I added a second finger, slowly moving it in and out, but not deep. She felt so tight I feared I’d hurt her. I leaned forward again and kissed her, this time running my tongue where my fingers had traveled.
Pia’s hips bucked from the bed, and she cried out for me to do it again. When I did, she suddenly stopped moving. I watched in utter fascination as she fell apart in my arms, crying out my name as she came. As quickly as she’d stilled, she reached out and took my cock in her hand. I covered hers with mine. “Not yet, my beautiful Pia. I need to be inside you.”
“Mylos.” I looked up at her. “Did you bring something? Preservativo?”
“A condom?”
“Sì.”
I lifted myself from her, stood, and walked over to where my bag sat on the floor. I reached inside and pulled out a foil packet. I ripped it open with my teeth and sheathed myself.
“Next time, I want to do that.”
I had to grab myself to keep from coming. “You’re killing me, you know that?”
She held her hand out to me, and I got back on the bed and settled my body between her still-spread legs. “I’ve wanted you like this for so long. Pia, I…”
“Shh.” She put her fingertips on my lips. “This is right, Mylos. You and I were meant to do this.”
I entered her slowly, gently, keeping my eyes glued to hers.
“More.”
I pushed a little farther in until I felt like I couldn’t go any deeper. Pia reached around and put her hands on the cheeks of my ass. “Now, Mylos,” she said before she pulled me against her at the same time she thrust her body toward mine. When she cried out, I wanted to stop, but she wouldn’t let me.
Our bodies took on a rhythm I had as little control over as I did the release I knew was only moments away. I stilled and our eyes met.
“Now, Mylos.”
As I began to move again, her fingernails dug into my flesh. My jaw flexed and I thrust once, twice, and with the third, she cried out in the same way she had when I touched her with my tongue.
I would never forget the look on her face or the way her eyes bored into mine. There were no truer words spoken than what she’d said only a few minutes ago. She and I were meant to do this. No one else, nothing, could be as perfect as this was.
With my gaze affixed to hers, I began to thrust again. Pia rocked her body against mine, and I came apart just like she had.
6
Pia
Mylos and I had three beautiful days together before I had to take him back to the airport. I tried not to cry as he was leaving, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“Shh…” he murmured. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
I nodded through my tears, praying harder than I ever had for God to keep him safe.
I watched him walk away and lingered even after I couldn’t see him anymore. Finally, after I knew his plane had taken off, I walked out of the airport and over to the parking structure where I’d left my car when he first arrived, knowing I wouldn’t be able to keep my mind on driving.
Before I pulled out of the space, my cell phone rang. I looked at the screen and saw it was someone calling from a Valentini cell phone number.
“Sì?”
“Pia, there’s been an accident. We need you to come home.” Georgio’s voice sounded strained to the point of breaking.
“What’s happened, Georgio?”
“It’s your father.”
I crossed myself. “Santa Madre di Dio.”
“He’s very badly injured.”
“Where is he?”
“Ospedale Di Montepulciano.”
“I’ll be there as quickly as I can be.”
In the last couple of years, so much had gone wrong at Valentini, I couldn’t help but wonder if God was punishing our family. For what, I didn’t know.
I rushed into the hospital; Georgio was just inside the entrance.
“This way,” he said, leading me to the elevator.
He didn’t speak and I asked no questions. Until I saw my father, I wouldn’t be able to think straight.
“Papà!” I rushed over to his bedside after Georgio escorted me to the room. Both of his legs were in casts and elevated. “Dio santo!” I shook my head as tears ran down my cheeks.
“Pia, bellissima, I told Georgio not to bother you with this.”
“Bother me? You’ve been seriously injured, Papà.”
The door opened and my mamma came in. When I rushed over and put my arms around her, she put her head on my shoulder and cried.
I heard my father groan. “It’s a couple of broken legs.”
I had to cover my mouth when I saw the look my mother gave him. If looks could kill, broken legs would be the least of his worries.
“What happened, Papà? Do you feel up to talking about it?”
“No. I am very tired, Pia. Perhaps tomorrow.” My father’s eyes weren’t on me as he spoke; he was looking at Georgio.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay? I can stay overnight.”
My father patted my cheek. “Take your mamma home, Pia. Make sure she rests.”
“We’ll be back in the morning.”
“Sì.” He nodded, his eyes drifting closed, perhaps because of the painkillers.
Georgio followed us to the elevators. “Did you see what happened?” I asked while we waited.
He shook his head but looked in my mother’s direction.
As I drove my mamma to the house, my mind raced with the other things that had gone wrong at Valentini since I first left for college.
Within weeks of me moving into the dorms in Siena, there was a malfunction in the room that held the stainless tanks used to ferment the white wines. We lost an entire year’s worth of juice when the cooling system went down for an indeterminate amount of time. That was the part that bothered me the most. People were in and out of the wine rooms all the time. How could it be that no one noticed? Perhaps if they had, we could have corrected the problem before the juice went bad.
Then there was an accident involving our head winemaker when the ventilation system in one of the fermentation rooms stopped working, much in the same way the cooling system had. Given the amount of carbon dioxide released during fermentation, adequate ventilation was essential to guard against the risk of CO2 poisoning.
Fortunately, one of the workers had gone looking for him and found him passed out. If he hadn’t gotten the man outside when he did, he might’ve died. Still, he’d been hospitalized for several weeks. After he was released, he’d informed my father he was still too weak to return to work.
The third and final emergency, before my father’s accident, involved a break-in where several thousand dollars’ worth of wine were stolen. As with the other equipment malfunctions, the security system had failed, allowing the thieves access to the storage rooms and leaving us with no video surveillance to determine who they were.
“Pia, what is on your mind?” asked my mamma, who I thought had fallen asleep.
“I’m worried about Papà.”
“Sì. As am I.”
“Do you know what happened, Mamma?”
She nodded with hooded eyes. “He was run over by a forklift.”
My head snapped in her direction. “What? Are you serious?” I looked back at the road, gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles were white. “He could have died.”
“But he didn’t.”
“How can you be so calm? So many things have gone wrong at Valentini.”
She shrugged. “It’s the nature of the business. There are accidents. Things are stolen. The difference is, these things seem to have happened all at once.”
“You aren’t suspicious about Papà’s accident?” I was incredulous. Had someone given her a sedative?
“I didn’t say that.”
“Explain what you meant, then.”
“I’m suspicious of all of it, my dear daughter. As I said, it’s the nature of the business that someone would want to drive us out of i
t.”
The next day, when my mamma and I went to the hospital, the doctors told us the prognosis for my father wasn’t good. Given his age and the severity of his injuries, they were doubtful he’d recover enough to regain the use of his legs.
Even then, my mamma didn’t break down. It was her strength that made me determined not to fall apart either. My papà was a proud man who needed us to be brave so he could be too.
“You will return to university,” my mother said, startling me.
“Now is not the time for us to worry about that, Mamma.”
She shook her head emphatically. “You will return.”
“You and Papà need me now.”
“What your father needs is to know you will be able to take over the winery operations. You cannot do so without finishing your education.”
“Mamma, perhaps it would be best if we hired someone to take over permanently.”
She held up her hand. “No. You’ll finish school, and then you’ll come back and run Valentini for your father.”
“Matteo could—”
“No,” she said a second time.
Matteo Casavetti was the second oldest son of my father’s sister. His father had inherited his family’s estate and winery in the same way most families did—from his father. When he died, the estate would be passed down to Antonio, Matteo’s older brother.
When I was much younger, I remember hearing my parents talk about the future of Valentini. My father always said it would make the most sense for the estate to eventually be passed down to Matteo.
“Mamma, when you and Papà used to talk about Matteo one day inheriting the estate and winery, you said something about your grandmother.” I remembered more of what she said, only because it equally thrilled and frightened me. Her words were something like, “It is Pia’s birthright, and should you suggest otherwise, the curse of Estancia Valentini will be carried by future generations until the end of time.” Perhaps, in my memory, it was far more dramatic than it had actually been.
“Come with me.” My mother led me out of the hospital and into the nearby gardens. “It was actually my sixth great-grandmother,” she said as we sat side by side on the stone bench. “Her father was the Count of Valentini. When he died, Estancia was his only heir.”
“Go on.”
“She was…a force of nature, and when someone tried to steal her property from her, she would not stand for it. You know the Valentinis descended from the female line of the Medicis, yes?”
I shook my head. No. I’d had no idea.
“At the time, Italy was divided. The Habsburgs of Austria controlled one portion; the House of Savoy, most of the other. Italy was very poor; the Valentinis, on the other hand, were not.”
I rubbed my temples, trying to figure out where in the world my mother was going with this story.
“Legend is, in exchange for giving the House of Savoy half of the family fortune, Estancia became the Countess of Valentini and remained such even after she married for the second time.”
“What about the curse, Mamma?”
“Sì. Estancia did not marry wisely the first time around. Her husband attempted to take control of the estate to ensure it was passed down to his oldest son from another marriage, rather than the daughter Estancia bore him.” My mamma raised a brow. “Her husband met a gruesome demise shortly after she discovered his treachery. It is said she made a public prophecy, stating that anyone who attempted to alter the lineage of the rightful heir by skipping over the oldest child—male or female—would be met with a similar fate.”
“That is known as the curse of Estancia Valentini?”
My mamma nodded her head slowly and looked at me with wide eyes.
“What happened to the other half of the family fortune?” It had to have been astronomical wealth if half of it bailed out the finances of an entire country.
“No one knows.”
“You don’t think Papà’s accident…”
She shook her head and then patted my hand and winked. “He saw the error of his ways many years ago, and there was never talk of Matteo inheriting again.”
Despite my mamma’s protests, I didn’t return to university that semester. Instead, I promised I would the next.
My father’s recovery was slow and painful, both for him and for us. He was terribly depressed to the point where he had little interest in anything. Each morning, my mother and I would get him into his wheelchair and take him out to the terrazza so he could look out over the vineyards. Nonna Bella would make his favorite pastries for breakfast, but more often than not, he said he had no appetite. I was terribly worried about him, as was my mamma.
The police investigated my father’s accident, and like with the thefts, they didn’t come up with a theory as to what had happened or any suspects.
Without his oversight, wine sales were faltering. I was in a state of constant worry over him, as well as the future of Valentini. While I didn’t talk to anyone about it, I was also worried about Mylos.
There were reports of deaths of coalition soldiers every week. If it weren’t for my conversations with Lily, in which she assured me they’d hear immediately if anything happened to him, I was sure I’d lose my mind.
I’d always had a hard time keeping weight on, even when I was a little girl, but it got worse. Since Mylos and I were last together, I’d lost so much weight, my clothes were baggy.
“I’ve been looking for you,” said my mamma, coming into the winery office and finding me staring blankly out the window. I turned my chair to face her. “Your papà made a decision.”
“Okay.”
“He’s hired Paolo Viticcio to run the winery while you finish college.”
I groaned. “Paolo?”
“Sì,” she said, patting my hand.
I still hadn’t forgiven him for telling Mylos he was my fiancé. When I’d confronted him about it, he said it was all harmless fun. Something had stopped me that day from telling him how much Mylos meant to me, as if doing so might expose him to some other form of “harmless fun,” on Paolo’s part.
“Why him, Mamma? Why not Matteo?”
“Your father trusts him, Pia. His family’s winery is bigger and more successful than Valentini. He can help us grow, and then when you come back, maybe you and he—”
I shook my head. “I will not marry Paolo. You and Papà need to accept that and stop pushing us together.”
“We’ll see.” She stood and walked out. A few minutes later, Lucia walked in.
“What can I do for you?”
Lucia shook her head and covered my hand with hers. “The question is, what can we do for you?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re all worried about you, Pia. You can’t keep this up. You need help.”
“We can’t afford—”
“I’m not suggesting you hire someone, Pia. There are many here on the estate, in Val d’Orcia, even in your own family, who would be willing to lend support if you’d only let them.”
“I can’t take advantage—”
“Your family has been more than generous to mine for generations. I’m not the only person who feels that way. Most everyone who works here does.”
“I appreciate you saying that, but…”
“I’ve done something you might not like, but I want you to hear me out before you argue with me.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “What did you do, Lucia?”
“I called Matteo.”
“My cousin Matteo?” My eyebrows shot up.
She nodded. “He’ll be here this afternoon. He can help run the winery so you can go back to Siena.”
“Oh dear.”
“What?”
“My mamma just told me my father hired Paolo Viticcio to do the same thing.”
“Paolo?” She made a face.
“That was my reaction.”
“Sorry, Pia, no offense. I know you and Paolo are—”
“We’re n
othing. My parents are unwilling to listen when I tell them I’ll never marry him.”
“If things don’t work out, please consider talking with Matteo. He’s a good man, Pia.”
“You know Matteo cannot inherit Valentini, right?”
She laughed. “You need sleep, my friend. No one is suggesting he inherit. He only wants to support you.”
“But, what would be in it for him? We can’t afford to hire another person to help run the winery.”
“Pia, listen to yourself. Do you think so little of the rest of us that you would assume the only reason we would help you is if there were something ‘in it for us’?”
“That isn’t what I meant.” Or maybe it was. Was I being as prideful as my father?
“Matteo would do it out of the goodness of his heart.”
For the first time since she mentioned his name, I looked into Lucia’s eyes. How did she know what kind of man Matteo was? When she smiled and her cheeks turned pink, I had my answer.
“Are you and my cousin together?”
She half-shrugged. “We’re trying to be. If both of us were working here, we’d be able to spend more time together. You know, when we aren’t working.”
I pressed my fingers to my temples, feeling a little like I was losing my grasp on reality. “Lucia, forgive me for asking this, but do you work here?”
She laughed. “Work is a term that can mean many things. While I’m not a Valentini employee, I have been assisting my mother and Nonna Bella.”
I gasped. “Why didn’t you say anything? You can’t just ‘assist.’ We need to pay you.”
“Have you heard a word I’ve said to you?”
“Yes…no…I don’t know.”
Her cell phone vibrated, and she looked at the screen. “Matteo’s here.” She stood to leave, and I put my hand on her arm.
“Please tell him how sorry I am.”
“He isn’t going to turn around and leave, Pia. You can talk to him yourself.”
“Of course.”
“How do you think Georgio is going to react to Paolo being here?”
Grinded (The Invincibles Book 3) Page 5