Mister Irresistible: Bachelor International Book 2

by Me, Tara Sue

  “No.” I had come to terms with that fact years ago, which was why I was surprised at the ache I felt admitting it out loud. “I’d prefer not to talk about it, if you don’t mind.”

  His eyes widened in surprise. At what, I didn't know. “Of course. I apologize if my questions upset you.”

  I expected for him to stay in the seat he was in, and that maybe we could chat or at least discuss the article I was to write. He didn’t remain seated, though. After his unnecessary apology, he stood and walked back to the love seat where May sat. I couldn’t tell if he sat down or not, and I wasn’t about to turn and look over my shoulder at him. No way did I want either him or May to think I had any interest in what the two of them said or did.

  But since I actually did, I strained my ears in order to hear what they were talking about. Unfortunately, between the low level hum of the aircraft, and the two assistants sitting on the other love seat, I couldn’t hear a word from either Luca or May. In fact, I heard nothing from him for the rest of the flight.

  Chapter 13

  Luca

  The plane was to land in Milan. May, Richard, and Wayne all had apartments in the city. Originally, I had requested for a hotel in the city to be booked for a reporter who was tagging along. The way I saw it, there was no need for them to be with me every second of the day, and I didn’t want a stranger in my house.

  All that changed when I discovered Wren was the reporter. I didn’t want her in a hotel. I wanted her at my house. For multiple reasons. She’d shocked me with the leg injuries and the fact that she worked as a journalist. But if she thought she was the only one who had major life changes over the last few years, she was the one in for a shock.

  Because I didn’t want Carmella to know where Wren was staying, I had to work around her. I sure as hell didn’t want her to know she would stay with me. I accepted the fact that I had a personnel problem when I couldn’t ask my personal assistant to make hotel arrangements for me.

  Carmella didn’t know I’d met Wren the night of the reception and dinner that never happened. She was my PA, but that didn’t give her unlimited access to my personal life. It was bad enough she knew Wren existed. There was no way possible I’d ever confide anything to her about my personal relationships. Much less one with all the emotional baggage my relationship with Wren held.

  There was one thing I’d learned very early on about Carmella. She liked power. It didn’t matter to her if she actually held that power, or if people only assumed she held it. They were both the same in her mind. When she had power, she thought she had something to hold over a person.

  For the last few years as long as she did her job and did it well, I tried not to care how she got it done. But it was becoming all too clear that Carmella only did what Carmella wanted to do. I needed to let her go.

  But I put it aside to deal with later.

  When the plane landed, I made my way to Wren and slipped behind her.

  “Wait,” I said in a low voice, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  She remained silent, but turned to look at me. I didn’t miss the questions in her eyes. Instead of answering them, though, I looked toward my three employees and nodded, hoping she’d understand that I’d tell her more when we were alone.

  I took her curt nod to mean she did, and we waited for them to disembark.

  “What’s going on?” she asked as soon as they left and we were alone.

  “There’s been a change in your itinerary,” I told her.

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Can we discuss it tomorrow? I’d like to just get to my hotel, take a shower, and grab some room service.”

  It wasn’t until that moment I realized how my plan, which had sounded perfectly fine in my head, was going to sound when I said it out loud. My original idea, to tell her there’d been a change to where she’d be staying and that she would be at my house now, seemed too controlling and domineering. I couldn’t imagine any woman, no matter who the guy was, would react positively toward being told that.

  I tried my best to word it better. “The hotel room was booked before I knew you would be the reporter covering this story. But I was thinking since we know each other, you might be more comfortable at my house.”

  I paused to make sure she didn’t plan to scream or hit me. Which would have been fine, considering. When she just looked at me and seemed to say go on with her expression, I continued, “It’s a big house… more of an estate, really. Out near Como. And it’s large enough so you wouldn’t have to see me after hours if you didn’t want. Plus, I think it’ll be safer for you as well.”

  That last part wasn’t a lie, not that the rest of what I said had been. But I’d made the reservation when I thought the reporter was a male. I knew it was perfectly acceptable for a woman to travel by herself. Call me old-fashioned, but I would feel better knowing Wren was under my protection than by herself at a cold and impersonal hotel.

  “An estate? Near Como?” Wren asked. “You must do well for yourself. I mean, not like the private jet didn’t tip me off, but I remember you being more of a city guy.”

  Which was true. I remembered talking with Wren about my plans to build my fashion empire in Milan and then move to New York City. I'd given no sign I had an interest in living anywhere other than a large city. But like Wren and her dance, life often took us on paths we never expected, much less planned for.

  “I didn’t buy the estate,” I told her, not wanting to get into the details at the moment. Not until we were there, and maybe not until the next day, if possible. “It’s more like a family property.”

  Her forehead wrinkled. “A family property? In Como. I thought your parents were from Rome?”

  Of course she would have remembered that detail. Why would I have expected anything any different? She was a reporter. Details and remembering them were her job.

  “It’s a long story,” I said, instead of answering her question directly. “I’ll have to tell it to you.” Later. Much later.

  “I’ll stay at your estate for tonight, and I’ll see how I feel about it after that,” Wren said.

  It wasn’t an enthusiastic agreement, but I hadn’t expected one. I was thankful she hadn’t demanded to be delivered immediately back to a hotel.

  “One night,” I repeated. “And if you wish to spend the rest of your time in Italy in a hotel, I will take you myself whenever you request.”

  By the time we’d made it to the car I had waiting, it seemed Wren had been revitalized. Though in the jet, she’d announced her intention to spend her evening relaxing at and in her hotel room, I couldn’t see her settling down anytime soon.

  She appeared to have a goal of taking in everything she possibly could. It was almost as if I could see her brain working to catalogue every scrap of information she came across. There were a few moments scattered here and there while we waited for the car that Wren seemed to let her guard down. But only when she thought I wasn’t watching. And in those moments, she reminded me so much of the Wren I remembered from the first day I saw her five years ago, it made my heart ache.

  Was it the thrill of being in a new and different place? The excitement of a new country? I wasn’t sure. I only knew it was impossible to keep my eyes off of her, so I had to watch her without her knowing I was watching.

  “Remind me how far Como is from Milan,” Wren requested as I followed her into the car.

  “It’ll take us about an hour to get there from here,” I replied, and she nodded.

  One hour.

  Wren covered her secret with long skirts and pants, and she hadn’t wanted to talk about it. I now knew exactly how she felt, except there was no way to cover my secret. And though I’d prefer not to discuss the topic, I now had an hour to decide how to do so.

  Chapter 14

  Wren

  Frankly, I thought Luca was out of his mind to move from Italy to the US, and that was before we started on the drive from Milan to Como. How could anyone think about leaving this area and moving anywhere
else? Much less to a place like Boston?

  Not that I’d ever purposely wanted to bash my hometown, don’t get me wrong. I love Boston. Being a reporter, I could choose to live anywhere I wanted, and I chose Boston. Even with the god-awful winters. But seriously, people, we’re talking Italy for crying out loud.

  The art. The history. The architecture. The landscapes. The food.

  For Boston?

  During my first, and only trip to Italy five years before, Luca and I had never ventured very far from the resort. He’d told me he’d grown up near Rome, and that most of his family still lived in that area. However, after college, and an apprenticeship, he’d moved to Milan.

  We’d even made a vague sort of plan for him to show me the city of Milan when I returned. But, of course, those plans died along with the dreams of a career in ballet, days later on a darkened slope in Courmayeur. After that, I’d never thought that I’d ever return to the country, and I purposely avoided any and all things having to do with the area.

  Driving along the road on the way from Milan to Como, there was no need, and no possible way to do so, even if I wanted. I tried to remember what, if anything, I knew about the Como area. Unfortunately, all I recalled was a long ago memory of seeing the name on a map and thinking it sounded kind of cool.

  “What’s Como like?” I asked Luca. Based on my estimate, we were about midway between Milan and our destination.

  “Hmm?” He looked up from his phone.

  Funny. Ever since we got into the car, he’d acted a bit off. And it seemed to me that he spent an inordinate about of time on his phone, texting.

  “What’s Como like?” I repeated.

  His expression went blank for a minute. I could only guess he was trying to shift gears from the conversation he was having on his phone, and the one I had tried to start in person.

  “Is everything okay?” I nodded at the phone he still had in his hands, thumbs ready to continue whatever he’d been in the middle of texting. “If there’s an issue with something, or you need to go into work or anything, just let me know. I don’t mind finding a taxi or something back to Milan.”

  That seemed to wake him up a bit. At least he set the phone down in his lap. “No,” he said, and tucked the phone into the inner pocket inside his jacket. “Nothing of the sort. It’s like I said, I thought the reporter was a male and had a hotel room booked. No one at the estate was expecting anyone other than me to arrive tonight. I had to ensure everything was in place for your arrival and to make sure preparations were made for your stay.”

  It all sounded good, but somehow his words and actions still seemed off. Or maybe it was more that they didn’t match the other. His words seemed matter of fact and reasonable for our current situation, but for some reason, his body language spoke of unease.

  I feared he didn’t really want me at his estate. Maybe he’d only brought it up to be nice and hadn’t thought that I’d actually take him up on his offer. That was why I’d given him an out and offered to stay at a hotel. I’d rather be at a hotel alone than to be at his estate because he felt an obligation to make the invitation.

  Although, was it possible I would be that much of a bother? If you thought about it, I was one small person. How could my arrival put any kind of kink in the universe of an estate?

  I tried not to think about it, but it was difficult. Luca didn’t pull his phone back out, though based on the uncomfortable way he sat, it seemed he’d rather have it in his hand. I thought since he wasn’t texting, he might try to start a conversation with me, or at least answer the question I’d asked him twice.

  But he didn’t. He sat and looked straight ahead. The longer we drove, the more uncomfortable he appeared to grow. He didn’t have to speak a word for me to know something was on his mind. The only thing I could imagine it being was that perhaps the estate was run down or in the middle of being renovated. Maybe it was in such bad repair, it embarrassed Luca to have anyone see it. Though had that been the case, I wouldn’t have imagined he’d have asked me to stay.

  Since Luca wouldn't be forthcoming with any information about Como, I took in what I could with my observations alone. From what I gathered, Como was the name of the providence. There was a Como City, but we drove past that, following the shore of Lake Como. It wasn’t until we passed a sign that simply stated “Laglio,” that the car turned off the main road.

  The area was breathtakingly beautiful, especially whenever I managed to catch a glimpse of the lake.

  The car pulled up to a locked gate that opened once our driver entered a code. As we made our way onto the grounds of the estate, it hit me. Maybe Luca didn’t want me on his estate, not because its condition embarrassed him, but because he thought I would find it pretentious.

  At the sight of the main house, my jaw dropped. “Holy shit, Luca.”

  When he’d mentioned the estate was family property, and since I knew his family lived close to Rome, I’d assumed the estate was more of a vacation property. An idea that seemed even more probable considering the vicinity of Lake Como. But surely the massive home before me was more than a sometimes home to only visit occasionally.

  The two-level home was constructed in white stone and surrounded by lush greens. Walkways and sculpted arches led to the sparkling lake beyond the main house.

  I was still gaping at it when Luca helped me out of the car.

  “It’s gorgeous,” I said. “And it’s yours?”

  He winced. “Not exactly.”

  I had no idea what that could mean. “I can’t imagine leaving this for Boston.”

  Everything I saw looked so perfectly beautiful, I found it difficult to believe it was real. The house. The land. The gardens. They all belonged in a fairy tale, or at least a daydream.

  “Can we go see the lake?” I asked. I was vaguely aware of our driver taking our luggage out of the car, and another man, who appeared to come out of nowhere, picking it up to carry inside.

  “Yes,” Luca said. “I just need to—”

  His sentence was cut off by a child’s high-pitched squeal. I turned toward the direction it came from and saw a small blur of white flying toward us. Behind the blur, in the middle of an open side door, stood a woman with an apologetic look on her face.

  She looked a lot like Luca, was the only thought I could process before the blur came to a stop in front of him and wrapped her arms around his legs.

  “Papa! Papa!” the dark-haired child, who couldn’t be much over four, yelled. “You’re finally home. What took so long? You were gone forever.”

  Chapter 15

  Wren

  I stared at the young child in shock. Papa? Had she just called Luca, Papa?

  He didn’t look my way, but rather focused all his attention on the little girl, swinging her up in his arms in a big hug. “Gemma, tesoro. I’m sorry I was gone so long. I missed you so.”

  “You can’t go away for such a long time ever again.” She pulled her head back from where she had it buried in his chest and placed a small hand on each of his cheeks as she spoke. “Promise me, Papa.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Sorry, Luca.” The woman who’d been standing in the doorway had made it to where we stood. “I tried to keep her with me until you made it inside, but as soon as she realized it was you, there was no stopping her.”

  “I’m a wiggly worm,” Gemma said with a giggle and adding a demonstration, twisting this way and that. “See?”

  “I see, tesoro.” Luca kissed her cheek and still kept hold of her. “Have you been behaving for Auntie Maria?”

  Auntie Maria. I’d thought the woman looked like Luca. She must be his sister. Where was the little girl’s mother? Luca wasn’t married, was he? How old was Gemma? Was she his daughter? I tried to do the math in my head, but I couldn’t settle the questions in my head long enough to form an answer.

  “Mostly.” Gemma wrinkled her nose. “She told Grandmama that I was a handful, but she’s wrong, isn’t she, Papa? I’m
two handfuls. It even takes you two hands to hold me.”

  Luca laughed in a way I’d never seen. “Yes, you’re definitely two handfuls. Maybe three.”

  “Silly Papa. No one has three hands,” she said, and then turned her head toward me, her eyes so similar to Luca’s they took my breath. “Who are you?”

  “This is Wren,” Luca jumped in to answer, and I realized I’d been standing there, looking at the father and daughter in front of me. “She’s from Boston, and she’s going to write about our move.”

  “Hello, Wren,” Gemma said. “My name is Gemma, I’m four, and I don’t want to move to Boston.” She turned her face back to Luca. “She can write that in her story.”

  “Hello, Gemma.” I held out my hand, and she took it with a big smile and an exaggerated shake. “I’m Wren, and if I lived here, I wouldn’t want to move to Boston, either.”

  Her eyes grew big. “Really?”

  “Really,” I replied.

  Luca gave me a look I translated to mean, you aren’t helping, but I didn’t care. It was the truth. Besides, I had so many thoughts running around in my head, I didn’t have the mental strength to use a filter.

  Satisfied her papa was home, Gemma wiggled out of his arms, took a piece of chalk from a pocket in her dress, and starting drawing on the drive at our feet.

  Luca asked his sister a question in hushed, rapid Italian. Was he trying to keep me or Gemma from overhearing? It wasn’t clear. Not wanting to intrude, I turned my focus to Gemma’s doodles.

  I had little experience with children. I was an only child, and no one in my circle of friends or acquaintances had kids. They were like an exotic species to me, these little people.

  And Luca had one.

  I had so many unanswered questions, but only two I desperately wanted the answer for. Who and where was the child’s mother? If Gemma was four, she was born after my disastrous ski trip. But her conception?