“We need to be very careful for the rest of the season,” Antonio said. “Marco, have you noticed anyone around here who shouldn’t be?”
“Just a reporter who was sniffing around for information on Virginia.”
“Are you sure he was a reporter?” Dom asked.
Marco rolled his eyes at his brother. “I’m not an idiot. Of course I’m sure he was a reporter.”
“It never hurts to double-check. Speaking of which, we want to ask you something that is probably not any of our business.”
Antonio, who always looked vaguely bored by the goings-on at the track, suddenly seemed very serious. They leaned forward in his chair.
“What is it?” he asked, alarmed by the way his brothers were acting.
“Do you remember the vow we took as boys?” Dom said.
“Yes, I do,” Marco said. He thought of little else lately, with Virginia coming to mean more to him. He wondered if he was fooling himself when he thought that he could easily control his emotions toward her.
“Well, we are concerned,” Antonio said. “I know that Virginia believes having your child will break the Moretti curse, but we’re not so sure. And you are getting very serious about her.”
“Since when does my love life concern either of you?”
“Since you are looking at her the way that Papa looks at Mamma. You know what that means as well as we do.”
“She means nothing to me.”
“Yeah, right. You are living with her beyond the original terms of the contract. You are warning paparazzi away from her and making sure that she’s cosseted everywhere you travel.”
“She’s my mistress, Antonio. I think it’s okay to treat her well.”
Antonio and Dom both stood up. “Make sure that’s all she is. We have all worked too hard to rebuild Moretti Motors to see it all fall apart because you fell for some skirt.”
“I’m very aware of what Virginia means to me, and I’m not about to let either of you down,” Marco said. He stood up and turned to go to his car, and saw Virginia standing in the shadows.
Virginia wasn’t feeling her best after leaving the hospital and her wild taxi ride back to the track. She’d been out of sorts and not feeling too good already, and now her stomach was doing flips, because of worry, she suspected.
Seeing Marco had made her feel better, until she’d realized that he and his brothers were discussing her. And that he had just said she meant nothing to him. She was no different from the other women he’d been with in the past, according to what he’d just told his brothers.
She wanted to get angry, but she couldn’t. She was still too happy to see him alive.
“I am sorry you had to walk in on this conversation,” Dominic said. “How is Keke?”
“He’s stable. Elena will be able to see him when he comes out of surgery. She’s still at the hospital.”
“Grazie, Virginia,” Antonio said. “You are a good friend to Elena.”
“I know it wasn’t in the normal mistress arrangement for me to be nice to the fiancée of the second Moretti driver, but I figured I’d make the effort.”
Antonio gave her a strained smile and said goodbye to his brothers before leaving. Dominic said nothing, and Marco had a tight, angry look on his face.
“Do you have a minute to talk?” she asked Marco.
“A few moments. Dom, will you leave us?”
“Ciao,” Dominic said as he left.
Marco turned and walked to his private trailer. A couple of his crew members were inside, but they left as soon as Marco entered with Virginia in tow.
He stopped in the middle of the trailer and turned to face her once they were alone. “I am sorry you had to hear that.”
“I’m not. It’s better for me to hear the truth. I had been fooling myself that even though you couldn’t say the words, you still loved me.”
“Dio mio, Virginia—”
“I know. You never said anything that would lead me to believe you cared for me. It was my own delusion. I think, once I realized the man you are…well, the man I thought you were…” She couldn’t go on. She was going to start crying and that was the absolute last thing she wanted to do right now. “It doesn’t matter,” she said at last.
“Virginia, mi’ angela, please don’t let my words wound you. I meant nothing by them.”
He came to her and tried to draw her into his arms, and she was tempted to go because he’d hurt her deeply and she wanted to be soothed by him. But at the same time she heard his voice in her mind. Heard him say that she was nothing more than a mistress, and she knew that if she had any chance of coming out of this relationship with her pride intact she needed to stand on her own.
She stepped back from him and he dropped his arms. “I do not know what to say,” he told her.
“You didn’t have that problem earlier when you were with your brothers,” she said.
“That wasn’t a conversation you were meant to hear,” he said.
“I know. Believe me, you’ve done a great job of acting like you really care about me…but I guess that’s what you usually do with your mistresses.
“I have no idea why this behavior surprises me. I knew that you were like this when I picked you as the Moretti brother I would seduce.”
Marco put his hands on his hips. She saw the lines of stress on his face and also the flash of anger. “I’m not some kind of cad when it comes to women, Virginia. The women I am involved with—you included—have always come to me wanting something in exchange.”
“How nice of you to point that out,” she said sarcastically. She knew she should leave before she said something stupid, but she was too angry and too hurt to just walk away. She wanted Marco to feel the same pain she felt. That emotional pain that she honestly didn’t know if she’d ever recover from.
“I’m not the one who slept with you and walked away,” he said.
“No, you’re not,” she said quietly. “You also aren’t the one who fell in love. Maybe this is the way it’s supposed to be,” she said. “I mean, I’ll have a child and you’ll have your life, which will continue on as usual. The curse probably demands that I shouldn’t fall in love with you.”
Marco remained quiet, and she knew she had to leave before she broke down and started crying. She had no idea that silence could hurt her this deeply.
“I guess I’ll be on the next plane back to the States,” she said.
“Virginia…I never meant for you to get hurt. I only wanted to keep you safe and happy.”
“Well, you did a good job of that.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
“Then what has changed? Why are you leaving me?”
Virginia looked at him. He was a smart man, and she knew he had enjoyed the fact that she did love him. But there was no way she could continue to live with him when their versions of reality were so markedly different.
“I guess, now that I know how you see me…I can’t keep telling myself that someday you’re going to realize that the only way to truly break this curse is to fall in love and live your life in a fully realized manner.”
Marco reached for her, and she felt his hand on her face. She knew this was the last time he’d touch her, and she leaned into that touch for a minute. “I’m sorry for making this goodbye so messy. And for not staying until the end of the season.”
She kissed him on the lips and walked away while she still had the strength to do it.
Twelve
Marco didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he thought he’d made a mistake when he let Virginia walk out on him. He’d won the Grand Prix championship, and in a few short months, Moretti Motors would release their new Vallerio model, if Tony had his way and successfully acquired the use of the name. His brother was already in negotiations to get that deal moving forward.
So Marco had no reason to feel like something was missing in his life—except that his arms felt so damned empty every night. He needed her back. Someti
mes he thought he caught a wiff of her perfume in a room and would walk in expecting to see her, only to find that it was empty.
Empty.
God, how had he not realized that he was letting himself become the same man Nonno had been? He was letting racing and his public take precedence over his life.
He needed to do something, find a way to get Virginia back. But how?
He got his mobile out and called Keke.
“I need a favor,” he said before Keke could ask why he was calling.
“What?”
“I’m going to get Virginia back and…”
“Are you coming to me for woman advice?” Keke asked, laughing.
“No, I’m coming to you because I need someone to help me coordinate things in the U.S.”
“How can I help?” Keke asked.
Marco outlined his plan to his friend and a few hours later was on a commercial flight to the United States. Never before had he been so nervous. Not even when he got behind the wheel of his first F1 driving machine. And now he knew why. Racing was what he did, but Virginia was his life and his love, and he didn’t know if he could survive without her. If this was how Cassia had felt for Lorenzo, Marco understood why she’d cursed him when he’d chosen racing over her.
He also thought maybe it was time for a Festa and a Moretti to fall in love and right the wrongs of the past.
Virginia spent the rest of the summer and the beginning of the fall in her quiet home on Long Island. She grew each day with her pregnancy, and the baby—a boy—was doing very well. She was still on sabbatical and enjoyed the quiet days at home.
She avoided newspapers and television and anything that might show her a glimpse of Marco. She’d learned the hard way that seeing him even on a magazine stand was enough to trigger a deep sadness inside her. A part of her wanted to say to hell with pride and return to him.
She really missed him.
But she also had to live with herself, and somehow she knew that loving a man who thought of her as nothing but a mistress wasn’t a good thing.
It was a rainy Saturday in early November, and she was painting the nursery for the baby. She dreaded the thought of the upcoming holiday season—of spending another one all alone. But she rubbed her small pregnancy bump and realized that in a year’s time she wouldn’t be alone anymore.
She’d have her baby, and together the two of them would celebrate all the holidays. She was toying with naming the baby Lorenzo to appease the curse that Cassia had set. Maybe if she named her child for the man who’d originally been cursed, Fate would be happy with her and leave her be.
Her doorbell rang and she looked at her watch. That should be Elena. Her family lived in the Lake George area of New York and she and Keke had spent the last few months there.
Keke had recovered nicely from all his injuries and had decided to retire from racing. He’d taken up a new gig, as a male model and commentator for a European sports channel.
Today they had both promised to come and help her with her room renovation. She had been grateful for their friendship. She’d never realized how alone she was in the same small town she’d grown up in. But she was grateful that Elena and she had become fast friends in the months they’d spent together on the Formula One racing circuit.
The doorbell rang again, and she realized she was dawdling. She didn’t know if it was the pregnancy or what, but her mind tended to wander lately. Usually it wandered to Marco.
She opened the door. “Come on in.”
“Grazie, Virginia.”
It was Marco. Marco was standing on her front porch, wearing a pair of wool trousers and a black turtleneck, as well as a long trench coat. The rain had wet his jet-black hair.
“What are you doing here?”
“I hope you don’t mind, but since you wouldn’t return any of my calls, I persuaded Elena and Keke to let me come and help you today.”
“That’s…why?”
“Because we need to talk. May I come in?”
She stepped back and let him enter her house. As he took off his coat and hung it on the coat rack she had by the front door, she realized how much she had missed him. He smelled just as good as she remembered and her arms were literally tingling with the need to wrap around him.
“You are staring at me,” he said.
“I’m sorry. Why are you here?”
“Because I realized that I can’t live without you. I don’t care if my brothers believe that love is the one thing that will doom Moretti Motors. I need you in my life.”
She wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. “I don’t—”
“Don’t overthink this. I lied to you that day in Valencia, when I let you believe you were nothing more than a mistress to me. My life has been hollow and empty without you.”
She couldn’t say anything, but when he drew her into his arms she went to him, wrapped her arms around his lean waist and held on. “Marco, is this for real?”
“Sì, mi’angela, ti amo.”
She tipped her head up to look at him, to see if the love he’d just spoken of was reflected in his eyes. And it was. She saw the sincerity there.
“I know I have no right to hope that you still feel the same way about me.”
“I do still love you. It’s been agony living without you,” she said. “But I figured that was the only way to appease the Fates.”
Marco shook his head. “The only way to appease the Fates is for us to be together. To raise our son and give him brothers and sisters.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said. “Will you marry me, Virginia?”
“Yes!” She threw her arms around him and kissed him with all the passion and love she’d been storing up since they’d parted in August.
“What about your brothers?”
“I told them that we were all wealthy and that we would continue to focus on making our new production car very successful, and that was all we needed to do to break the curse.”
“And they were okay with that?” she asked, not wanting his brothers to dislike her.
“Not really. But I told them that, regardless of whether you are with me or not, you own my heart and soul.”
Tall, Dark...Westmoreland!
By Brenda Jackson
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
One
There has to be another way for a woman to have fun, Olivia Jeffries thought as she glanced around at everyone attending the Firemen’s Masquerade Ball, an annual charity event held in downtown Atlanta. Already she was gearing up for a boring evening.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t arrived from Paris just yesterday, after being summoned home by her father. That meant she had to drop everything, including plans to drive through the countryside of the Seine Valley to complete the painting she had started months ago.
Returning to Atlanta had required her to take a leave of absence from her job as an art curator at the Louvre. But when Orin Jeffries called, she hadn’t hesitated to drop everything. After all, he was only the greatest dad in the entire world.
He had wanted her home after making the decision to run for public office, saying it was important that she was there not only for his first fund-raiser but also for the duration of his campaign. There would be a number of functions he would need to attend, and he preferred not to go with any particular woman on a regular basis. He didn’t want any of his female friends to get the wrong idea.
Olivia could only shake her head and smile. Her divorced father had taken himself off the marriage block years ago. In fact, she doubted he’d ever allowed himself to be there in the first place. He dated on occasion, but he’d never gotten serious about any woman,
which was a pity. At fifty-six, Orin Jeffries was without a doubt a very good-looking man. His ex-wife, who was Olivia’s mom in genes only, had left a bad taste in Orin’s mouth. A taste that the past twenty-four years hadn’t erased.
Her two older brothers, Duan, who was thirty-six, and Terrence, who was thirty-four, had taken after her father in their good looks. And as in the case of their father, the thought of marriage was the last thing on their minds. In a way, she followed in her dad’s footsteps as well. Finding a husband was the last thing on hers.
So there you had it. They were the swinging single Jeffries, although for the moment, nothing was swinging for her, Olivia thought. There were a few people at this ball who seemed to be having fun, but most, like her, were looking at their watches and wondering when proper etiquette dictated it would be okay to leave.
Whoever had come up with the idea of everyone wearing masks had really been off their rocker. It made her feel like she was part of the Lone Ranger’s posse. And because all the money raised tonight was for the new wing at the children’s hospital, in addition to the mask, everyone was required to wear a name badge on which was printed the name of a nursery rhyme character, a color of a crayon or a well-known cartoon or comic-book character. How creative.
At least the food was good. The first words out of her father’s mouth when he’d seen her at the airport the day before had been, “You look too thin.” She figured the least she could do was mosey on over to the buffet table and get herself something to eat. Hopefully, in a little while she could split.
Reginald Westmoreland watched the woman as she crossed the room, making her way over to the buffet table. He had been watching her for over twenty minutes now, racking his brain as to who she was. Mask or no mask, he recognized most of the women at the ball tonight. He knew almost every one of them because for years he had been immersed in the science of “lip-tology.” In other words, the first thing he noticed about a woman was her lips.
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