the way he had, and then I would be the one who was scared—scared it could happen again.

  ‘What were you terrified of?’ I asked.

  His gaze flashed with emotions so real and vulnerable my heart contracted in my chest, my breath squeezing out of my lungs.

  ‘That you would leave me,’ he said, the words so low I could barely hear them above the ambient sounds of the night outside the library window, the hum of the crickets and the rustle of the forest leaves. ‘The way she did.’

  ‘Is this your mother?’ I asked.

  I saw his Adam’s apple bob. Then he nodded. ‘When you asked me about her, I lied. I said I didn’t remember her. But the truth is, when I began to have feelings for you...it all came back to me. What happened that day. And I was scared it would happen again,’ he said.

  He looked away, but I had seen the naked pain in his face. My heart lurched in my chest. He had pushed me away because he was scared of losing me. As mad as that sounded on one level, it made complete sense to me on another.

  I cupped his cheek, drew his head round to mine, unable to hold back a moment longer. I felt the muscles in his jaw bunch as I kissed him softly. His breath brushed my cheek as he sighed.

  ‘Can you tell me what happened?’ I asked.