“What the hell are you doing?”
“Oh, were you worried about me? I thought we agreed this afternoon that you don’t own me?” She spat the words out in disgust.
“You don’t know a thing about this island,” he pointed out, furiously.
“What do you care? What do you care if I should have fallen off the edge of the cliff?”
“Don’t be so melodramatic.”
“How did you find me?” She asked.
“I called security. They were with you.”
She looked around, not seeing anyone. But then, wasn’t that always the way? They were ever-present yet invisible.
“What are you doing down here?” He asked, sitting beside her, his knees pulled up to his chest.
She ran the sand through her hands. “I just wanted to be alone,” she said quietly.
He shook his head. “Damn it. That’s not good enough. It’s a big island. I went to bed and expected to find you curled up asleep. That was over an hour ago.”
“I see. And did it cross your mind that I might have gone to enjoy the attentions of Claus instead?” She asked, having read between the lines.
“So what if it did? After what you said, I’d have been a fool not to realise how much he’s chasing you,” he snapped.
He ran a hand through his hair, trying to focus his thoughts. He had to conquer the anger to get through to her. “I wasn’t completely honest with you, Missy. I was jealous. The fact you’ve never been with another guy is a powerful aphrodisiac. I hated the idea of him and you.”
She’d never met anyone who could take her from extreme pleasure to extreme pain in a matter of seconds. Missy felt like a commodity suddenly, whose value would plummet were she to be with anyone besides Nate. And that wasn’t right. She loved him, regardless of how many women he’d bedded before her. She did love him, she realised. With all her soul, she had gone and bloody well fallen for him, utterly and completely.
“Let’s go back to the villa.” Her words were wooden, but Nate didn’t care. He just wanted her home and in his bed, where he could make her forget whatever it was that had stirred her up, and dissolve her into a puddle of desire. Hell he couldn’t even wait.
“Let’s not,” he grumbled, and just like that, he was on top of her, making love to her to the backdrop of crashing waves and star bathed skies.
“Nate, you do own me,” she said quietly, afterwards. He propped up on his elbows, so that he could stare into her eyes.
“What do you mean?” He asked.
She laced her fingers in his. “You’ll always be my first. I’ll never forget this.”
He frowned, not sure why her words, which foretold of a future without him, made him feel unsettled. It felt like a weight on his chest though. “Let’s just enjoy this weekend,” he finally said, standing up and pulling her with him. Missy could do that. She very much wanted to enjoy him while she had him, and sand was running through the hourglass much faster than she liked.
The rest of the architects’ visit passed quickly. Nate was pleased with the proposals but said he intended to contemplate the design before committing. Claus, willingly ignorant of the brooding Nate watching his every move, left his phone number and email address with Missy, and then, for good measure, added a second phone number to the business card which he forced into her hand with a pleading grin.
Missy was touched, and a little embarrassed. She had been more encouraging to him than she should have been, all to make Nate jealous. It wasn’t fair to the guy, but she knew she wouldn’t be contacting him. She had been honest with Nate. He had imprinted on her in such a way as would always leave other men wanting.
They had one extra day up their sleeves, before Nate had to return to London and business commitments. Missy woke up to a gloriously warm morning, despite being early December. The Med just wasn’t like England, she thought with a cat-got-the-cream grin. No, this was heavenly. Sublime. Soul warming. She rolled over in the enormous bed, only to see that Nate was missing. She slipped out from under the covers and wrapped a silky robe around herself.
She found him downstairs, having a bowl of muesli overlooking the ocean. By the look of him, he’d already gone for a jog. He was so virile, so fit, all muscle and lean strength. She gulped and looked beyond him to the ocean.
“Beautiful morning,” she observed mundanely, as if her heart wasn’t about to pop out of her chest and go rabbiting off down the sloping driveway.
He spooned some muesli into his mouth and then set the bowl down. “I thought we’d explore the mainland today, doc.”
Missy’s smile warmed him all the way to the bottom of his toes. She was like a kid in a candy store. At Christmas. “Oooooh, I like that idea very much.”
“I know Rome’s the tourist Mecca, but Venice is beautiful. Would you let me show you around?”
She nodded enthusiastically and had to restrain herself from jumping up and down on the spot.
Of course, once they arrived, she realised the folly of their plan lay in those pesky rocking gondolas. Nate engaged a private operator for the day, and they drifted here and there, taking in the sights, but by lunch time, Missy had turned a delicate shade of pea green.
Nate chuckled as he helped her unsteadily off the tiny water craft. “You’re really not cut out for travel, are you?”
She shook her head gravely. Though she’d not had much opportunity for it, she rather suspected that under different circumstances, she would love to travel. The beautiful scenes they’d witnessed had punctuated even her severe nausea and she longed to return one day, without the constant nausea accompaniment.
“Come this way. I know a great little trattoria over here; their pasta will fix you right up.”
Missy silently doubted that food would cure her, but as they sat down, the smell of garlicky breads assailed her nostrils and she realised with a start that she was hungry. Nate ordered some breads as soon as they were seated and Missy tucked in with a gusto that Nate heartily approved of.
She had selected a simple main course, a potato soup that she hoped would be just carbohydrate rich enough to stall her morning sickness.
She looked up from the soup to find Nate watching her thoughtfully.
“What is it?” She asked self-consciously. “Do I have soup on my nose?” She dashed at her face, but he shook his head, to clear the thoughts that had been running through his mind.
“I was just thinking how much my brother would like you.”
Missy coloured. “You’re not thinking of trying to set me up with your brother are you?”
He balked, visibly surprised. “Hell, no. I just mean that you’re the kind of girl he would think I should settle down with.” He sighed heavily. “My parents too, come to think of it.”
“Do you think you will ever settle down?” She tried to sound nonchalant, but her heart raced as she asked the question. It was straying into a territory they’d never visited before, so rarely did they discuss actual feelings.
“I don’t see any reason to. Perhaps with the exception of children.” He sipped his wine. “I guess if I meet the right person, perhaps.” He left it hanging out there and continued eating his lunch, but Missy felt her appetite diminishing. If. It was only a tiny word, made up of two letters, but it had immediately stalled her. How many different ways could he spell out to her that she wasn’t the mythical ‘right’ person. Regardless of what his brother and parents would supposedly think.
She swallowed some ice cold water down and forced herself to behave normally. “Why do you think your family would vote me in for the job?”
“The job as my wife?” He laughed, his head tipping back in mirth at her choice of words. “It would be a job, Missy. Much like what you’re doing now. I know I’m hard work.” He thought about it for a moment. “You’re smart, beautiful, and you don’t let me get away with anything.”
She grimaced. “You’re not so hard to take.”
“I’m paying you a lot of money to say that,�
�� he observed cynically.
She turned her face sideways, looking out of the window onto the typical Venetian waterway beyond. “That’s not fair. You know money doesn’t really come into our equation.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Doesn’t it?”
She coloured. “Perhaps at first, but not now.” She shook her head resolutely.
“Are you saying you’re with me because you like being with me?”
“Why do you find that so hard to believe? I know you’re used to beating women off with a stick.”
“Not women like you. You’re...” he searched for the right word, “you’re more... substantial.”
She wasn’t one hundred percent on his meaning but the way he said it made her feel a warm glow. Ah, from agony to ecstasy in minutes... “What are your parents like?”
He frowned, trying to find words that could explain his dynamic mother and father. “Dad’s a business man. He was all his life. Mum came from a prominent political family - she was brought up to be a debutante wife - but she was never satisfied just home-making. She opened her own business – a legal recruitment agency – and established herself as one of the leading employment agencies in Nashville.” He spoke with rich, deep pride and Missy envied him.
“It must have been wonderful to grow up with parents like that. What an example they were to you and your brother,” she presumed, a wistful tone suffusing her words.
“They were. They desperately hoped BJ and I would go into other fields. Mum hoped we’d be writers. Musicians. Poets. Actors. Teachers. Builders. Plumbers. Anything that was as far removed from the pressure and ostentation of the business world as possible. Our inheritance was set, she didn’t see a need for us to lose hours and hours of our lives to the demands of the family business, as our father before us had.”
“And yet, you did join the business,” she pointed out, savouring the flavour of a garlicky piece of gnocchi
“Yes. It’s in the blood. Nate and I have always wanted to be in business. Even as school boys, we’d used to set up little shop fronts at the bottom of the driveway, selling water and candies to passersby.”
“I think I read somewhere that you took the family business, formidable but by no means world-leading, and turned it into one of the largest empires on the planet. Was that journalist hyperbole, or true?” She tried to sound scatty about it, like she hadn’t memorised the article by heart.
He held his hands up. “Guilty as charged. But it sounds grander than it was. The market was good, and I was able to capitalise on some gapingly obvious opportunities.”
“Modesty does not suit you, Nate,” Missy said seriously.
He shook his head and changed the subject. “What were your parents like, doc?”
She froze, and he noticed the sudden difference in her demeanour. He reached across and took her hand. “I want to know.” He hated himself for it, but he knew that what she didn’t tell him, he would ask his PI to find out as his next commission. He didn’t blame himself for it, though. He wanted to know everything about her. Finding out as he had that she was a doctor had knocked the wind out of his sails. That she could keep something so vital a secret left him wondering what else was going on in her life. Besides, he didn’t like the way she had come to dominate his every thought and dream. Hopefully, with over-exposure and complete knowledge, his fascination would begin to dissipate.
She looked into his face, and wanted so badly to tell him. To trust someone. It wouldn’t change how he felt about her, would it? She sighed nervously. Took another sip of water. “My parents were young when they had us, and ill-prepared for life with children. That sounds like excuses, but it isn’t, it’s just background information for your benefit, because there is no excuse for how terribly they acted.” She took in a deep, shaky breath, and Nate stayed perfectly still, worried he might break this mood of soul-baring. “They both drank. I don’t mean like a few wines with dinner.” She laughed hoarsely, then shook her head, sadly. “They were raging alcoholics, from dusk until dawn. Dad was abusive, and mum used to sleep around. More often than not, I’d come home from school to find mum making out with some guy on the sofa. She’d be out of it, dad would be passed out in the armchair just beyond. It was a pretty tense way to grow up.” She admitted quietly.
Beneath the table, Nate’s fist pumped with a desire to bash these two low-lifes out of their minds. He knew they were dead, but his rage had no bounds. Missy deserved so much better than that. He cleared his throat. “When you say abusive, you mean...”
“Never to me, really, strangely enough. The most I got was if Dad ever saw me talking to a boy, he would throw things at me and tell me I’d turn out to be a slut like mum...” she coloured at the memory, ridiculous as it was to be embarrassed by it now. “No, it was mum and Robbie that copped it. Dad could be a beast to them.”
“It must have been hard for you to see your brother get hit, but not you.” He said, and she actually smiled, because it was such a relief to have someone who just understood what her life had been like.
“Yes,” she exclaimed, “I have a close girlfriend that I roomed with at college. She majored in psych, and she used to call it survivor guilt. I thought that was odd, as my brother is alive, but apparently that’s irrelevant. I carry this burden of guilt, she says, because he had it so much worse than I did.”
“It sounds to me like you both had it pretty bad.”
Her enormous green eyes stared at him earnestly. “You must think I’m a terrible person, to speak so badly of my family. Especially as my parents are long gone, and not able to defend themselves.”
“You could not be more wrong. You are the last person I’d assign blame to in the scenario.”
They finished the meal on a lighter note, but Nate’s mind kept going over and over her revelations, peeling each one like an onion. Most glaringly obvious to him was the confession that her father used to keep her away from boys, threatening that she would turn into a slut like her mother. Was it any wonder Missy had grown up shying away from sexual contact?
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, hating that he might have taken advantage of her in an emotional state. Their attraction was perfectly normal, and there was nothing to be ashamed of when two consenting adults enjoyed one another’s bodies. But there was such a tender vulnerability to Missy and for the first time in his life, Nate was assailed by a confusing emotion – concern. A surge of protective instincts rose to the fore, and he didn’t quite know what to make of it.
They finished their short tour of Venice and, as the sun began its golden descent over the myriad canals, Nate knew they should return to the airport. They were sitting on the steps of St Marks, sharing a Hazelnut gelato. The late afternoon sun was covering Missy’s face in a radiant glow, and happiness beamed from her. He realised that he didn’t want to return to England just yet; didn’t want this special time to end.
It was rare for him to feel like this. In fact, he realised with shock, he’d never experienced it before. Usually, he was the one watching the clock, waiting to leave after being with a woman, waiting for a date to end, or a lunch to conclude. He had always tired of women quickly. But with Missy, he felt like the more he knew, the more he needed.
He turned to face her, saw a tiny drop of ice cream escape from the corner of her mouth. Spontaneously, he pulled her towards him, and when she was so close he could kiss her, he dipped his tongue out and caught the ice cream, chased it back up to her lips and poked it in.
She stared at him wide eyed. He could feel her heart racing in her chest, like a little bird trapped in a glass box.
“Will you stay another night, Missy?”
She furrowed her brow. “You mean in Italy?”
He laughed, “Yes, in Venice. I’m not ready to leave yet.”
She shook her head. “Nor am I.” She paused. “One condition.”
“Name it.”
“No more boats.”
His smile was radiantly sexy.
The
y were so close, and he was suddenly so pleased, he leant her back on the steps and kissed her passionately, not caring who the heck saw them. They were in Italy, love affairs were lived out publicly and passionately. They fit right in.
A sign of how used to his lifestyle she was becoming, Missy wasn’t even surprised to discover that Nate owned an apartment in the city. It was nearby, and within a few minutes’ walk, they were riding an elevator to another very beautiful living space.
“Do you just have homes peppered around the world?” Missy asked teasingly, easing herself into one of the ornate navy blue and gold arm chairs.
“Not exactly,” he said looking around the apartment, not at all embarrassed by its opulence. “They’re not all mine, personally. I mean, this one is owned by the company and there’s perhaps ten executives who have it at their disposal year round.”
She rolled her eyes and he raised his shoulders in a shrug. “Hey, it’s cheaper than staying in hotels.” He came to stand right in front of her chair, knelt before her, and took her two hands in his. He kissed the inside of her wrists, then brought one to his mouth and sucked on the delicate skin at her pulse point.
Missy squeezed her eyes shut and breathed deeply, savouring the feeling of tiny little butterflies raging underneath her skin.
“And look how convenient it is for us,” he murmured, taking her thumb into his mouth and nipping it playfully between his teeth.
Her eyes sprung open. “I can’t argue with that logic.” Her voice sounded breathy, infused with sensual urgency.
He released her hand and grabbed her thighs and pulled her quickly, so that she startled and slid forward in the armchair. He was kneeling between her legs, his chest pressed against her breast. He kissed her neck like a man possessed, tasting every exposed inch of her, flicking her skin with his tongue. His fingers grabbed at her shirt, pulling, lifting, trying to find skin beneath.
She writhed urgently in the seat, longing to be closer to him.
Missy would have never guessed it could be like this. No matter how often they were together, she wanted more of him. When they weren’t together, she fantasised about him. She needed him. She pushed him gently with her hands, so that he lay flat on the ground at her feet. She slid off the chair and straddled him, as always, revelling in the feeling of his iron strong erection.
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