by Megan Mulry
My heart goes all fluttery again, and I try to breathe through it. “Yeah. I’ve negotiated with him before. He’s used to getting his own way, so I figure it’s up to me to give him a little what-for.”
He laughs, deep and pleased. “I like the sound of this what-for. I’m sure he’s in for a real treat.”
“I’m not sure he’ll see it that way, but I’ll let him know you said so.”
“So, after you work all day, are you free for supper? You have to eat, yes?”
I exhale through my nose, wondering if I can actually separate the business from the man, or if it’s all too close. Either way, I’m playing with fire. “I don’t know, Rome,” I answer, with genuine concern.
“I just thought I could start showing you I’m not entirely ridiculous,” he says thoughtfully. “Forget I asked.”
I let the silence settle and then whisper, “Yes.”
“Yes?” His voice is so enthusiastic, I want to laugh-cry into the phone.
“Yes. I said yes. Dinner tomorrow night would be . . . nice.”
“Excellent. Okay.” He sounds so much like an eager teenager, I almost weep. “Right. I’ll pick you up at seven. Is that good?”
“Sure. Just casual, okay?”
“Well, no, of course that’s not okay,” he replies with disdain. “What’s the fun in casual?” He says casual as if the word is bitter on his tongue.
“Rome—”
“No.” He’s adorably huffy. “It’s my date and I get to decide what we’re going to do.”
Infant.
“So now it’s a date?” I ask.
“Of course it’s a date. And if you want to ask me out on a date, then you can do that at some other time. And it can be casual. But this is my date,” he adds.
“Fine. I’ll go on your fancy date,” I say, as if I’m going to be dragged through mud.
“Excellent. See you at seven.”
And then the line goes dead. What an ass he is—or, more likely, a wise man, because he knew if I stayed on the line much longer I’d change my mind and back out. I set the phone down on my bedside table and turn out the light. So what if I’m playing with fire? I can handle it.
At least, that’s what I tell myself until he shows up the next night in his obnoxiously expensive convertible. And drives me to his helicopter.
“We’re going to Monaco for dinner on my yacht and then a spot of gambling in the casino,” he informs me when we pull into the boutique hotel with the helipad, where the helicopter is starting its engines across the perfectly manicured lawn.
“Seriously? Don’t do this, Rome.” I’m so disappointed. He must know that the last thing I want is some splashy public-relations nightmare.
“Gotcha.” He waves to the pilot, and I watch as a smartly dressed couple comes out of the hotel. They hop into the waiting helicopter, and we stay long enough to watch it lift off and veer to the south.
Rome revs the engine and leans across the armrest to kiss me lightly on the neck. I feel the touch pulse through me like the vibrations of the car. He hums his satisfaction as he inhales the scent of my skin and then pulls back and gives me a wicked grin. “I knew you’d want privacy, chérie, but I couldn’t resist seeing the look of disgust on your face.”
He pulls out of the gravel drive.
“You’re an idiot.” But I’m laughing.
“I got you to smile, didn’t I?”
“I guess.” I settle back into the comfortable leather seat and turn to look at him. “So where are we really going?”
He smiles with that satisfied air of his as he thrusts the car into a lower gear to take a tight turn. “My place.”
I groan and look out my window, suddenly thinking a helicopter ride to Monaco and dinner on his yacht might be the lesser of two evils. Being alone with Rome in his château is going to be tender torture.
“So why did you ask me to get all dressed up, then?” I’m wearing a splendid confection of Lulu’s—long and flowy layers of chiffon, but with a high slit that shows lots of leg, and a plunging halter neckline. Margot tsk-tsked the whole time she helped me get ready, but I can tell she’s totally not sticking to her Rome-the-very-bad-man guns, even if she’s still telling me all the time to be careful.
I spent the day convincing myself I can have this grown-up, fling-like relationship, or be friends, or friend-like, or something . . . manageable. I don’t have to become my mother, with a string of meaningless bed partners, or my father, with some unrequited torch burning for the rest of my life.
When we get to the château, it’s almost more beautiful than it was over the weekend when it was all decked out for the wedding. It feels incredibly serene: the wind swishes lightly through the trees, and the fountain in the center of the inner courtyard burbles gently.
“It’s really wonderful here,” I say.
“I love it, too.” He takes my hand in his, as if that’s totally natural. “Everywhere else feels like a stopping-off place,” he confides. “This feels like home.”
We go into the kitchen, and someone has set out a beautiful array of food and a couple of bottles of wine.
“Do you have a cook?” I ask.
“Yes, there’s a couple who lives in one of the cottages. She takes care of all the housework, and he manages the grounds. But I made dinner.”
I look down at the platters of grilled aubergine and courgettes, the slices of seared beef, and a selection of cheese and fruit. “Really?”
He nods.
“A playboy of many talents?”
He narrows his eyes as he uncorks the first bottle of wine. “I’m never going to escape the playboy thing with you, am I?”
I shrug and start to walk around the kitchen, looking at different things—antique kitchen tools and wooden pitchforks and pieces of old wine cases with the name of the vineyard branded into the wood—that have been put on the wall as decoration. I come to a small black-and-white photograph in a rough wood frame, of a boy standing between two men in a vineyard. “Is this you?”
He comes up behind me, and I manage not to shiver when he hands me a glass of wine.
“Yes, with my uncle—my mother’s brother—and my grandfather.”
“In Bordeaux?”
“Yes. My parents shunted me off every summer. I’m not complaining; it was bliss. Would you like to go sometime?”
I turn to face him, and he’s damnably close. “Rome. Nothing has changed. Let’s not talk about some imaginary future where we’re spending weekends with your grandfather, okay?”
He takes a thoughtful sip of the red wine, ignoring my words, and I can feel the heat of his body a few inches from mine. “Hmm. It’s not the ’82, but it’s quite good.” He looks at the wine and swirls it around, then focuses back on me.
I take a sip and watch him while I do. “It’s delicious,” I say once I’ve swallowed. “But I hate to say, it’s wasted on me. I can’t really tell the difference between a forty-dollar bottle and a four-hundred-dollar bottle.”
“The ’82 was more like a four-thousand-dollar bottle,” he says in that offhand way.
I choke on the wine in my mouth. “You’re joking, right?” Between the six of us, we drank three bottles on Sunday.
He shrugs. “I mean, of course I got it for free back in ’82. My grandfather always sets aside a few cases for me each year, since the year I was born. Luckily, I was born before 1982.” He winks.
“I can’t believe it. I was just slurping it down. It was good, but, man, is anything really that good? It’s all the same, really, don’t you think?”
He shakes his head slowly. “You mean to tell me—honestly—you think this is the same as what we drank on Sunday?”
“No,” I concede. “But they’re both just wine, you know?”
“Yes, but the one on Sunday was unique. Un rêve.” A
dream. “Everything about that year was perfect. The sun, the earth, the grapes, the wind. Too many pieces of the puzzle to even imagine. All in perfect harmony. Even if you forget about the vintage or the cost or any of that, you can tell when something is special, yes?”
“Yes,” I whisper. I know what he’s doing, of course I do, but I’m sick of trying to stop him. I can have all the regrets I want tomorrow—or for the rest of my life if I want—but right now I just want to forget about REITs and $4,000 bottles of wine and playboys and billionaires and make love to this man. Because at this moment, he is just a man. Even though all the trappings of his wealth surround him, the tenderness of his words makes him both raw and noble, somehow.
I lean forward a few inches so our hips are touching, and my body is instantly hot-wired. He takes the wine out of my hand and sets both glasses gently on the worn marble counter. Then he leans in and cradles my head in his hands and kisses me, his fingers tightening slightly in my hair as his tongue and lips search mine. He groans and leans into me—his chest pressed against mine, the wall at my back—and my mind tries to keep up as flashes of Excel spreadsheets and profit-and-loss reports flicker in a mixed-up montage of bright colors and Picasso’s Rêve painting and the pure sensation of how his hot skin feels under my searching hands.
I’ve tugged his shirt from the waistband of his pants, and I’m gripping the muscled skin of his stomach and chest, clinging one second and roaming the next with light, tingling fingers across his abdomen.
“Please, Miki. Please . . .” He sounds so honest, so . . . real. All of my worries fly out the window, and I just want to give him that tenderness and warmth he so desperately needs—that we both need.
“Yes,” I whisper as I begin to unbutton his shirt. “God, yes.”
His hands reach around to the back of the gown, and his fingers trail up and down my bare spine. I lean my head forward against his shoulder and whimper when he unties the knot at the base of my neck that holds the halter portion in place.
When he begins kissing along my neck and shoulder, my whole body starts to quiver in anticipation.
“Miki, are you okay?” he whispers between kisses. “What do you need?”
“You know what I need, Rome. I hate how much I need it.”
He keeps kissing me, and his hands begin stroking across my bare breasts—which are now blatantly exposed, the dress hanging half off me at my hips—and I feel like I’m going to explode just from those tender passes.
“I love how much you need it.” He leans down and begins to kiss my sensitive breasts, and my hands are gripping his shirt around his biceps, with all my strength, my nails digging through the fabric into his skin.
“Rome . . .” I can’t think of anything but his name, over and over, and how he’s going to finally satisfy me—satisfy my body, I try to tell myself—but it feels so much deeper than that. I force myself to shove aside those thoughts of deeper and pretty much attack him, nipping at his neck and grabbing his thick hair in my fingers. He growls and lifts me up in his arms, and we end up in the study where we argued during the wedding, when Aziza interrupted us.
I shove those thoughts away, too, and literally pant as I pull at his belt while he’s getting my dress the rest of the way off, and then we’re both naked on the couch and he’s reaching for a condom in one of the side tables—because obviously libertines have condoms in every drawer in a house—and then we are finally together again and it’s as if the past two months never happened and we are still in Saint Petersburg and together.
“Miki . . .” He’s whispering my name and looking at me with so much intensity that I have to look away or I’ll start crying. When my gaze leaves his, I look over the couch and see his Matisse, Interior at Collioure. I might cry anyway, whether I’m looking at him or not. The woman in the painting is napping on a single bed and a red figure stands out on the balcony and it’s so beautiful and what he’s doing to my body is so beautiful and I shut my eyes so I can feel it all.
“Please look at me, Mikhaila,” he says in throaty French. I open my eyes slowly, and he gazes at me with those turquoise eyes burning into me while his body works into mine with that incredible combination of power and sensitivity, and I can’t help it—I reach for his face and touch his cheek, and he kisses me so sweetly that I cry out into his kiss and give myself over to the crushing waves of sensation. Every cell of my climaxing body wants to tell him how much I love him, how much I love this moment, but I kiss him instead, almost angrily, to prevent myself from speaking. And then he is following me over the edge, into oblivion.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It’s just sex, Miki. It’s just sex, Miki.
If I keep telling myself that over and over, I hope it will be true, as his body settles in behind mine on the couch and his big arm pulls me close against the length of his body. It’s not even bed sex. It’s just couch sex, Miki.
Within seconds, I feel like a trapped animal. Trapped is right, because I walked right into this like some stupid twitchy-nosed rabbit that bounces right into a snare in the forest.
Rome is nuzzling my neck, and I’m trying not to pitch myself off the sofa and call a cab. Are there even cabs this far out in the country? What the hell was I thinking?
I could call Margot or Lulu. Oh, god.
I take a deep breath and force myself to calm down. What am I so worried about? It’s just Rome. I’m just having dinner.
And screwing the engaged billionaire who’s taking over my company.
“You’re freaking out, right?” he says easily, his fingers trailing lazily across the rise of my hip, to my waist, and back again. My back is cradled against his front, so at least I don’t have to look at him.
“Completely.”
He laughs, and his hot breath skates across the back of my neck. “You want me to take you home?”
Hell. Do I? I don’t even know. Seems a bit stupid to do the deed and then run scared, but I’m just not adept at the whole let’s-screw-and-then-hang-out thing.
“No. I think I can handle dinner.”
“Good.” He kisses my shoulder, and then he springs up from the couch behind me as if he’s got all the energy in the world. He pulls on his linen trousers without any underwear and proceeds to just stand there with his hands on his hips. He’s shaking his head and looking over every inch of me, and damn if I don’t want to stretch and preen like a harem girl.
“Stop that,” I whisper, but he can tell I’m more than halfway loving his eyes on me. He scratches his stomach lazily while he stares at my chest and then lower. I reach to partially cover myself with my inadequate hands.
He smiles wickedly. “That’s even more provocative, my sweet odalisque.” Bending down, he grabs his shirt. “Here—if you’re feeling modest.” He tosses it to me, and I grab it and slip my hands through the sleeves and try not to be too obvious about inhaling the scent of him that lingers in the fabric. Once I’ve got it partially on, I sit up and button it.
“Hungry?” he asks. The devil.
“Yes,” I answer, not knowing how or what I feel but realizing I’m famished. “I am.” I stand up with conviction; the basic human instinct to eat will have to be enough to guide me for now. I reach down and pull on his boxer briefs, then set Lulu’s gown on the back of one of the armchairs. “I could have worn shorts and a T-shirt, you know.”
“You’re impossible,” he huffs. “I wouldn’t trade that moment of untying it for all the Matisses in the world. Come on.” He reaches out his hand, and I reluctantly put mine in his and walk with him back to the kitchen.
We eat at the counter. He’s an amazing cook (naturally), and I hum my appreciation through many bites, which seems to delight him. We drink more of the perfectly good wine while we talk about mundane things, like the book he’s reading and how he found this place and decided to buy it and fix it up.
The wine is making me m
ellow, so when we move outside after dinner it feels really easy and comfortable to settle in next to him on a double-wide chaise longue by the pool. He grabbed a lightweight cashmere blanket from the back of a sofa as we walked through the house, and now we’re lying underneath it as we stare up at the stars.
Rome touches me in an absentminded way that is almost more intimate than when he’s all intense and staring into my eyes. Like I’m just there and we’re together and of course he’s going to be touching my arm or my neck or that sensitive spot between my fingers that shoots straight to my other sensitive spots.
I turn to face him. “Do you like to swim?”
“I love it. You?”
I smile. “Swimming’s my favorite.”
“Want to swim now?” The way he asks makes it sound like the dirtiest thing ever.
“Sure, I’ll race you.” I toss off the cashmere blanket and strip out of his shirt and boxer briefs.
“You think you can beat me?” He stands up and takes his pants off. “I’m a strong swimmer.”
“Good,” I call over my shoulder, taking a few extra seconds to enjoy the shadows and dips of his naked body beneath the moon, with the pool lights shimmering over his muscles. “You know I love a challenge.” I dive in, and the warm water against my naked, sensitive skin is incredible, sluicing away all my worries and second thoughts, until I’m just this being in the universe and everything is right.
I totally crush him for the first few lengths, but I have to hand it to him for endurance. Rome just never stops. I finally have to pull him down by one ankle to make him give up, and then he dunks me repeatedly until I concede and beg for mercy. He obviously loves the sound of me begging and kisses me with harsh possession, his strong arms wrapped around my waist and his palms pressing into my back to keep me flush up against him as I wriggle and try to get away with the most half-assed effort imaginable. He slows his kisses and I melt into him, the warm water settling around us and making me feel as if we are joined in every way possible.
He carries me out of the water and places me on the chaise, and I’m about to joke that there aren’t any libertine side tables filled with condoms out here by the pool, when he begins kissing his way down the length of my wet, trembling stomach until he’s placing soft kisses between my legs. I think I’m going to die of the combination of how hot his mouth is compared to the cool night air that’s making the rest of my body pebble and shiver.