How badly wrong could one person be about another?
Ciro looked into the dark brown eyes of the woman in whose belly his developing child lived and felt as wretched as he’d ever done. A pampered princess? She should have been so lucky. This was the woman whose mother had died when she was three, leaving her at the mercy of a narcissistic father who’d exploited her severe learning difficulties for his own advantage so she would be dependent on him for ever...or until she married a man her father deemed worthy enough to look after her.
And in that moment, Ciro realised Cesare Buscetta did love his daughter. Because with hindsight came perspective. It hadn’t been only Ciro’s billionaire status that had attracted him as a prospective son-in-law but the strong family ties he’d grown up with. Cesare had assumed that Ciro would be as protective over his wife as his father had been over his and would shower his wife with the same amount of love. Assumptions Ciro had fed.
Whether it had been narcissism that had stopped him getting help for her or not, Cesare’s protectiveness was undeniable. He’d seen Claudia’s need for independence but had judged her—wrongly in Ciro’s opinion—as not being ready for it so had sought the perfect property for her, one in which she could have that elusive freedom while still being under his care and protection. The Trapani family home.
He was about to say this to her when his phone buzzed, breaking the moment.
It was Marcy, reminding him of the meeting he was supposed to be at. He swore under his breath.
‘You need to go?’ Claudia guessed.
He nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’ He didn’t even know what he was sorry for. And he didn’t know why the sadness in her eyes felt so unbearable.
‘Don’t be.’ She mustered a small smile. ‘Are your offices far from here?’
‘I thought I’d told you.’ But obviously he hadn’t because she would have remembered. ‘My main office is on the other side of the floor.’ At her blank expression he elaborated. ‘You know where Marcy’s stationed? Do you remember seeing the other door?’ Thinking of Marcy, he took one of the freshly baked bagels for her.
‘To the left of her desk?’ Claudia asked.
‘That’s my private entrance into the offices. All my admin staff work from it.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘It makes things easier to oversee, everything being under one roof.’
‘Why doesn’t Marcy work in there with them?’
‘She does sometimes but she has a noise sensitivity. Call me if you need anything, okay?’
She nodded.
Bowing his head, he walked swiftly out of the kitchen, suddenly desperate to get away from this beguiling woman who had finally made him understand his enemy.
He understood Cesare’s protectiveness towards Claudia. Because he felt it too.
* * *
Three days later, Claudia stepped out of the elevator and walked purposefully to the exit.
She could do this. She would do this.
The doorman smiled politely and opened the door for her.
Immediately, her senses were engulfed. Waves of people bustled past in all directions; tourists and dog-walkers heading to and from Central Park, shoppers, workers hurrying to appointments... People going about their business. That was what Ciro had said.
For the third night in a row, they’d made love long into the night.
They were still to talk about this change to their relationship and for that she was glad. Her feelings were so confused that she wouldn’t know what to say. All she knew was that when it came to Ciro, she was helpless to resist. He’d woken something in her that overruled her rational thoughts.
Alone in the day, she would try to harden herself and remind herself that living with him was only a temporary thing until the baby was born. Then he would come home and she would look at him and find herself melting before he’d even touched her.
He’d left for work before she’d woken that morning but she had a vague memory of a brush of lips against hers and a gentle caress of a hand over her hair. She’d climbed out of bed, her chest tight and the need to get out and feel the sun on her face running strongly inside her.
Their being lovers did not change her ultimate goal. Real, unfettered freedom. How could she find it if she was too scared to leave the apartment on her own? Would Elizabeth Bennet hide in the shadows and wait for a man to take her hand to cross the road? No, she would not.
But it wasn’t Elizabeth Bennet she brought to mind when she took the deepest breath of her life and joined the throng. It was Ciro.
* * *
Ciro closed his eyes before entering his apartment. It was the same every time he returned from work. He had to brace himself.
‘Claudia?’ he called.
‘I’m in the kitchen.’
He should have guessed. His kitchen had had more use since Claudia moved in than in all the years he’d lived here. Ciro did not cook. With take-out, restaurants and cafés in New York being plentiful and catering to all tastes, he saw no need to hire a chef. Whatever he fancied at whatever particular time could be provided with one swipe of his phone. His kitchen had been remodelled with the rest of the apartment only because it would have been out of keeping if he’d left it. It was a space he would have converted into something else if it wouldn’t have devalued the apartment.
His guts knotting, he followed the growing scent of fresh baking and found her loading the dishwasher. It didn’t matter how many times he told her he employed staff to clean everything, she still insisted on cleaning up after herself. On the kitchen’s island stood one of the biggest cakes he’d seen outside a wedding and decorated so beautifully it could be considered a work of art.
But the cake was only a peripheral observation for his gaze locked straight onto Claudia. Her jeans and T-shirt were covered in flour. Some had found its way into her hair and a great splodge of pink icing sugar sat on her left cheek. His chest squeezed around his heart so tightly that for a moment he couldn’t speak.
Tearing his gaze from her, he looked again at the cake. ‘That is amazing. Did you make it?’
She smiled and nodded. ‘It’s for Marcy’s daughter. It’s her birthday. They’re having a party for her.’
‘Marcy asked you to make it?’
‘We got talking the other day. She told me she loved the bagels I’d made—I didn’t realise you’d given one of them to her—and when I told her how bored I was here and how I used to bake for the convent she asked if I’d like to make the cake.’
‘You baked for the convent?’
‘Cakes and pastries mostly. They’d sell them and put the money raised towards their good causes.’
‘You’ve never mentioned that before.’
‘It wasn’t a regular thing. Just something I would do once or twice a week.’
‘You don’t consider that regular?’ Ciro rubbed his fingers into his skull, wondering how the investigators he’d sent to dig into her background had missed this fact about her. But then, he had to acknowledge, they’d failed to infiltrate Cesare’s home. Give the man his due, he surrounded himself with flunkies who were loyal.
‘I wanted to do it every day but I kept getting under Papà’s chefs’ feet. They rationed my use of the villa’s kitchen.’
He stared some more at the cake. ‘I know people who would pay a fortune for a cake like that.’
‘I wish I knew how to turn it into a career. The only things I’m good at are cooking and gardening.’
‘You want a career?’
‘All I’ve ever wanted is to be independent. I know you’re going to buy me an apartment when the baby’s born and pay maintenance for it but I don’t want you keeping me.’
This was the first time Claudia had mentioned moving out since they’d become lovers. Hearing it from her mouth like that and the nonchalance with which she said it...
‘You’re my wife and the mother of my child,’ he said, somehow managing to keep his tone even. ‘You’re my responsibility. Both of you.’
She looked him square in the eye. From the tone of her voice when she answered, she was struggling to keep her voice even too. ‘I’m not your responsibility. I don’t want to be your responsibility. I’ve had enough of being answerable to men. I will never deny our child anything but when I leave here I want to earn my own money. It might sound silly to you but I want to pay for my own clothes and all the things that are mine alone.’
‘That doesn’t sound silly,’ he said, speaking through the lump that had formed in his throat. ‘And knowing your strengths is a good place to start. Would you like me to look for a tutor who specialises in adult dyslexics? Someone who can help you in that respect?’
‘That’s very kind but your days are busy enough.’
‘I will make the time. It’s good that you’re looking to the future. You’re too young to spend the rest of your life with nothing to occupy you but while you’re living here, let me provide for you. You’re carrying my child and I feel enough guilt without having more added to it. If there’s anything I can do to help you career-wise or in any other way, tell me. I want to help.’
He did want to help.
But he could not fathom why the thought of her leaving, a thought that only weeks before he’d believed couldn’t come soon enough, now felt crippling. By rights, the time had nearly come for Claudia to move into a guest room. That thought was even harder to contemplate.
Breathing deeply to counteract the strange weight of emotion filling him, he looked away from the beautiful brown eyes and found his gaze locking on a huge bouquet of flowers displayed on the window sill. ‘Where did they come from?’
Her face went so red that for a moment he was convinced she had an admirer. Then a worse thought occurred to him and he stared at them as if they’d grown poisonous tentacles. ‘Are they from your father?’
She must have caught the tone of his voice for her eyes narrowed. ‘Would it be a problem if they were?’
‘This is my home.’ His guts had filled with nauseous violence. ‘I don’t want to share my private space with anything that comes from that man.’
Her eyes narrowed further still. ‘Half of my DNA comes from him.’
And didn’t he wish he could forget that half? ‘The better half must come from your mother.’
Claudia squeezed her eyes tightly shut, hating that in Ciro’s eyes she would always be tainted. What did this say for his future relationship with their innocent baby, who he rarely spoke of, not even an idle question about potential names? He’d gone with her to see the doctor but even there he’d shown barely a glimmer of interest.
His cruel comment about her DNA felt like a knife in her heart.
When she was certain she’d held the burn of tears at bay, she put the dishwasher tablet in the slot then turned around to face him. ‘I bought the flowers. I thought the apartment needed cheering up.’
‘You ordered them?’
She shook her head. ‘I walked to the florist and bought them there.’
‘You left the apartment on your own?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s wonderful.’ He remembered how tightly she had clung to his hand when they’d first stepped outside and the way she’d stuck so closely to him wherever they had gone. This had been a massive thing for her and she had done it. Just how incredible was she? ‘I’m proud of you.’
‘Proud that it means I’m less of a burden to you?’ she challenged, jutting her chin in the air. ‘Don’t worry—I’ll be gone before you know it, and you can stop worrying about my father tainting your precious space.’
‘Claudia... I never meant it like that.’
‘Don’t lie to me. Now please excuse me, I need to shower.’
With what could only be called dignity, she left the kitchen, leaving Ciro staring at her retreating figure. It took all of a minute before guilt snaked into him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CLAUDIA WAS ALREADY in the shower when Ciro entered the bedroom. She’d locked the bathroom door so he had to wait impatiently for her to finish. When she came out, a large towel wrapped around her damp body, she took one look at him, scowled, and folded her arms across her chest.
With a muttered curse, he scooped her into his arms and, before she had time to protest, laid her flat on the bed.
His face hovering above hers, he gazed into the dark brown eyes still burning loathing at him...and blazing with the same fire that lived inside him. ‘You are not a burden to me,’ he bit out. ‘Do you have any idea how incredible you are? I’m proud of you for everything, bedda, from the way you fight your fears to the way you’ve trained your brain to compensate for your dyslexia...that, to me, is incredible. And sexy.’ And then he sealed his words with the kiss he’d ached to plant on her beautiful generous lips from the moment he’d walked into the kitchen. The fusion of their mouths together acted as balm to his soul.
‘I hate your father, yes, and I hate every reminder of him,’ he murmured in a gentler tone, brushing his mouth over her cheeks and finding his way to her neck. ‘I despise him for what he did to my father but I despise him too for what he did to you. You’re his daughter but you are entirely your own woman.’ He pulled her towel apart and let his eyes feast on the body that grew in beauty by the hour. ‘And I want you more than I have ever wanted anyone.’
She didn’t say anything but her breaths had become shallow. When he looked back into her eyes, something reflected at him from the molten depths that made his heart expand to match his arousal.
‘I will be the first to admit that I’ve made mistakes—huge mistakes—where you’re concerned,’ he continued, tracing his hands over her body, thrilling at the little jolts and quivers she gave in response. ‘I’m not perfect. I’m human.’ He took one of her hands and guided it to his arousal. ‘Everything I feel for you is more than I have felt before.’
Her eyes widened. Her fingers squeezed around it.
‘See?’ he said roughly as he dipped his head to capture a perfect nipple in his mouth. She moaned and writhed beneath him. ‘This is what you do to me. You drive me crazy. You are all I think about, day and night. I imagine us in bed...’ He captured the other nipple and ran his tongue around it. ‘I imagine making love to you all the time.’ Making his way down her belly, he continued his sensual verbal assault. ‘I want to touch every inch of your flesh.’ He reached the top of her pubis. He could smell her hot excitement and filled his lungs with it. ‘I want to open you up like a flower and taste your hidden secrets.’
Her moan seemed to come from her very core.
Claudia knew where he was going and knew too that all she had to do was close her legs or say no and he would stop. Since they’d become lovers, she’d waited with breathless anticipation for him to try and kiss her there again, never knowing if it was relief or disappointment she felt when he didn’t. Because, since that moment of horror on their wedding night when he’d first tried to kiss her there—the classic books she enjoyed certainly didn’t contain love scenes with an intimacy like that—she’d often found her thoughts drifting to it, heat bubbling inside her, wondering...
How would it feel? Would there be pleasure in it for her as there was when he touched her there? Would Ciro take pleasure from it?
And then she melted like chocolate fondue to realise he’d been waiting for her to be comfortable with him as a lover, had understood that sex and intimacy for a recent virgin was a big deal. He’d been taking things slowly with her because he did understand her. He’d been taking things slowly because he cared for her.
And, as all these thoughts ran through her head, his tongue pressed against the centre of her pleasure that sent a shock of electricity jolting through her.
His tongue? She’d expected a brief brush of his lips...
‘Relax,’ he murmured as he shifted into a more comfortable position and gently parted her thighs. He looked up to meet her stare. She caught a flash of dimples before he buried his face between her legs.
His tongue pressed gently but firmly against her swollen bud, doing something to her that felt... Oh, it felt wonderful. One hand glided over her belly and she caught hold of it and squeezed it tightly, then closed her eyes and submitted to the most delicious pleasure imaginable.
She didn’t want it to end.
How could she have thought something that felt so incredible was dirty or sinful? How naïve she had been. Ciro had opened her body to him and he’d opened her mind with it.
Whatever happened in the future, she would never regret their becoming lovers. If this was all they had then she would treasure these feelings for ever.
Then, just as she thought she’d reached the peak of sensual intensity, everything exploded inside her. She cried out his name, rippling sensations crashing through her and sending her soaring higher than she’d ever been before.
There was no time to catch her breath for the moment the waves began to subside, Ciro moved and kissed his way quickly up her belly and her breasts to her mouth—it took a beat for her to realise the strange new taste on his tongue belonged to her—and as he kissed her he drove deep inside her with a strength that had her crying his name out again and again, until she didn’t know where she ended and he began.
It was only when it was all over and she lay dazed in his arms that she realised she had no idea when he’d removed his clothes.
* * *
Ciro tried to hold onto the dream. Beside him, Claudia shifted and snuggled closer, her warm hand groping in the dark for his.
He’d dreamed of their child. A beautiful baby girl who looked exactly as he imagined Claudia had looked as a baby.
In his dream he’d been lying on the sofa with his daughter bouncing on his lap. The love that had filled his heart during the dream...
A Baby to Bind His Innocent Page 13