by Lynne Graham
She tilted her chin up, dislodging his fingers from her skin. “Your assistant should keep her opinions to herself.”
This time, he came closer, caging her against the car. Fading sunlight caressed the planes of his face, much like she wanted to. “You’re pushing yourself too hard. I don’t need Anna to point that out to me.”
“This is the pace of my life, V. I want to clear out my calendar and be available for any situation with Charlie.”
“You can’t run away from your grief, cara. Nor can you wrap up six months’ worth of work in two. You need to take better—”
“I’ve been taking care of myself for as long as I can remember. No one else did it for me.”
He raised his palms in surrender. “I’m showing concern, bella. Not condescension.”
The fight went out of her. It wasn’t as if the latest designer she was modeling for hadn’t muttered about Alex’s dress for his show needing to be altered because she’d lost weight. She sighed. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“Missing me in bed?”
“It’s not my fault you refuse to stay here at the villa. Neither Leo nor Massimo have any objection to it. You can get to know your br—” he went from warmth to frost in a matter of seconds and Alex took a long breath “—the men you hate, a little better.”
A smile broke the stiffness of his upper lip. “You really think you’re very clever, si?”
“I’ve no idea what you mean.”
“You think putting me under the same roof as Massimo and Leonardo will change my mind?”
“I told you… I have easy access to everything from the villa. I have my design room set up the way I need. Why can’t you just move into the villa? Or are you afraid of living under the same room as the men you’ve loathed for most of your life in case you discover you actually like them?
“As for missing you in bed—” she licked her lips and his gaze got hotter, hungrier “—did you see the ad I did for that sex toy company?”
He grunted and flushed slightly. And it was her turn to laugh.
It wasn’t easy to pose as a smitten couple to the world, day in, day out.
Charity galas and fundraisers, cocktail parties, being near each other, the intimate looks and touches, the rush of being near him, of feeling the lean length of him at her back and then ending the evenings abruptly, and not in the pleasurable way they could, was taking a toll on her.
It wasn’t so much the sex that Alex wanted—which she absolutely did—but the connection that had come with it. Before and after. The intense high of being seen by a person who really mattered to her. Of being wanted for who she was.
She desperately wanted to find that connection again with him—especially amidst the rubble of their relationship right now. She was terrified that Greta might be right—it had been unbelievably good sex and nothing more.
Even when they’d been hidden away from the world, it had been she who’d done the chasing. It had been she who’d been desperate to be with him, she who’d wanted their relationship to deepen.
For a man who rarely betrayed his emotions, he had been a revelation in bed. The more she gave, the more he’d demanded of her. Until she’d given him all she had—her heart and soul. Believed that he’d needed her just as she’d needed him.
For all his renewed commitment to their marriage, she wondered at his self-control. Thought again about the original reason he’d married her.
Had he thought she’d be so much putty in his hands as to betray her family? Or had she simply been something to steal away from Greta?
But now that she was getting to know him a little more, now that she understood what drove his actions, that didn’t fit with the other pieces of the puzzle.
For all the incredible arrogance of the man, there was no way he could have thought she’d be an asset to him in any way. Then why?
“Si. I saw the magazine spread you were kind enough to send me. You nailed the sexy, confident, contemporary woman perfectly.”
“Didn’t I?” Alex said, a tingly thrill electrifying her all over.
It had been the most fun she’d had in a while. And of course, sending the spread to Vincenzo—her naked limbs peeking out from under a cloud of white sheets with the pink vibrator lying next to her, had been the most fun part of it all. “Anyway, they sent me one as a complimentary gift. Technology is so marvelous, isn’t it? It was brilliantly built—steel cloaked in velvet.”
“Is there a point to this story?” His jaw tight, the words were gritted out.
“You said I needed stress relief, remember? So the other night, I couldn’t sleep and there it was, in its cute pink package. I unpacked it and got back into bed and…”
“And?” he growled as she paused.
“This was my first time using one, you see and—”
In the blink of a breath, he folded his body against hers, one firm hand pulling her arms above her. His breath feathered over her cheeks, his nose rubbing against the tender skin on the inside of one bicep. “You play dirty, cara.” He whispered the words against the soft flesh of her arm, just above the elbow. His other hand landed unerringly on the narrow strip of skin her outfit bared. Heat from his fingers seared her. “Am I allowed to? Am I allowed to use all the…weapons at my disposal?”
She leaned into his chest, the sides of her breasts pressed against his hard chest. “You already play dirty, V. You use everything you do with me for your PR. Nothing is real anymore.”
“What—?”
She meant to back off and miscalculated, their legs tangling instead. Her hip hit the rock-hard slab of his abdomen, her thigh rubbing against his groin. His reaction was instant.
“Oh…” Alex whispered, incapable of rational thought. Her mouth was dry. Punch-drunk on need as she settled her body—chest to thighs, against him.
His fingers dug into her hips as he held her like that, his erection rocking into the notch of her sex. “You think I don’t miss you in my bed? You think I was not driven to mindless lust when I saw the magazine spread? You think I didn’t take myself in my hand while thinking of you like some rabid fan even though you already belong to me?”
Awareness was a cage around them, the slip and slide of their bodies, the settling of his hard muscles and her softer ones into a familiar groove, begging for that instinctive rhythm to begin…
Hands tight around her, he rocked his hips into her. Their combined moans rent the quiet evening air.
Alex shivered, her skin too tight to contain her. “Please, V…”
“Please what, bella?” He licked the sensitive skin at the crook of her neck. And she rubbed her thighs together, desperate for friction there. “Shall I make you climax here, against the car in full view of the villa? Do I win this round then?”
Her own fingers pulling at his hair, Alex buried her face in his throat. “Sometimes, I wish I had never met you on that island. I wish…”
His fingers gentled on her back, as if she hadn’t just damned their entire relationship. “I would love to give you what you want. What both of us want. But whom shall you hate more tomorrow morning? Me or yourself?”
Alex drew air in as if her lungs were starved. He was right. This was a dangerous game she was playing. One she might very well lose. “Let me go,” she whispered, because it wasn’t in her to walk away from him.
He released her slowly, a perfect gentleman. Not betraying by the flicker of an eyelid that he had indeed won this round.
* * *
The car pulled away from the villa. For long, silent minutes, Alex lost herself in the spectacular views of the high alpine peaks and the shimmering lake.
His long fingers drew her attention to the steering wheel. The simple but expensive gold band she’d purchased at an exclusive jewelry shop in Bali glinted in the darkness of the interior.
She felt his
assessing gaze on her and looked away.
“Do you want to start over and tell me what has you in such a mood?”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. As usual, I lost my head when I saw you. Looking like a morsel I wanted to inhale. You were already angry about something.”
His perceptiveness didn’t surprise her. “This was my only free evening in two weeks. I don’t appreciate your personal assistant adding events to my calendar without consulting me first,” she said when she finally had a measure of composure. “I need more than—‘Important Dinner with Mr. Cavalli—Casual Dress’ a few hours before I’m supposed to show up.”
“It’s easier for Anna to coordinate our mad schedules than constantly talking to your assistant.”
Alex didn’t miss his obvious affection for the paragon Anna.
The quaint village of Bellagio welcomed them with its narrow, cobblestoned streets and charming alleyways, the Aventador roaring through. “Who’s this VIP we’re meeting anyway? Another backstabbing board member of BFI who wants more of its profits? Another man who has some kind of vendetta against Leo and Massimo?”
“We’re meeting an old friend of mine. Antonio is…he’s very dear to me. And despite my many warnings, he and some other friends have arranged a surprise party for us in his house, to celebrate our marriage. I would appreciate it if you can put aside our differences for a few hours and treat him with the respect he deserves.”
His gruff request took Alex by surprise. “I’ll act as if you were my sun and moon. As if you were the answer to my every romantic fantasy.”
“Alessandra, this is important to me.” His sigh rattled in the silence. “I wanted to give both Antonio and you a chance to meet outside of what will definitely become a media circus once I take over BFI. I don’t want us talking about how you abandoned our marriage on our honeymoon or how you only returned to make a deal with me for your brother’s sake. Antonio’s a very traditional man.”
“Shall we also not talk about how you kept your biggest ambition a secret from me? And how—”
“Antonio knows my background. My goal all these years. All the things I’ve done.”
All the things he’d done…
Suddenly, Alex felt as if she was being given a key to unlock this man. To understand him better. To find some way to stop him. To figure out if her first instinct about their marriage had been right, that there was something to salvage from this mess.
Vincenzo stopped the car near the lakefront. A row of pretty, colorful houses opened up the narrow winding street. When Alex reached for the door, he swung an arm across her torso toward the handle, locking her in place. The corded strength of his forearm pressed between her breasts, sending pulses of awareness jerking through her.
The sun had set during their drive and the interior of the car was faintly lit.
“We have been on display for three whole weeks now, ever since the news broke. I thought a quiet night would do us some good. There’s no pressure to be in the spotlight tonight.”
“I would like advance notice about these things. Especially if I’m to appear in good humor.”
“I asked you for one evening, Alessandra, for an important thing.”
“It would be nice if things that were important to me were valued just as equally by you.”
“Cristo! What the hell’s bothering you?”
“There are certain things I can’t forgive, Vincenzo. I just can’t.”
“Yes, cara. And we’re both constantly testing those certain limits, aren’t we?”
“Everything you do with me is for the media—I understand that. Your damned PR team used that kiss at the nightclub to its full extent. To put a romantic spin on the whole thing. Used it to cloud the very real threat you pose to Leo and Massimo.”
“This whole charade was your plan. Do you think that I forget for one moment that you came back to me for your own damned reasons, however noble they are? That not for a single hour will you forget your ties to that blasted family? You’re the one who wanted to show the world that you’re settling down into a life of domesticity and stability, bella.”
“Yes. And it’s enough that we’re parading ourselves in front of this media circus. That we pretend as if we can’t keep our hands off each other. But some things are not for public consumption. Some things are not…”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“The picture of our wedding. The only one we have. The one I asked that passing local to click. Neither your PR team nor your wonderful assistant asked me for permission before they released that picture to the press.”
His disbelief showed in the jerk of his head. “Alessandra—”
“You entered this marriage for God knows what reasons of your own. I have tried to put those behind me. I’ve convinced myself that what I want doesn’t matter anymore. That this is all for Charlie. I have tucked away my foolish hopes.
“But that picture…it’s precious to me. That moment was real, at least it was to me. In fact, it was the most real moment of my life, and you used it to manipulate the world.
“You stole it from me.”
* * *
“You stole it from me.”
Alessandra’s words echoed inside Vincenzo’s head as he made the rounds on the beautiful, moonlit terrace of Antonio’s small house and greeted acquaintances and friends he hadn’t seen in a long time. Even in the dark of the car’s interior, he’d seen the glint of hurt in those beautiful eyes. The catch in her words.
Reminding him that beneath the fiery woman who’d strutted so confidently across the runway, beneath the woman that challenged him at every step, beneath the mantle of responsibility she’d put on for her half brother, his wife was vulnerable.
To him, his actions, his words.
And that very quality he’d wanted to see in her sat uncomfortably in his chest. Weighting him down.
It made him want to banish the hurt from her eyes. Made him want to protect her from anything in the world that could cause her pain. Including him.
Dio santo! If that wasn’t messed up, he didn’t know what was.
He turned to look at the tall, elegant figure of his wife, standing amidst a group of people, a soft smile playing around her lips. The same lips that had whispered such provocative words in his ear, pushing him to the edge of his control.
She was tallest of the group, and the most beautiful, by a wide margin. And yet when one of the teenagers Vincenzo had known for a while, Marco, approached her and said something, she nodded and laughed. Boxing, they were talking about boxing, he knew.
She handed off her wineglass to someone else, got into position with an animated smile and showed Marco her mean right hook. The toned curve of her arm, the flash of thigh as she pulled the inner skirt up to stretch her legs into a fighting stance, the utter joy in her eyes as she ducked Marco’s left fist… She looked incredibly sexy.
He could see the people he worked with reassess their opinion of her. Could sense their shock as they realized there was so much more to Alessandra than her looks.
“She’s not what I expected from you,” Antonio said, handing Vincenzo a glass of the bubbly champagne that they had been toasted with earlier.
Vincenzo looked at the man who had given him a sense of purpose when he’d been lost. Not just moral support. Antonio had provided seed money when he’d been starting out. He’d helped Vincenzo go from strength to strength. He owed everything he had to the older man. But… Some things, Vincenzo considered private. Off-limits. Even to Antonio.
It was the most real moment of my life.
Suddenly, he understood what Alessandra meant by that, and regret filled him.
He took a sip of his champagne. Laughter and shouts surrounded him as Alessandra’s fist gently connected with another youth’s angular chin. “What did you
expect?”
Antonio shrugged, his weathered face splitting into a smile that didn’t really reach his eyes. “An international supermodel, Vincenzo! Parties, and designer dresses and the high life…all sparkle and no substance.”
Vincenzo didn’t like hearing Alessandra reduced to being some one-dimensional bimbo. “Alessandra’s more than just a supermodel. Give her a chance, Antonio.”
“All of us fall victim to stereotyping, si?” The older man laughed at his own joke. “Hearing that you married is shocking in itself. You never even hinted at wanting to settle down in all these years.”
“No, it was never on my mind.”
“If I had known, I might have suggested a better alternative,” Antonio said, his gray head nodding in another direction. Vincenzo turned and saw his assistant Anna, standing stiffly to one side, a frosty smile fixed in place. What the hell did Antonio mean by that? “You need a strong, steady woman who can stand by you like a rock, Vincenzo. Who knows her place in your life. Not this…frothy creature from some fantasyland.”
“She’s my wife, Antonio. And I never gave Anna the idea that she meant anything more to me.”
“After all, you’re a man too,” Antonio added with a shrug. His gaze shifted back to Alessandra, who was now talking to Anna. “Ah…so the woman is as irresistible as she looks, then, si?”
Vincenzo shrugged. Even with Antonio, he didn’t want to admit to the complete truth.
Which was that he had completely lost his mind over Alessandra. Continued to, in fact. Her loyalty to the Brunettis amazed him. Her determination to do right by her half brother resonated deep inside him. Her vulnerability when it came to himself… Shook him. At a level he hadn’t thought possible.
“Her Brunetti connection is an unnecessary headache you don’t need right now. A distraction from your true purpose,” the older man insisted.
“It is a headache. She—” Vincenzo swallowed the word hates “—does not like what I intend to do to them. In fact, she’s waging a quiet campaign to shift me from my plans, I believe.”
The warm glint disappeared from Antonio’s dark eyes. “And? Do you think she will succeed?”