“Really,” he said, widening his eyes.
“You laugh, but something always goes wrong. Like yesterday. The traffic. The directions. The car. And then, poof, so much for my schedule. It went up in smoke.” She smiled. “But if it hadn’t, would I have met you?”
Damned right you would have, he thought.
Hell.
He had to tell her.
Soon.
But first …
First, he thought, looking at her tousled curls, her kiss-swollen mouth, first there was that schedule.
Showering together.
Breakfasting together.
Going back to bed together.
“Isabella,” he said thickly, and he brought her down beneath him and forgot everything but the woman in his arms.
Forget everything, including a condom.
Dawn was tinting the sky crimson.
Rio awoke alone in his bed. He could hear the shower running.
Isabella, he thought, smiling—
And then his smile faded as he remembered that he hadn’t used a condom the last time they’d made love.
Cristo.
He had never been that careless before. He always used protection, even when a woman said she was on the Pill. Only a fool took chances. He knew the possibility that Isabella might become pregnant was small. Miniscule, really. One ejaculation? Things didn’t happen that way. He knew couples who’d tried for years to conceive.
Still, he would mention it to her.
Ask if this was her so-called safe time of the month. Tell her that, of course, if anything happened, he would—he would help her with whatever had to be done.
It was a sobering thought.
Even more sobering was the fact that he hadn’t remembered to use a condom.
That his naive, inexperienced Isabella had driven every logical thought from his head.
No woman had ever done that before.
His smile wavered.
He wasn’t sure he liked the feeling.
The sound of the shower stopped. Rio sat up, swung his feet to the floor, went to the bathroom and quietly pushed open the door. His lover stood before the mirror. She’d knotted a bath towel around her like a sarong; she was using another to dry her hair.
Botticelli, he thought, Venus, rising from the sea—and, all at once, nothing mattered as much as coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist.
She smiled at him in the mirror. “Hello,” she said softly.
Rio drew her back against him. “Isabella,” he whispered.
It seemed all he was capable of saying and when she sighed his name—Matteo—he thought, once again, how right his name, his true name, sounded on her lips.
She was Isabella. He was Matteo. Two strangers, brought together by chance.
And now, they were lovers.
Lovers.
Something swept through him. An emotion that had nothing to do with sexual pleasure and everything to do with—with—
With what? Dio, he had no answers for anything.
Except for this.
“I have an idea,” he said.
She smiled. “I can tell.”
He laughed.
“That, too. But I have another idea.”
Isabella turned in his arms, placed her hands against his chest, looked up at him.
“What?”
“Don’t go back to the city. Not just yet.”
“But I have to. I—”
“Stay with me.” He bent to her, brushed his lips over hers. “I want to show you something.”
She touched her fingers to his lips.
“What is it?”
“A place. One that’s all mine.”
She smiled. “And where is this place?”
“You’ll see.”
“Ah. A secret.”
“One I want to share only with you. Spend the weekend with me, cara. Please.”
Isabella thought of all the reasons to say no.
It was Saturday, and she always worked the Union Square Outdoor Market on Saturday. Initially, she’d sold bouquets and plants; now, increasingly, she sold more elaborate flower arrangements. It was excellent and inexpensive advertising for her business.
There was more, too.
She did her weekly food shopping Saturdays: staples at
Costco, fresh stuff at—naturally—the Union Square market and at Whole Foods. Plus, she was supposed to meet Anna for lunch and—oh, hell—return her car. Okay. That was another story altogether.
“Isabella,” Matteo said, “stay with me.”
The towel fell away as she went up on her toes and gave him her answer with a kiss.
CHAPTER NINE
A LITTLE after dawn, Isabella announced it was time for breakfast, and that she would prepare it.
“Not to boast or anything,” she said, fluttering her lashes, “but I make the world’s best scrambled eggs. And bacon. And toast. And coffee.”
When Rio said he’d help, she pointed to a kitchen chair and said, “Sit.”
He laughed.
He couldn’t remember the last time someone had told him what to do, even in a teasing way. He could just picture the looks on the faces of his staff if anyone had.
But this wasn’t anyone, it was Isabella.
And he certainly couldn’t recall a woman making him breakfast. Not that women didn’t offer. He simply never took them up on it. There was something far too intimate in letting a woman cook your breakfast, even if she’d spent the night in your bed.
Sex was one thing.
Breakfast was another.
It was the kind of logic only another man could understand.
In fact, he’d once had that conversation with Dante Orsini, when Dante was still a bachelor.
They’d bumped into each other at a Starbucks a little past eight one morning, Dante paying for a caffé Americano just as Rio ordered a caffé Macchiato.
For some reason, they’d exchanged slightly embarrassed looks.
Dante had spoken first.
“I, ah, I didn’t have time for coffee at home this morning,” he’d said.
“Me, neither,” Rio had said, his tone as uncomfortable as Dante’s. Then he’d laughed a little shamefacedly and admitted that the problem was a woman who’d wanted to make coffee for him, and Dante had grinned and admitted to the same thing.
“Too much togetherness,” Rio had said. “Last thing I want to face in the morning is a woman hell-bent on showing me her domestic side.”
Dante had grinned and agreed.
Talk about your own words coming back to haunt you, Rio thought. What would Dante say right about now, if he knew his relative was in this kitchen, doing exactly that?
It was not a good thing to dwell on.
“Matteo.” Rio blinked. Isabella, arms folded, gave a dramatic sigh. “I don’t see you sitting down and leaving this to me.”
He grinned.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and then he grabbed her, lifted her off her feet and kissed her.
Then he sat down and hoped he was remembering correctly, and that there actually were bacon and eggs in the refrigerator.
There were. Free-range eggs, Isabella said with approval, and explained why hens should be kept cage-free. There was bacon, too, from—he lost track of the “from” part, but Isabella pronounced it perfect.
She was what was perfect, Rio thought.
And made a mental note to thank his caretaker for laying in the right foods.
He’d have to thank the guy for a lot of things, starting with leaving before Isabella arrived yesterday.
Was it only yesterday?
It seemed impossible that he’d only known her so short a time. He felt as if he’d known her for a lifetime. He was so at ease with her, so relaxed.
He couldn’t remember feeling this way with another woman.
With anyone.
No pressures. No demands. No trying to read the true meaning behind her words or actions.
She was with him because she wanted to be with him, not because of who he was or what he might be able to do for her. He couldn’t recall that ever happening. Everybody wanted something from him. It was part of his life and though he hated it, he’d learned to endure it.
Nothing about yesterday, last night or this morning had anything to do with endurance … Except in bed, he thought, biting back a smile. Not that he’d ever had any complaints but, Cristo, there wasn’t an eighteen-year-old out there who could possibly have anything on him today.
And it was Isabella’s doing.
The cold truth was that a woman who said “no” to a man’s sexual advances often became a prize to pursue. The even colder truth was that once a man captured that prize, his interest lessened.
Nothing even close to that was happening to him.
The more he made love to Isabella, the more he wanted her. And it wasn’t because she was so innocent that every touch, every caress brought her such unabashed delight and surprise.
It was because making love to her, with her, had a power that went beyond the physical. He couldn’t explain it to himself except to suspect it had to do with, well, with friendship. He liked being with her, outside of bed as well as in it.
His life in what he increasingly thought of as the real world was a full, successful one. He liked who he was, his achievements, the complexities of business …
But now—now, he had the sense that something had been missing from it. A day didn’t have to begin and end with appointments and conferences, it could begin and end with a woman.
With this woman.
Rio frowned.
Not that he could imagine his life centering on her. On any woman, but—
“—or runny?”
Rio blinked. Isabella was looking at him, her winged eyebrows arched, waiting for an answer to a question he hadn’t heard.
“Sorry, cara. What did you ask me?”
“I asked if you like your eggs well-cooked or runny?”
“Runny,” he said with dignity, “is not a word meant to pique the appetite.”
She grinned. She had an extraordinary grin, one that involved her nose wrinkling with delight.
“Okay, I’ll rephrase that. Soft or hard?”
It was his turn to grin.
“I can think of a lot of answers to that question but none that have to do with scrambling eggs.”
“Keep your mind on eggs,” she said with mock severity, “unless you want us both to die of hunger.”
She was right. They’d eaten hardly anything last night. Rio gave a sigh suited to a long-suffering male in torment.
“Soft,” he said.
“Good. Because—”
“But definitely not runny. And while you’re asking, I like my bacon crisp, my toast light, my coffee black—”
She poked out her tongue. He grinned again.
“Is that a no? Or is it an invitation?”
She blushed. He loved it when she did but for all those charming blushes, he could see her becoming more and more relaxed with him.
She’d begun touching him more. Exploring him, during sex. She was more comfortable with him in other ways, too. What she’d just done, for instance, giving him little teasing answers to his questions.
He had the feeling she’d learned to keep herself quietly in the background most of her life.
But not with him.
She’d been feisty from the second she’d come limping up his driveway.
Now, she was giving him orders.
And she was sexy as hell.
He wanted to know more about her. He wanted to know all about her. He usually made a point of avoiding learning more than necessary about his lovers. Where they came from, what they wanted out of life … He knew it might seem—that word again—cold not to show an interest.
It wasn’t. It was just that those things were too personal.
A man and woman didn’t have to open themselves to each other’s scrutiny just because they slept together.
Now, watching Isabella beating eggs hard enough so every part of her was jiggling—and, Dio, those jiggled parts were distracting—he realized he didn’t feel that way this time.
He wanted to know everything about Isabella. Everything, from her favorite books to her favorite foods. What she’d been like as a little girl, although he knew she had to have been bright and sweet and adorable. How she’d come to love working with her hands in the soil.
Most of all, he wondered why sex was so new to her.
Male chauvinist bastard that he was, he loved sensing that he was the first man to make her cry out when he brought her to the brink of orgasm and held her there, suspended, until neither she nor he could wait another heartbeat for the incredible pleasure of release.
They’d come close to not even making it out of the bedroom a little while ago.
Each time she’d tried to get dressed, he’d grabbed the top or bottom of the sweat suit and demanded ransom in the form of a kiss. He’d finally relented, or so he’d allowed her to think, letting her put on the bottoms before he danced away with the top.
Isabella had narrowed her eyes and slapped her hands on her hips. It had made for a delectable sight, the pants riding low, her lovely breasts naked, the pink nipples delicately peaked.
“I cannot get dressed if you keep undressing me,” she’d said with an indignation that didn’t match the laughter in her eyes. “And you did say you wanted an early start to take me to this secret place you absolutely refuse to talk about!”
He’d grabbed her, bent her back over his arm for a dramatic kiss, told her fine, she could banish him now.
“But just think of what you’ll be missing,” he’d said, curving his hand around one sweet breast and putting his mouth to the tip.
She’d moaned—Dio, he loved that moan of hers—but then she’d turned the table on him, putting her lips to his ear and whispering, “You think of what you’ll be missing, too,” and the sexy taunt had made him so hard he’d kissed her mouth—and gotten the hell out of there before he tumbled her back on the bed again.
He damned well wanted to. But there wasn’t time.
Isabella didn’t know it yet, but they had several hours of flying time ahead of them.
So he’d gone downstairs, into the freshness of the morning where he’d listened to the heartbeat of the ocean while he breathed deep and got his hormones under control.
Then he’d phoned the Plaza and left a message for a visiting Greek ship owner, canceling an appointment for drinks that evening. He gave it a couple of minutes and then he made another call, this time to his office where he left voice mail for his PA to pick up on Monday.
“I won’t be in today, Jeanne. Reschedule my appointments for the middle of the week.”
Jeanne would be shocked.
Well, so was he.
He never canceled appointments, much less cleared his entire calendar, but then, he’d never been—he’d never been eager to spend time alone with a woman before.
If things went as he intended, he and Isabella would still be in Mustique come Monday and Tuesday and, for all he knew, Wednesday.
Mustique.
A beautiful little island in the Caribbean. That was his surprise; that was where he was taking her. It was a long flight but worth it.
He was certain she would love the villa he owned there.
Rio sat back in his chair, feet crossed at the ankles, arms folded, watching Isabella bustle around the kitchen in his sweat suit.
She looked spectacular in it but he suspected he’d have to do a lot of fast-talking to convince her to go on wearing it while he flew them to the island.
There wasn’t much choice.
It was early. Just after 6:00 a.m. The village boutiques wouldn’t be open yet. They would open, he was certain, for Rio D’Aquila, but that wasn’t who he was.
He was Matteo Rossi.
And until the moment was right, that’s who he would remain.
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br /> As for the villa—he’d bought it with part of his first big chunk of money. Five million dollars, more money than he’d imagined existed in the entire world.
His lawyer had invited him to celebrate by flying down to what he’d called his hideaway in the Caribbean for the weekend. That “hideaway” had turned out to be Mustique.
Gentle green hills. A pure blue sea. White sand beaches. And best of all, the attorney said, privacy.
Mustique, privately owned, was a getaway destination for lots of rich, famous people. There was no guarantee a reporter or photographer wouldn’t leap out of a shrub, but if you were careful, the odds were good no one would point a finger and say, “Ohmygod, look who that is!”
Rio, who hadn’t been famous back then, couldn’t imagine needing a place like that but the beauty, the quiet of the island had enthralled him. His lawyer had turned him on to a small villa with a private stretch of beach that was going at a bargain price, thanks to some unfortunate soul’s bankruptcy. Rio had taken a deep breath and bought it.
A couple of years later, he’d legally changed his name from Matteo Rossi to Rio D’Aquila. Everything he now owned—his Manhattan condo, the place in Southampton, his homes abroad, his Brazilian estate—were Rio’s.
For some reason, he’d left the deed to the villa untouched. Matteo Rossi, not Rio D’Aquila, owned it.
One less lie to deal with today, he thought, and despite Isabella’s command that he sit, he rose, went to the stove, put his arms around her, nuzzled aside her dark curls and kissed the nape of her neck.
“Careful or the bacon will burn,” she said, but she turned in his embrace and kissed him.
It was a long, deep kiss. It made him want her. Again. He hardened against her and she gave one of those sexy little moans he’d come to love, but then she put her hands against his chest and said, with a breathless little laugh, that he was better than any of the diets she’d ever tried when it came to keeping down the daily calorie count.
“Why would you need a diet?” he said with absolute truthfulness. One of the things he lov—he liked about her was that she didn’t look like a toothpick.
“Flattery,” she said, “will get you a burned breakfast.”
He laughed. She grinned, her nose doing that cute wrinkly thing, gave him another quick kiss, and he went back to the table, swung a chair around so he could sit on it and watch her some more, his arms folded along the back, his chin propped on his folded arms.
The Real Rio D'Aquila Page 10