by Dani Collins
He drove to Milan, determined to be his old self and put in a long day—despite the fact he would ensure the first of the banns were posted. After that, news of his engagement would begin making headlines across the usual gossip sites, drawing out the paparazzi.
It was a dirty move, putting that kind of pressure on her. It was exactly the sort of ruthless tactic he was known for, so he wasn’t sure why it ruffled his conscience. This was who he was.
He was a cutthroat corporate raider completely lacking in empathy or compassion. That was why he was browsing for toys himself, wandering store aisles, picking up dolls that annoyed him because they were so sexualized. He gathered crafts instead, and puzzles, and building blocks, and a child-safe baby drill with plastic pieces that would hurt like hell to step on, but gender expectations could go to hell. Aurelia could be whoever she wanted to be.
He never gave gifts, not thoughtful ones, only corporate nonsense. As for receiving them, aside from the warehouses of free samples that arrived daily, with pleas for him to feature them in one of his many magazines, he had only received one real gift in his lifetime—and he’d basically stolen it. Kiara’s sketch.
The blank space on his bedroom wall was only obvious to him, but it made him uneasy each time he looked for the sketch and didn’t see it. It was similar to looking for the laughing woman who’d drawn it and finding only the subdued, unreadable expression on Kiara’s beautiful face.
Maybe he was being too hard on her, he thought as he drove home—early, hoping to catch her while Aurelia was down for her afternoon nap. Maybe Kiara was right. Maybe he did have to forgive her for colluding with his father. Maybe then she wouldn’t be so apprehensive about marrying him.
Then he heard that she’d entertained a visitor while he’d been out. The identity of that visitor was like blood in the water to a shark.
* * *
Kiara was still shaken, still questioning whether she’d made the right choice.
She had. For Aurelia. She knew that much. But this situation was testing her more severely than anything else in her life. Her own needs were being pitted against her daughter’s, and Kiara still wasn’t sure whether she was winning, losing or falling for a con.
Because she was still here in Italy, not on a plane back to Greece and, after that conversation with Evelina, she had pretty much thrown away her chance to make an escape.
She didn’t even like confrontation, let alone playing hardball with a pro. Her hands were still shaking as she finally set up her easel.
These trembles were promising a very poor result when she got a brush in her hand, but she was fixated now. If she could just paint something—not even with serious intent, more like journaling—she would find her equilibrium and be okay. She would be able to face this new life she had accidentally embarked upon.
“You met with my mother today?”
The growl of Val’s voice was so unexpected and lethal, she almost knocked over her easel.
“You’re home,” she said dumbly, whirling to the open door.
“Surprised?” He strode in, flicking the sliding door closed behind him with a thud that held such aggression she frowned. “Oh, don’t even think of locking me out of your studio.”
Her heart was skinned and overworked from all the conflicts and hard conversations and massive changes she’d suffered since the doctor had pronounced Niko “gone.” Now it flip-flopped and shrank and quavered at the way he loomed over her.
This was the man she had backed herself into marrying?
“I didn’t know what to do except offer her tea,” she said stiffly, moving to find a prepared canvas.
“Tea,” he scoffed.
“Was I supposed to slam the door in her face?”
“Yes.”
“I wish I had,” she blurted, managing to set the canvas and pry her tense fingers off it without throwing it across the room. “It wasn’t exactly a ‘welcome to the family’ visit.” More like a viper popping out of a harmless-looking hatbox.
“Did she see Aurelia?” His tone crackled with danger.
“No.” Kiara crossed her arms defensively, but shot her shoulders back, willing to die on the hill of making that decision, not that Evelina had asked to meet her granddaughter.
A fraction of Val’s enmity receded, but he still glowered with accusation. “What did you two cook up, then? Because she’s not here. That means she got what she wanted. Don’t even try to tell me you’re leaving,” he warned.
Kiara’s stomach was still full of gravel over the entire thing, but now her blood hit full boil at the way he was treating her like she was some sort of criminal. Like she’d orchestrated the meeting. She’d been the victim. Ambushed!
“She wanted to destroy my show.” Her voice cracked as she relived hearing that threat. Her whole body was plunged back into the fight or flight that had gripped her while she had talked herself out of a hostage situation.
“You know I will undo any damage she attempts,” Val said on a growl.
“No, I don’t know that!” she cried on a choke of humorless laughter. “Every time I turn around, you’re looking for a new way to punish me for relying on your father. Losing my show would be the ultimate revenge and probably make you very happy. So no, Val. I fixed it myself. Thanks anyway.”
His head went back, and he narrowed his eyes. “How?”
“I bought her off with Niko’s money, of course! I told her you didn’t want me to touch my living allowance, but I thought it should be invested for Aurelia’s future. I said that if she found a suitable property that would appreciate over time, I would direct those funds into purchasing a home for her and she could have the use of it for her lifetime.”
His eyebrows climbed into his hairline.
“Then I told her that if our marriage broke down for any reason, like an interfering mother-in-law, I’d have to evict her so Aurelia and I could use it, so she had better think long and hard in the future about which battles are important to her.” Her throat was still scorched by all the adrenaline that had coursed through her. It was still there, searing her limbs and making her heart run so fast she was exhausted.
Val swore. Snorted and spoke with what sounded like reluctant admiration. “You’re a quick study. Well-done.”
She had been fighting for her very existence, but okay. Sure. Scoff away.
She turned to find her smock.
* * *
Val was still bristling that his mother had had the gall to show up uninvited and that Kiara had let her in. Even more infuriating was the fact she had caught Kiara alone. That told him he had a mole in his home. Heads would roll over that, but he wasn’t finished with Kiara.
Losing my show would be the ultimate revenge.
He preferred to be angry with her. It was easier to hold her at a distance when he had that resentment between them, but surely she knew he would shield her against real harm of any kind? If she didn’t believe that, it made her still being here a profound statement, given the vile threat his mother had used to try running her off.
That surprising show of loyalty sawed holes in his defenses against her.
“Come here,” he coaxed, wanting the feel of her to erase the gnawing ache in his chest.
“I thought I’d finally get some painting in.” The enticing fit of her cutoff jeans over her round bottom and shapely thighs disappeared as she shrugged into what looked like an old lab coat bedecked in years of paint smears. She didn’t look at him as she began to button it.
He crossed to still her hands.
“Come on, bella. Let’s kiss and make up. I’ll make it worth your while,” he coaxed, stroking his thumbs across the backs of her hands, smiling at the way they trembled.
“Are we fighting? I thought this was our normal, where you blame me for your parents’ actions and I put your daughter’s needs ahead of my own.” Sh
e pulled her hands from his and opened the buttons she’d closed, voice quavering as she continued. “But if you want to have sex, by all means, let’s have sex. Why did I even engage in hand-to-hand combat with your mother if not to keep having sex with you?”
An anvil hit the pit of his gut. “If you don’t want to have sex—”
“I always want to have sex!” she cried, throwing down her coat. “But I need to paint, Val. I haven’t held a brush since before Niko died and it’s killing me!”
“You’re in here every day.” Usually after Aurelia had gone to bed, before they sat down for their own dinner. “What have you been doing?” He glanced around at the cleared space where furniture had been removed, the stacks of blank canvases against the wall and the shelf where tins and trays of brushes and other supplies were arranged.
“Everything but painting,” she said in a voice that was still strident. Her arms flailed helplessly. “I’ve been unpacking and organizing. Scrambling out sketches of how my paintings should be displayed at the show, answering emails about it. Do you know I had to write descriptions for each one? And that I have revisions? My artist’s statement wasn’t good enough, so I have to rewrite that. I paint because I don’t know how to express myself in words.”
She was shaking, eyes brimming with fresh tears.
“Kiara,” he said soothingly.
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down,” she warned with a raised finger. “This is not a tantrum. This is a breakdown.” Her mouth was wobbling, and she used the inside of her wrist to wipe the tears off her cheeks. “I used to paint when Aurelia slept, but now it’s all you. Sex and this.” She circled her palm through the air. “The blame. The contempt for the choices I’ve made. The demand that I completely change my life while the one thing I want gets further away.”
She clutched her chest as she sucked in a breath that shuddered. Her wild gaze swung around the room as though she didn’t know where she was.
“If this is what you want, if your punishment is to push me to the point of breaking, you’re there, Val. I am going to snap in half if I can’t paint. Then I won’t be me anymore. I’ll be like you and your mother. A damaged human being incapable of love. Sorry, Aurelia, but Mummy is one more casualty of Niko’s war.”
Her last words struck like a sledgehammer, reverberating through him.
He did want to tell her to calm down. He wanted to take her by the arms and remind her he was building her a studio, wasn’t he? Of course he wanted her to paint. He wasn’t a damaged human being. He was matured by experience to an enlightened one.
“Why are you still dressed?” she added caustically, lashes damp. “Work your magic. Make me forget I ever wanted this,” she choked.
He consciously fought the jerky reflex trying to lift his arms to reach for her. Everything in him wanted to coil his arms around her and hold her tight until her shaking stopped. To kiss away those tears that tracked down her face. Until this grim darkness that had taken hold of her eased back into the warm light he hadn’t appreciated until it had been eclipsed.
He wanted to blame his mother for this. A visit with her left anyone full of poison and spewing venom, but this wasn’t all Evelina. This was him trying so hard to control what was happening between them, he was crushing the spirit out of Kiara.
He knew what he had to do, and it went against everything in him. He never walked away from a fight.
But if he didn’t leave her now, he would make love to her until she was too weak to lift a finger.
And she wouldn’t forgive him for it. He knew that in his soul. Something would be damaged between them that would never be repaired.
“I’ll eat with Aurelia and put her to bed this evening. Stay in here as long as you like.”
Walking out and closing the door on her stunned expression was the hardest thing he’d done in a long, long while. The angry bastard in him balked, told him to get back in there and assert his will.
But something else flickered inside him, an ember of heat he couldn’t name, it was so old and forgotten. Hope? Caring? It retained some heat, whatever it was. Just enough to ease the frigid cold that encased his heart.
* * *
It was after midnight when Kiara slid into bed.
She was exhausted, but alert. Buzzing with excitement. Revived.
She had steeped herself in the scent of her linen canvas and the wood stretchers and the nutty smell of the oil paints. She had danced her brush into color, conducted a symphony, tapped it into solvent, then swirled and done it again. She had dazzled herself with colors and lost herself in a world where hurtful people couldn’t touch her. Where her emotions ran free, rather than trying to fit into ever-shrinking boxes.
She couldn’t recall when she’d last painted like that, in a flurry from blank canvas to completion. Not that the finished product was anything worth showing off, but it would forever be a favorite for its claiming of this new world and thus the reclaiming of herself.
And now she was overwhelmed with gratitude toward Val for giving her that. Each time she had come up for air and thought of Aurelia, she had remembered she was with her father. Leaving her in his care was different than leaving her to the nannies. Giving Val and Aurelia time to bond was as important as the time she spent alone with their daughter.
He had even sent over a tray of finger foods that she’d picked at while she painted.
Was he awake? She slithered closer, heart off center as she remembered her eruption of fury. He could have dismissed her or tried to make her talk out her frustrations and hurts and anxiety, but he hadn’t. He’d let her work through it in her own way. In the way that made sense to her.
She found warm naked skin. His abdomen tightened as she smoothed her hand across the firm muscles and the light trail of hair. His breath hissed.
He didn’t say anything, though, and neither did she. She only stretched herself alongside him with a sigh of homecoming. She was as naked as he was, her nightgown never lasting long, but tonight she was the instigator. She brushed her mouth across his once as she pressed over him, then skated her parted lips down his throat and across his shoulders.
His strong hands clasped her and pulled her fully onto him. His legs parted for hers and she lifted slightly to allow his thickening flesh room to grow against her stomach. She used her whole body to caress him, loving the feel of his strength, the scent on his skin, the possessive, inciting roam of his hands over her back and butt and the sides of her breasts.
Desire ran like honey in her and she poured it over him. Poured herself over him along with all the uplifting, invigorating energy she had soaked up while creating.
Down, down she went, dislodging the sheet as she found the steely shape that thrilled her. Here was the essence of him, salty and musky and fierce. She anointed and played her tongue across his erotic shape, took him into her mouth and pulled, bobbing her head in the rhythm she knew he liked.
He snarled and spread his legs, tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling her away when he was about to lose control. Dragging her up, he kissed her and rolled her beneath his weight, thrust his straining flesh into her.
They groaned and gasped and hissed and writhed. It was so good she thought she might die, but it was different. He was with her in this place where reality ceased to exist. This was how it had been that night in Venice—two lost souls finding one another in the dark and celebrating the end to solitude.
She closed her ankles behind his back, and his fingers bit so hard into her bottom, he would leave bruises on her cheeks. She didn’t care. She only needed him deeper. Within her. Part of her, the way she was becoming a part of him.
Culmination hit them at the same time, anguish and ecstasy, loss and discovery. An ending, but also a beginning.
* * *
Val held her all night, a fact Kiara only became aware of when he carefully extricated from her as mor
ning light sliced through the blinds.
She blinked in confusion as he walked out of the closet seconds after he’d walked in, still naked, but with something in his hands. It was the size of a sofa cushion, but flat and shiny. He walked across to hang it on the wall, his movements sure in the half light.
She rolled over to watch, puzzled. There was no need for a hook to be screwed into the wall. He was replacing something.
She came up on an elbow, then sat up and blinked harder. She pinched her arm to ensure she wasn’t dreaming.
“Don’t say a word,” he said quietly, touching a corner to straighten it. “Not one word.”
She had to bite her lips because how? Why?
She stared at it like an old friend, one that filled her with a rush of nostalgic joy. She was staring so hard at it, lost in the memory of that night, she didn’t realize Val had moved until he was sitting beside her on the bed, showing her a velvet box.
“I was supposed to do this over dinner last night.”
Oh, God.
She started to shrink into her shoulders, but he made a dismissive noise.
“That’s not a scold. I’ve worked with enough creatives to appreciate their temperament and know their value. I want to preserve the artist in you, Kiara,” he said sincerely. “Your ability to make beauty out of nothing, to find it where none exists, is a gift.” He smoothed his hand over what had to be wild hair and cupped her cheek, caressing her skin briefly with his thumb. “And after last night, I see there are advantages to giving you time to find yourself.”
The dry remark was rife with self-deprecation, but teasing, too, reminding her how greedy and assertive she’d been when she’d come to bed.
She sat there boiling in self-consciousness while he leaned forward and stole a lingering kiss that relit barely banked flames between them.